BLENDED LEARNING & MOOCs

Blended Learning (BL) at HKUST is defined as a blend of online and face-to-face teaching aimed at enhancing student learning. Typically, students acquire fundamental, conceptual knowledge online and then apply, analyze, or evaluate this through classroom activities to achieve higher levels of learning outcomes. The online component of a blended course is usually delivered through a Learning Management System, which includes video lectures, online activities, and online assessments. The face-to-face component on campus includes interactive exercises, group tasks, projects, and discussions. We recommend replacing 30-50% of contact hours with the online component for self-study and keeping the remaining 50-70% of contact hours for course instructors’ face-to-face teaching.

A MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)is a self-paced online course that HKUST offers to the public in strategic partnership with MOOC platforms, such as Coursera and edX. The online courses are open to global learners from various academic backgrounds, cultures, languages, and age groups. All course activities, including lectures, practice sessions, discussions, projects, and assessments are primarily conducted online.

Up to HK$300,000. Clear justifications must be provided for the amount requested. If funding is intended to support teaching relief, a strong and convincing justification is necessary for it to be considered.

Up to HK$300,000 with 50% matching from School. Clear justifications must be provided for the amount requested. If funding is intended to support teaching relief, a strong and convincing justification is necessary for it to be considered.

• Outcome-based: The proposal should demonstrate strong alignment among the course’s intended learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities.
• Effective Use of Online Learning: The proposal should scaffold learners with fundamental and conceptual knowledge through guided learning sequences. Online activities should prepare students well for face-to-face activities.
• Effective Use of Face-to-Face Learning: The proposal should develop learners’ higher-order thinking skills through a series of collaborative activities that focus on knowledge application, analysis, or evaluation. The face-to-face activities should prepare learners well for the assessments.
• Learner Readiness: The proposal should articulate a clear mechanism to provide feedback to learners on their self-study and ensure that learners are prepared for the development of higher-order thinking skills in class.
• Criterion Referencing: The proposal should demonstrate that assessments are designed to evaluate learners’ performance based on their attainment of the course's intended learning outcomes.
• Project Management: The proposal should provide a clear and systematic design, development, and implementation plan that demonstrates how each milestone can be achieved and the final target can be met.
• Funding contribution from Department: Departments are encouraged to contribute 20% of the total funding requested for the project. The expression of this contribution will carry weight during the project vetting process.

• Content in high demand: According to our MOOC partners, there is a high demand among global learners for content areas such as AI Literacy and Data Analytics.
  Click to see other in-demand topics
• Outcome-based: The proposal should demonstrate strong alignment among the course’s intended learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities.
• Learning Effectiveness: The proposal should scaffold learners with fundamental and conceptual knowledge and develop their higher-order thinking skills through guided sequences of learning activities to achieve the course’s intended learning outcomes.
• Learner Readiness: The proposal should articulate a clear mechanism to provide feedback to learners on their self-study and ensure that learners are prepared to progress to the next stage of learning.
• Reusable for Campus courses: The proposal should ensure that all developed materials will be used for campus courses through Blended Learning or Online Self-paced formats.
• Project Management: The proposal should provide a clear and systematic design, development, and implementation plan that demonstrates how each milestone can be achieved and the final target can be met.

• Significance of pedagogical implications for adopting BL in your course design
• Problems or opportunities to be addressed
• Target audience and number of beneficiaries
• Feasibility of the project timeline
• Plans for maintaining and sustaining the developed course(s)
• Knowledge transfer of lessons learned within/across departments

• Content in demand by global learners
• Problems or opportunities to be addressed
• Target audience
• Feasibility of the project timeline
• Plans for maintaining and sustaining the developed course(s)
• Knowledge transfer of lessons learned within/across departments