<B><I>This seminar is co-organised by the Centre for Information Technology in Education (CITE) and Faculty of Education, HKU</B></I>
The starting point for this seminar will be that evaluation needs to move beyond isolated course evaluations, or evaluations of small components of courses. We need to understand students' 'whole' experience of the curriculum - on- and off-line, and across all courses of their programmes. At The Chinese University of Hong Kong, students in each undergraduate programme are surveyed on their perceptions of: a) how well their programme supports the development of important graduate capabilities, and b) aspects of the teaching and learning environment. This provides valuable input to departmental reflective processes. The survey has now been integrated into the University's quality assurance policy. This presentation argues strongly that quality assurance policies need to: be based on student experience, facilitate changes to teaching and learning which are practical and feed into specific strategies for designing learning environments, and have acceptance within the organization.
Carmel McNaught is Professor of Learning Enhancement in the Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Carmel has had over 30 years experience in teaching and research in higher education, and has had appointments in eight universities in Australasia and southern Africa, working in the discipline areas of chemistry, science education, second language learning, eLearning, and higher education curriculum and policy matters. Current research interests include evaluation of innovation in higher education, strategies for embedding learning support into the curriculum, and understanding the broader implementation of the use of technology in higher education. Further details at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clear/staff/staff7.htm