While most lessons shifted to synchronous online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of asynchronous online learning materials is becoming essential to supplement regular classes. To improve teaching effectiveness through virtual teaching and learning, this study is determined to develop a new set of self-paced online learning materials that focus on developing postgraduate students’ essential generic research skills. It is hoped that the online materials can provide flexibility for research postgraduate students to direct their learning. Guided by situated cognition theory, the virtual materials are designed in a way to immerse learners in eLearning activities with content that mimics real-world situations. Interactive elements in each module, such as open-ended quiz questions, references to other online academic materials, and useful web materials, are integrated into the teaching packages. By clicking the H5P link, students will be diverted to Padlet, where they can start to post or review and respond to what others have posted. Academic staff and postgraduate students conducted pilot tests and provided valuable feedback to further enhance the training materials. The completed online modules have incorporated many interactive elements, including but not limited to videos, multiple-choice questions, audio notes, and audio tracks, which proved that these highly interactive materials stimulated students’ learning motivation. Qualitative focus group interviews will be carried out after the completion of all modules. Copyright © 2023 The Education University of Hong Kong.

This folio is a collection of three separate research papers which includes one theoretical paper and two other empirical studies and each contribution can also be read as a stand-alone article. The overall aims of the folio are to revise the proposed vocational teachers’ workplace learning model and its practical application into teaching and learning in vocational education and training and to illustrate how vocational teachers enact vocational pedagogy developed from classroom-based learning. Moreover, the folio also further addresses vocational students’ learning in the work-based collaborative learning environment. Following the revised theoretical model of workplace learning, the two empirical research studies reflect on occupational pedagogy and teachers’ work-related knowledge and experiences in collaborative learning and adaptive instructions. The second paper mainly focuses on vocational teaching behaviours in facilitating practice-based teaching pedagogy concerning students’ occupational learning, which implied on the practical importance of collaborative instructions in vocational pedagogy and students’ participation in hands-on activities. The contribution of the third paper relates to the findings of the second paper, and the third paper contributes to vocational students’ learning patterns and learning participation concerning collaborative learning environments and adaptive instructions through dialogic analysis of classroom observations. These findings implies on interactive work-based learning in vocational teaching and learning relating to professional education, the vocational curriculum, and knowledge and experience. All rights reserved.