Outstanding Teaching Award 2022

"It is my dream to nurture students as learners, both in classrooms and the real world. This dream has been maturing since I was recruited as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Science in 2012. The teaching duties that I undertook in this role have helped me recognise the diversity in student backgrounds, which has prompted me to explore student-centric learning. The spectrum of diverse backgrounds that I have encountered has engendered a desire to always look for innovations that make learning more effective, which has helped define me as a teacher. In particular, I have employed a variety of strategies to promote student-centred learning in curriculum development and classroom pedagogies in Science Foundation Courses and Common Core Courses.

 
Addressing diversity in learners’ needs is an important aspect of the learner-centric approach. I deployed multiple pedagogical approaches such as flipping the classroom, online polling, and gamification to enhance students’ learning experiences. Supported by the Teaching Exchange Fellowship Scheme, I collaborated with colleagues at UCLA to develop teaching materials using a technology called Learning Glass, which increases and encourages interaction in the classroom. However, are technology and pedagogy the only answers? What would make teaching and learning more purposeful? Innovation in pedagogy is a necessary push to move learning forward, but communication with the students is more important in enhancing their understanding of the course objectives and approaches. I believe peer learning is beneficial, and high-performing students can serve as role models for their classmates. Therefore, I initiated the Senior Tutor Scheme. Since then, I have recruited active undergraduate students as Senior Tutors. It was a leap for me to add this ‘hightouch’ component to my course.

Teaching and learning is a very dynamic process. I am honoured to make contributions to this front all these years. I look forward to initiating further developments in teaching and learning in the coming years."

 

"Dr Lui designed a myriad of innovative classroom activities and assessment methods that made learning about AI accessible and understandable – even for non-STEM students such as myself. For example, she encouraged us to hone our technical literacy skills and express our creativity through a video project where we had to pitch an AI product, which required us to plan the technical functioning of the product and articulate how it would positively impact the lives of consumers. Crucially, students also fiercely debated the negative impacts of AI (e.g. data harvesting, invasion of privacy) as an assessment component, which stimulated meaningful and critical engagement with the course’s subject matter. 

Personally, I see this as very meaningful because Dr Lui’s pedagogy allows layman students to join the discussion on AI, rather than being deterred due to seeing it as an intimidating or overly-technical topic. Through making discourse about AI more accessible, Dr Lui plays a role in advancing our public understanding of technology – allowing us to make informed choices about our actions and values, which is particularly important in regard to a technology as groundbreaking yet controversial as AI."

 

JUSTINE LEUNG KA PIK
LLB, current student