This paper reports on some research from an ARC funded project conducted by the authors into the ways in which Australian universities establish collaborations with partners in Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea to offer courses in those countries. The research used principally qualitative methods (interviews, observations, document collection and analysis) to develop case-studies of a range of partnerships in Hong Kong. The project commenced in 1999 and is in its final stages. The paper discusses the experiences of staff who developed, administered and taught courses offered in Hong Kong by Australian institutions in partnership with a local provider. It presents and discusses findings on their reasons for working 'off-shore' in Hong Kong, their engagement with local staff and students, and their experience of Hong Kong students' coping with Australian curricula, pedagogies and assessment.
[Copyright of Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) at http://www.aare.edu.au]

There will almost always be a number of students who are reluctant to actively contribute in face-to-face learning situations because they are shy or are culturally concerned about potential loss of face. Audience Response Systems (ARS) are part of a technology that, principally through its feature of anonymity, offers the opportunity for all students to safely contribute in face-to-face learning situations via individual keypads. Greater feedback from a group of learners poses benefits for both learner and teacher. For the teacher it can help identify areas where student understanding may be weak or incorrect and thus allow appropriate feedback to be applied. For the learner it allows them to see how fellow students are coping and to gauge their own relative performance. This paper reports on the use of an ARS with a group of students in Hong Kong studying a second year undergraduate decision support course. The ARS was used to provide process support for a revision session that explored decision support systems (DSS) and decision making and also to gather some details about the students as a population of learners.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]

Graduates need to be able to acquire transferable skills so as to enable them gain employment in the treacherous and unpredictable environment of today's world. As educators in the higher education sector, how are we going to engage all students in the deep learning process so that they could resolve problems themselves? This paper delimits the exploration and evaluation of problem-based learning (PBL) and its effects on student learning. In this study, the original pure PBL model is modified and developed into a form that is suitable to both deep and surface students in a Higher Diploma engineering course of Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Tsing Yi). This PBL model started with a problem at the beginning of the term given to a group of students. Then, a variety of teaching and learning modes which included lectures, tutorials, group discussion, and presentation were used to facilitate students to solve the problem. Promising results gathered from summative test and student interview show that this modified PBL model is suitable to students of both learning approaches. This PBL model is worthwhile for further investigation to improve the quality of student learning and problem solving skill to survive in this fast changing society.
[Copyright of Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite) at http://www.ascilite.org.au]