Undergraduate research (UR) is regarded as an impactful instructional practice, but implementing it in the curriculum is challenging. Faculty members' approaches to the design of UR are under-explored due to the scarcity of studies that situate practices in both the curricular contexts and the concept of the research-teaching nexus. This multiple-case study investigated faculty members' approaches to UR in four curricula in two research-intensive universities in Hong Kong. Document review and semi-structured interviews revealed five approaches to UR: project-based, process-based, lab-based, scenario-based, and research community-based approaches. Particularly, the scenario-based and research community-based approaches complemented the current typologies. Another contribution of this study is the identification of nuanced differences in the adoption of the approaches. Faculty members perceiving reciprocal research-teaching nexus at both departmental and personal levels, and viewing UR holistically, tended to connect students with their own research experiences. In contrast, those who only acknowledged the research-teaching nexus at a departmental level were unlikely to create such a connection. Meanwhile, concerns over curricular coherence and ethics were also discussed. The implications include creating a more transparent process of curriculum design and facilitating students' understanding of their contributions to the research community. It would also be useful to engage faculty members more fully in curriculum planning to enhance the coherence of students' research experiences. Copyright © 2023 Taylor & Francis.

Developing academics' capacity for internationalizing the curriculum (IoC) is essential but challenging. There is a lack of understanding of how the IoC framework can be implemented in reality and of how educational developers can facilitate the process. This collaborative autoethnography explores the cultivation over 3 years of a community of practice for developing academics' IoC capacity facilitated by six educational developers in three universities in Hong Kong. The findings reveal a complex balancing act among various forces in the areas of domain, community, practice, power, identity, and broader context, the last three of which are insufficiently addressed in the literature. This article adds value by illustrating how IoC theories and communities of practice interact with multiple forces in the environment and our own agency, and are negotiated within a particular context. Copyright © 2022 SAGE Publications.

Academic development (AD) is increasingly being oriented towards an integrated approach to academic practice (AP), given arguments for the importance of integrating research, learning, and teaching. Given the complex and evolving character of AD as a profession, it is important to understand the conceptions of AD held by academic developers, who can play a key role in supporting conditions for such integration. This comparative case study explores conceptions of AD and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) held by academic developers at two universities in Hong Kong and Singapore, and examines the extent to which these conceptions support an integrated AP. The findings show that not all conceptions recognise the importance of integration; moreover, though in both cases aspects of integration come to the fore, there are gaps that militate against a fuller understanding of integrating teaching and research. The study has implications for future AD practice and raises questions about using SoTL as a means of fostering teaching and research integration. Copyright ©Routledge.

Internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) is on the agenda of many higher education (HE) institutions worldwide. Typically seen as associated with a top-down strategy, IoC often meets resistance from university teachers, many of whom struggle to understand its relevance to teaching practice. This phenomenographic study investigates university teachers’ conceptions of IoC. Five conceptions ranging in sophistication have been identified. The least sophisticated focuses on making the curriculum content internationally relevant, whereas the most sophisticated centres around developing self-awareness, awareness of others, and a change in mindset in students. The latter is realised by embracing reflexivity and criticality and, more importantly, utilising societal and political issues as learning opportunities for identity development. Situated in the Hong Kong context, the findings not only suggest the need for teachers to shift their focus from curriculum content to value-based development but also for educators to reflect on their role in helping students to reconcile their identity in relation to their counterparts regionally and globally. Copyright © Springer Nature B.V.

Student-driven approaches have generated positive results in student development. This study reports a Students as Learning Experience Designers (Student-LED) Project as one example of employing student-driven approaches to develop learning abilities, leadership skills and reflective habits, in the context of the new senior secondary curriculum reform in Hong Kong. In such reform, schools are encouraged to offer other learning experiences (OLE) to facilitate students’ all-round development. This Student-LED project can be seen as pioneering in its cultural context and for the target participants. Students in Hong Kong were traditionally described as lacking independence, which seemed to contradict the premise of student-driven approaches. The present study as a pilot shows that Hong Kong secondary school students could potentially benefit from a student-driven approach. Sense of autonomy and positional leadership opportunities were found to be important factors to student learning. The concerns of students and teachers during the process were also identified through reflective statements. This study provided some insights into the use of student-driven approaches with Hong Kong learners. Copyright © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC) is on the agenda of many higher education (HE) institutions worldwide. Typically seen as associated with a top-down strategy, IoC often meets resistance from university teachers, many of whom struggle to understand its relevance to teaching practice. This phenomenographic study investigates university teachers' conceptions of IoC. Five conceptions ranging in sophistication have been identified. The least sophisticated focuses on making the curriculum content internationally relevant, whereas the most sophisticated centres around developing self-awareness, awareness of others, and a change in mindset in students. The latter is realised by embracing reflexivity and criticality and, more importantly, utilising societal and political issues as learning opportunities for identity development. Situated in the Hong Kong context, the findings not only suggest the need for teachers to shift their focus from curriculum content to value-based development but also for educators to reflect on their role in helping students to reconcile their identity in relation to their counterparts regionally and globally.
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The ability to solve problems with people of diverse backgrounds is essential for engineering graduates. A course on engineering grand challenges was designed to promote collaborative problem-solving (CPS) skills. One unique component is that students need to work both within their own team and collaborate with the other team to tackle engineering challenges. It is found that the course facilitates the development in CPS skills and that the process, in which two teams develop arguments and integrate the initial ideas to generate a final solution, is a critical component. The value of CPS skills in tackling engineering problems has also been demonstrated. Appropriate scaffolding, explicit training and constant feedback on collaborative processes are found as important for the skill development.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2013.866591