School News

Delivering quality education to nurture future leaders is an integral part of the Faculty’s mission.  Every year, the Faculty recognises teachers with outstanding achievements and significant contributions in teaching and student learning through the Faculty Teaching Award Scheme.  The award-winners for the academic year 2021-22 are:

Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Undergraduate Teaching)

Dr. Chao DING
Principal Lecturer

“Online teaching and learning do not have to be ineffective and just one-way communication. With the assistance of a variety of online collaborating tools, the traditional in-class engagement can be transformed to a suite of digital experiences such as drawing, discussion board, brainstorming, survey, games, and group discussion. These tools can transcend conventional communication barriers, augment online and offline interactions, enrich learning environment, and provide instructors a great opportunity to give immediate feedback to students. Let us embrace digital transformation in the classroom.”

Dr. Jing LI
Lecturer

“Teaching is fun but also challenging with modern IT technology, because the world is changing so fast and students tend to explore it through many sources of information. I always treat teaching as another way of learning and I feel so enjoyable to learn together with my students. Through the interactions with them, I am impressed by their creative and insightful thoughts. Their desire for knowledge and enthusiasm for learning always encourage me to keep exploring more dynamic ways of teaching. Experiencing fast technological transformation, I conduct my teaching and learning through more diversified integration of theory, practice, experiencing, and discussion. I also emphasize reasoning besides knowledge and give students the opportunity to agree or disagree. This change also leads to a significant increase in teaching efficiency and learning achievements.

Teaching allows me the opportunity to reshape other people’s thoughts and to make a difference in their lives. I appreciate the privilege as a teacher to help more students become the best person in their life. I also want to extend my thanks to all my students and colleagues who always give me full support that makes my teaching easier and more enjoyable. This award is not just for me – it is for my students and colleagues too.”

Dr. Andrew SINCLAIR
Assistant Professor

“I am very honored to receive the Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Undergraduate Teaching). I have learned a tremendous amount from the many stellar and passionate educators here at HKUBS, and this award is a reflection of their thoughtful guidance, advice, and encouragement. I would also like to thank my wonderful students. We are fortunate to have some of the brightest young minds in the world here at HKU and I have greatly treasured our engaging discussions. I often tell people that I have learned as much from my students as they have from me. I hope that I can do my part to inspire my students and empower them to become the future leaders of Hong Kong, China, and the world.”

Dr. Helen ZHAO
Associate Professor

“It is a great honor to be nominated by my students for the Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award this year. It can be challenging to create a motivating learning environment in the online/hybrid delivery mode, but I have been fortunate to have a group of amazing students who have been very supportive of my teaching. It was a fun experience, even though most of us didn’t get to meet in person. I’m also thankful for the support from the community at HKU Business School, which has helped me to learn and grow as a teacher over the years. I hope to continue providing my students with engaging learning experiences while also giving back to the teaching and learning community at HKU Business School.”

Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Postgraduate Teaching)

Dr. Matthias BUEHLMAIER
Principal Lecturer

“I am immensely grateful for the support and mentorship I have received throughout the years from colleagues at HKUBS and HKU. While we as teachers strive to continuously develop and improve, it is only possible to do so consistently with a strong network of like-minded individuals such as can be found at HKUBS and HKU. Without the feedback and guidance received in the past, it would have been impossible to achieve the Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Postgraduate Teaching) 2021-22. I am deeply thankful for that, and I look forward to keep advancing the teaching and learning at HKUBS in the future.”

Dr. Derek CHAN
Associate Professor

“It is a great honor for me to receive the Faculty Outstanding Teacher Award (Postgraduate Teaching) 2021-22. I regard teaching as one of my central responsibilities and I have always enjoyed teaching, especially the process of communicating my ideas to my students and challenging them to think more deeply about business problems and accounting issues. I also have strong commitment to providing the most up-to-date teaching and subject-relevant materials and learning environment by integrating academic principles with practical applications. I teach with tremendous passion, curiosity, innovation, and personal inspiration to foster active learning atmosphere and closer connection with students, as I strongly believe that learning will take place only when students are engaged in class.”

Professor Simon LAM

“I believe education is a transformational process. When I teach, I am interested in transforming the way students learn and think. I would like not only to provide them with basic course information but also engage them in thinking and discussion that moves them to a higher level of understanding. I often tell my students that they must take a more critical approach to the analysis of a business case or a company. Business education is also not a spectator sport. Students cannot simply fold their hands and sit back. Intense discussion leads to transformation in thought.”

Dr. Winnie LEUNG
Principal Lecturer

“I believe timely and constructive feedback is a significant contributor to students’ success in formal education. While summative feedback is useful in benchmarking students and ultimately assessing their final grade in the class, it is formative feedback that plays a more important role in students’ learning and development.

In a group project setting, I require students to discuss with me on their project proposals. This allows me to recognize what students are struggling so that I can address their problems at an earlier stage. During the discussion, I will also emphasize my expectations on their deliverables (e.g. demonstration of critical thinking) and help them identify potential challenges for their better project management. The interactive and constructive discussions have motivated students to unleash their potential for a higher quality product.”

Faculty Teaching Innovation Award – Team

Mr David LEE (Team Leader)       Mr David BISHOP
Principal Lecturer                                  Associate Professor of Teaching

Message from Team Leader:
“Changes to the traditional, in-class teaching environment over the last few years has increased the importance of teaching innovation. Of course, a key part of this process is enhancing student learning through the effective use of technology. Meaningful teaching innovation, however, is more than just technology. Besides selecting and implementing relevant technological tools, teaching innovation also demands a commitment to reconsidering and exploring both teaching philosophy and pedagogy. Fortunately, both the University and Faculty offer tremendous support for such holistic teaching innovation, which ultimately leads to improved student learning. We are grateful for such institutional support of teaching innovation, and more importantly, for our resilient students that continue striving to learn despite classroom disruptions.”

Faculty Teaching Innovation Award – Individual

Dr. Ka-fu WONG
Principal Lecturer

“My two recent teaching innovations are my replies to challenges on teaching.  The personalized exam papers (1000 versions of exam papers for 1000 students) was developed to address the cheating problem during online exam from 2019 to 2022.  Subsequently, this innovation helps transform the usual paper-and-pen exams to exams that allow students to use computers and packages within.  The use of computing packages lowers the barriers of algebraic calculations and thus allows us to test a bigger variety of concepts in a typical two-hour test. The Virtual Research Learning Centre was developed to address the lack of research opportunity for junior year students. The Centre gives students a nudge to read and understand the logical reasoning of newspaper articles written by our colleagues and hence their research. Students are required to produce videos based on the newspaper articles. These videos become additional knowledge exchange from our Faculty to the general public.”

Faculty Special Contribution Teaching Award

Mr David BISHOP
Associate Professor of Teaching

“I am really grateful for this Special Contribution to Teaching Award, and even more so to be part of a Faculty that cares so much about quality teaching and learning. Due to the courses I teach, I have the opportunity to work with students from just about every HKU Faculty, and every FBE program. While working with such a diverse student base, I am consistently reminded at how great our Faculty’s students are, and how good a job our Faculty does at preparing them for life after graduation. I’m thankful for the freedom and trust that the Faculty gives to us to educate in proactive and innovative ways. Together I believe we can continue to lead the region in quality teaching and learning, but more importantly, inspire and help develop the region’s future leaders.”