Principal Supervisor(s): Dr. LI Ming Kenneth
Co-supervisor(s): Dr. CHIU Chu Lee Julie (retired in 2021), Mr. LAU Hoi Lung Johnny, Dr. HODGSON Paula, Miss FONG Tsz Heung Agnes, Miss TANG Sin Yee Cindi
The General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme is designed with the vision of shaping students into better global citizens by cultivating their knowledge, attitudes, and values regarding nature, science, and humanity through the reading of classics. To engage students in critical reflection on the classics through direct experience and consideration of real-life situations, farming sessions have been introduced as experiential learning in one of the GEF course In Dialogue with Nature since 2015-16. Such learning experience has gained positive feedback from the students, and it has been extended to the other GEF courses In Dialogue with Humanity. Students are given a chance to do a bit of farming, followed by interactive discussions on related classics with the teacher and with fellow students in each session. From our experience, students’ general lack of understanding of the relation between nature and farming and lack of the necessary farming techniques presented an obstacle to their learning. A considerable amount of time had to be spent on explaining basic knowledge and techniques in each practice session. Meanwhile, inadequate attention or mere forgetfulness on the part of the students could lead to poor growth of the crop, resulting in a disappointing learning experience. In view of this, this project aims to develop a mobile App that supports the farming practices in the GEF courses as experiential learning. The objective is to improve the teaching and learning of the GEF courses. With the help of the App “Growing Edibles 101” (GE101 種菜鳥), the experiential learning sessions are flipped and blended learning in the GEF Programme is strengthened.