Teaching development grants final and financial report: Engaging students learning through online reflective dialogue in the social sciences courses

In this project, five courses from different subject areas of the Social Science Department will be selected for providing online reflective activities to strengthen teaching and learning outcomes. The main aim is to develop these courses in ways that will realize and use the communication tools of Blackboard as the delivery platform for engaging students into reflective dialogue on the effectiveness of course delivery. The project consists of four key stages: (1) team members will prepare and design reflective dialogue activities on teaching and learning in the Blackboard system, (2) team members will engage students into online reflective dialogues with a clear instructional guidance at implementation, (3) team members will analyze students' reflective dialogues and make changes on improving course delivery if it is deemed appropriate, and (4) team members will write report, prepare materials for seminar(s) and commence the writing of journal article(s). It is expected that through online learning support, students can engage into more in-depth and interactive reflective dialogue that can improve quality learning and teaching. Team members can build up a learning community to support professional development for each other. More importantly, this project enables the transformation of online reflection by using a collaborative approach that allows teachers and students to change their practices.