Fostering the Professional Development of Secondary Educators

Teachers teach, but they must also learn continuously. Not only can they keep abreast of the rapidly-changing world and develop their professional competencies through lifelong learning, but they also serve as a role model for their students and encourage their enthusiasm for pursuing knowledge.

Programmes Catering to Teachers’ Development Needs
CityU is committed to serving the community and education sectors of Hong Kong. One of its initiatives is the Teachers’ Development Day@CityU programme for secondary schools, which gives teachers up-to-date academic knowledge and shares the latest development of the University. It can help them nurture talented students and better prepare their students for future studies and careers. This year, CLASS supported the University by offering insightful sharing sessions designed for six local secondary schools via three virtual development events held in March and May 2021.

The two sessions in March focused on social sciences while the one in May featured the humanities field. Dean of CLASS Professor Richard M WALKER said in his opening remarks that though these two broader areas of study approach problems differently, the faculty members at the College share similarities. In research studies, they are well-versed in traditional research methods but also embrace new technologies in their scholarly works with an open attitude. They are eager to work with experts in business, law, data science and other subjects, as well as with the community, for knowledge creation and transfer. In teaching, they are passionate about cultivating critical thinking, analytical skills and interdisciplinary perspectives in students.

The speakers, Dr Dannii YEUNG of the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences and Dr TSUI Lik-hang of the Department of Chinese and History, perfectly demonstrated the research and teaching excellence of CLASS.

Introducing Technology-based Research Tools
Psychology expert Dr Yeung explained to the teachers the concept of visual attention and how social scientists use eye-tracker to understand human behaviours. She detailed the backgrounds, methodologies and findings of some of her research studies. One of her studies revealed the effectiveness of various components of information posters in changing audiences’ behaviours by conducting the eye-tracker experiment and pre-/post-experiment survey. It provided policymakers with actionable insight on specific features to be included during the information poster development process. The teachers found this interesting and raised questions about the possible applications of the eye-tracker in classroom settings.

Dr Tsui’s presentation was equally well received. Being an expert on digital humanities, he emphasised the importance of arts education for society but believes delving into weighty archives is not the only way of learning about the past. He guided the teachers through a historical journey of digital humanities and gave a glimpse of how historians use information technology to expand the scope of investigations, redefine previous conceptions and generate new ideas. For example, apart from the bibliographies of individuals in Chinese history, historians can also retrieve information about the social networks between groups of people and the social structure in a particular time or place using a digital database. He also suggested several websites with a wealth of information on this emerging field for the teachers to explore further.

Preparing Teachers to Unleash Students’ Potential
The sessions offered a fresh perspective to the teachers in both social sciences and humanities. The teachers learnt that social scientists and humanities experts, contrary to usual perception, also use precision instruments and computational methodologies to analyse a vast breadth of social phenomena and have made remarkable achievements. The professional development sessions were found to be inspiring and eye-opening and elicited a lot of positive feedback in the post-event survey.

It is hoped that the teachers would bring home new knowledge, perspectives, and insights to share with their students after having intellectual exchanges with different subject experts during the events.