Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly restricted the possibility of large numbers of undergraduate students attending classes on the CUHK campus. However, this reality has also presented new opportunity to exploit hybrid teaching (HT) as a staple of the university’s pedagogy in the future context. Therefore, thinking ahead with regard to teaching and learning in the Arts, how can HT be expansively utilized so as to, for instance, enrich learner engagement, stimulate innovative instruction, and remodel how students’ core skill-sets are acquired and expanded?

Building upon the teaching and grant-conferred experiences of the PS* and Co-S, the proposed project will focus upon two outwardly contrasting Arts Faculty Departments, namely History and Music. Yet, in actuality, both Departments have curricula grounded in students undertaking various hands-on, in-class activities under the close supervision of their teachers. Of significance, since early-2020 the COVID pandemic has greatly undermined the implementation of such fundamental teaching and learning-guidance exercises and, so, the Departments’ capacity to uphold their outcomes-based approach (OBA) within undergraduate programs. Accordingly, to ensure ongoing COVID-pandemic related pedagogical challenges dissipate and, in conjunction, to fuel fresh, stimulating teaching and learning occurrences that will wholly support the OBA in the future, how may HT be taken advantage of in terms of the performance of learner engagement with topics introduced within Arts curricula, the students’ performance of assembling and augmenting core skills, and their performance of self-confidence?

*For example, the PS has an ongoing TDLEG to Enhance Student Engagement project, “Deepening Cognizance of Student Needs and Engagement with the Learning Process in the Arts: A Faculty-wide Enquiry”. The project is due to end in August 2021.