Teaching Excellence Awards

The Teaching Excellence Awards Scheme is an institutional level awards scheme that aimed at rewarding excellence in teaching. Each year, the Quality Assurance Committee makes awards to about five outstanding teachers from the whole university. With their excellent quality, academic staff from the Information Systems Department have won this award in nine of the last ten years.

2005-2006 Winner - Dr. Ron Chi-Wai Kwok

I am very pleased to teach at CityU to contribute back to the place that educated me and provided me with great opportunities that I could hardly find in some other Universities in Hong Kong. As a CityU alumnus, I understand quite well our first year students' complicated feelings, especially at the moment they received the acceptance offer from CityU. It could be very happy, but could also be quite sad. From my experience, students' first semester experience at CityU is indeed critical to settle down these complicated feelings in general, and develop their future University life in particular. Therefore, I especially like to take this challenge to focus my teaching on these first year students, who mostly have transition problems in adjusting to University education, and need help & motivation to go through this important transformational period.

2004-2005 Winner - Dr. Robert M Davison

I feel deeply honoured to have been nominated by my MBA students for the Teaching Excellence Award. When I look back over my 13 years of teaching, I am surprised how far I have come. There are no short cuts to excellent teaching, and no universal solutions either, though caring for one's students and learning with them are critical in my own view. Having a passion for teaching certainly helps a lot, as does a passion for research, since the two very often inform one another. Fundamentally, excellent teachers need to be able both to listen and to tell, both to integrate ideas and to facilitate discussion. I find it helpful to break up my class time into chunks of varying durations, with a variety of activities, some more formally structured, some more loosely organised, some with demonstrably appropriate answers or solutions, some where the main objective is to get students to explore a problem in all its richness and natural detail, where there is no pre-defined target, where the conversation between the students and myself is unpredictable. It is this variety of interaction opportunities that awakens students to the fun of learning, to unconscious learning by doing, and in turn, to andragogical excellence.

2003-2004 Winner - Dr. Mohamed Khalifa

2001-2002 Winner - Dr. Kai Lim

2000-2001 Winner - Dr. Moez Limayem

1999-2000 Winner - Dr. Louis Ma

There are many highly committed professors at the CityU who excel in teaching, research, academic leadership and professional services to the community. It is indeed my privilege to have the opportunity to work with these distinguished scholars at CityU. The conferment of the Teaching Excellence Award is not only a great honour for me, but is also an encouragement for me to further my work in teaching as well as in contributing my efforts in the development of a more effective teaching and learning environment at CityU.

1998-1999 Winner - Dr. Christian Wagner

Dr. Christian Wagner's words On Teaching Excellence:

'Over the last 10 years I learnt that there are no "tricks" through which one becomes a good teacher, but there are basic principles for success. If one follows these principles, learns from one's mistakes, and has the desire to continuously improve, then good teaching results are bound to come. Being well prepared is just one part of the equation, albeit an important one. But then there are many smart people, and not all of them are good teachers. Good instructors also need to be storytellers, to capture their audience's imagination. But this again is not sufficient. We need to manage the classroom interaction, the "flow" of each class. This means, anticipating questions, breaking up a long block of time into meaningful learning units, and creating an environment where students construct their own knowledge, not just listen. Good teachers also build an environment of fairness, openness and mutual respect. Since I am teaching a "high tech" subject, there is also always a strong element of innovation in my classroom. Students explore new technologies, or use existing technologies in new ways. That creates excitement and makes learning more fun.'

'Winning CityU's 1998/99 Teaching Excellence Award has been a great honor. However, it does not mean that now I am "certified" and don't have to try hard anymore. On the contrary. Every new course is a new challenge and what was good enough today will not be good enough tomorrow. Excellence is not a state or an end point, it is a process-a constant struggle!'

1997-1998 Winner - Dr. Mohamed Khalifa

I would like to thank all my students who made me enjoy teaching and who contributed to this achievement through their valuable feedback and their good evaluation.

I would like also to thank my colleagues for their advice and their continuous support.

1996-1997 Winner - Dr. Eva Wong

Being awarded the Teaching Excellence Award was one of the most gratifying experiences I had at CityU.  I feel very honoured and would

Since receiving the Award, I have worked in various units in CityU, starting with the Registrar's Office where I managed the implementation of computer systems to support the credit unit academic structure. It was an important project for the University and I was glad that I could use my IS expertise to help set up the academic infrastructure of the University and enrich the education facilities for all students. Two years later, I joined the Office of the President and was privileged to learn the workings of senior management of the University in close quarters. After three years in the President's Office, I moved to the Library to be in charge of all aspects of IT development with the main objective to improve the provision of essential academic support for students and staff. Throughout my time in these various administrative appointments, I continued to maintain direct contact with students via participation as employer or mentor in various learning support activities for students.

With education and student learning continuing to be the main focus of my work, I took up the headship of the Education Development Office which has major responsibility for student learning, professional development of staff and e-learning support. I am grateful that the IS Department allows me to teach for it again. So, besides my main job heading the Education Development Office, I am also back in the classroom helping students learn IS concepts with real life, practical examples and getting excited with the challenge of opening up these bright young minds to benefit fully from their university education.

1995-1996 Winner - Mrs. Patricia Wade

I am now working for a company called EirGrid, which is shortly to become the transmission system operator for the Electricity market in Ireland. I am working in the HR department. I joined on a short-term contract in 2001 to install HR systems, but am now working permanently in the Department as systems and benefits specialist!! It is great to do something different.

Before that I worked at the National College of Ireland as lecturer and Department Head in the Informatics Department, for three years from 1998.