Under the current trend of curriculum reform in higher education worldwide, many institutions have taken the initiative to develop English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses to cater for students' diverse needs for disciplinary learning and future professional practices. This paper illustrates the pedagogical innovations in an ESAP course to facilitate undergraduates’ disciplinary learning at an international university in Hong Kong. Based on the data collected from students and discipline teachers, we, as the course developers, reflected upon the opportunities and challenges in implementing the revamped ESAP course. Our reflections reveal the importance of promoting flipped learning and peer feedback practices in the ESAP classroom and interdisciplinary collaboration between ESAP course developers and discipline teachers. This paper will be of interest not only to ESAP teachers but also to discipline teachers who intend to promote best practices for effective disciplinary studies through English teaching and learning in higher education. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

In K-12 schools, classes are forced to transform online due to the class suspension amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators began to design alternative ways to conduct some meaningful learning activities for their students. However, not all subject disciplines could be easily transformed online, especially for those requiring much social interaction and creation processes. In this article, we explore the learning processes through learning Shubailan, a form of music folk-talk-singing, with a mobile instrument application called muyu in an online flipped classroom among 122 secondary school students in Hong Kong. The opportunities can encourage students to learn music theories and instruments about Shubailan, and create a Shubailan piece through 6-lesson music learning. To gain more online face-to-face time for collaboration, flipping the online classroom is adopted in this study to engage students in lesson preparations via preassigned recorded videos and collaborative activities during face-to-face online lessons. In this study, a mixed research method was employed with the use of a learning satisfaction survey, teachers’ observations and semi-structured interviews. We found that this strategy could effectively motivate students to learn music and improve their music knowledge in Shubailan. This article presents evidence of implementing the online flipped classroom approach to enhance students’ satisfaction and knowledge acquisition throughout Shubailan music making processes, and offers recommendations for online music educators. Results provide a set of innovative pedagogical approaches to teach music in an online alternative mode during the difficult times. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

Flipped-classroom learning has been shown to improve students' learning experience and performance in tertiary education. However, few studies have been done in Asia where the learning culture is vastly different from the West. Here, we studied the effect of flipped-classroom learning with the use of interactive videos on the academic performance of a group of first year undergraduate physics students in Hong Kong. By employing a conceptbased pre-test and post-test, normalized gains of 35% and 13% were obtained for the flipped and control class, respectively. A very strong correlation (r = 0.72, p <.001) was shown between the post-test score and the exam results of the flipped class, while the control class showed a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.37, p =.013). Our results showed that the conceptual knowledge of students taught in flipped-classroom improved significantly more than the students taught traditionally, and that their understanding in conceptual knowledge served as a stronger indicator of their exam performance. The interactive videos were well-received and were shown to be one of the most valued components by the students. Copyright © 2019 SPIE.

Flipped classrooms emphasise a learner-centred and results-oriented approach. They have been widely adopted in recent years, to enhance the effectiveness of student learning and encourage students to understand and apply new information. This approach is also regarded as a type of blended learning, given that tutors decide on the pre-class work, which is often characterised by online materials, and in-class time is devoted to collaborative tasks. This paper proposes teaching English narrative genres by combining digital drawing with active learning approaches – storymaking and storytelling. It also examines Hong Kong university students' perceptions of gamified flipped classrooms, as well as their understanding of the narrative concepts taught. Based on a combination of surveys, narrative writing scores, and focus group interviews, this study found that participants regarded the group-based game task as more effective than the group discussion task. The collaborative group-based game fostered a positive classroom atmosphere, served as a review session that allowed students to identify areas for improvement and prepare for the exit examination, and reduced their anxiety and reticence toward using English. These findings confirmed previous research findings that students' behavioural, cognitive, and motivational engagement could be enhanced through a gamified flipped classroom. Pedagogical implications for ESL teachers were also discussed. Copyright ©Routledge.

In Hong Kong, student interest and achievement in science have been declining in recent years. We thus aim to seek ways to improve our science education. This paper reports an attempt of using the flipped classroom approach together with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to deliver a science unit ("electrical conductors and insulators"). This exploratory study was divided into two stages. In Stage 1, the teacher-researcher designed the science lessons using the NGSS and prepared flipped learning materials (e.g., pre-class videos, online exercises, class activities). In Stage 2, these lessons were implemented in a Hong Kong secondary school, involving a total of 32 ninth-graders from two classes. At the end of this study, two focus group interviews (five students each) were conducted to understand student perceptions of flipped science learning. Teacher reflections of the implementation were also collected and analyzed to reveal his experiences of flipping with the NGSS. Overall, the findings suggest that the students perceived flipped science learning positively because of the ability of self-paced learning, better class preparation, and more in-class interactions. From the teacher's point of view, however, the science curriculum in Hong Kong and the NGSS are different in terms of their focus and content. Time constraint and inadequate laboratory equipment in school also hindered the implementation of the NGSS in Hong Kong. We recommend further research be conducted to investigate how to adopt the NGSS in other topics of Hong Kong science education and examine its effects on student interest and achievement in the long run. Copyright © 2018 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

This study was designed to explore how secondary students perceive the use of flipped classroom for learning computer programming. Specifically, it aimed to investigate the effects of flipped classroom on students’ learning and acquisition of programming knowledge and skills. Flipped classroom is known as a blended learning approach in which learning materials are delivered online, out of class for self-study in advance of classes, while homework assignments are transformed into class activities. This approach leverages technology and digital resources to support students in independent and online learning. It also enables teachers to minimize direct instruction and maximize student involvement in both teacher-student and student-student interactions. In this study, forty students from two Information and Communications Technology (ICT) classes (18 students in Secondary 4 and 22 in Secondary 5) in a Hong Kong secondary school were involved. Flipped classroom was adopted to teach students about computer programming topics (conditional, repetition and array) in both classes. Data were collected from a questionnaire and two interview sessions to explore students’ views on using flipped classroom to learn computer programming. The findings of this study indicate that students in the flipped classroom, regardless of their performance level, experienced stronger grasp of programming knowledge and higher engagement in learning programming concepts. Our findings also highlight limitations with this study that could be addressed in future work. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

This paper aims to discuss an exploratory study that a student teacher carried out on applying the “flipped classroom” approach in his information and communication technology (ICT) class. The study examined student perceptions of the new teaching approach and investigated whether it can help promote higher-order thinking. This study involved 28 students in a public secondary school in Hong Kong. They were attending an ICT class on 3D modelling. A mixed methods approach was adopted. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through surveys, online quizzes and focus group interview. The students’ assignments were also examined and analysed. The findings show that students are inclined to accept the new teaching model. We can conclude that it is possible to improve students’ higher-order thinking capability using the flipped classroom approach to teaching.
[Copyright © 2017 The Author(s).]