News & Events

Using iClass to collect ideas from class

What is the inspiration for your pursuit of excellence in teaching?

I earned my first degree from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I was taught and inspired by many good EEE teachers. They helped not only to acquire technical knowledge but also contributed to my whole person development. Therefore, I would like to serve my alma mater and follow their footsteps and be a good teacher so that I can carry on their torch and help more students to develop and success. The impact of a great teacher is deep and board. We can influence more people and multiply our impacts to the society. Therefore I always try my best to pursuit excellence in my teaching.

What are the key aspects of your teaching that resulted in this award?

I was an early adopter of e-learning. When I noticed that nowadays many students can search knowledge with their smartphone and the often use of smartphone in classes, I came up with an idea to use this gadget as a tool for me to interact with students. I led a team of students to apply their IT knowledge and developed iClass so that students can answer my questions, draw their ideas and give real-time feedback using their mobile devices. It turned out that many students like this innovative pedagogy and I am very glad that my student evaluation had increased quite a lot since iClass was used. Students also feedback that they are motivated to learn and participate in my class. Under the era of information explosion, helping our students to equip with a skill to learning and explore knowledge by themselves is very important.

Do you reach out students and go extra mile to help students outside classrooms, and how?

Good teaching inside lecture room is necessary but not sufficient. I also extended my teaching to outside classroom so as to enrich my students’ learning experience. I have started developing experiential learning for our students since 2009 after the Sichuan earthquake. I brought students to Sichuan for them to contribute their engineering knowledge to help reconstructed schools to build e-learning lab, multimedia classroom and solar power system. I also invited students from other faculties to join the programs so that our students can learn and develop interdisciplinary through skills through experiential learning.

What are the tips you would like to share with fellow teachers in terms of teaching?

As nowadays knowledge can be easily learned from the Internet, the role of a teacher has to be changed. A teacher should no longer be the one-way source of knowledge. We should play a role as a facilitator and lead students to discover knowledge and acquire more self-learning and generic skills. It is not difficult to teach students to do things right. However more importantly, we should teach our students to do the right things. It’s my belief that the success of our students is the success of the teachers. I am always encouraged by my students when they share their success with me. It’s my great honour to be a teacher in my Alma Mater.

Dr. Fok teaching with iClass using iPads