Deepening Cognizance of Student Needs and Engagement with the Learning Process in the Arts: A Faculty-wide Enquiry

Principal Investigator

Ian MORLEY

Funding Source

Teaching Development and Language Enhancement Grant
(2020-2021)

Abstract of Project

This project seeks to determine how student engagement and learning needs can be enriched within CUHK’s Arts Faculty’s departments. Taking forward well-known principles for augmenting pedagogy the generic goals of the project are to, first, more robustly comprehend the processes that bestow academic success for learners and, second, aid the design of teaching strategies so that, subsequently, guided knowledge growth and learning motivation can be heightened plus new, positive learning experiences and outcomes brought about.

To accomplish these objectives, and so bolster student commitment to their education, basic questions must be asked/answered, e.g. by means of questionnaires and interviews: “How do Arts students learn best?”; “What needs to be done to enrich their learning environment?”; “How can educational enjoyment be boosted?”, and, “In the students’ view, what attitudes, behaviours, and skills best foster the acquisition of knowledge development?” Accordingly, the project will define, from the standpoint of Arts students, “What is ‘good, engaging education’?” By discovering this information potential will be unlocked for revising, on one hand, future classroom and online-centred activities and assessments – learning is arguably best facilitated when it is ends directed – and, on the other hand, future departmental-level curriculum design.