Hurrairah bin Sohail explores the role technology played in helping City University of Hong Kong create teambased learning spaces to advance teaching and learning.
Modern pedagogy is evolving at a rapid pace and City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is pioneering and developing new methodologies.
One of its latest advancements is the implementation of team-based learning in three recently developed spaces. A departure from traditional teaching, team-based learning aims to encourage communication within classrooms during face-to- face sessions while providing students the necessary resources to learn while away from these spaces.
Professor Ray Cheung, PhD, Associate Provost for digital learning, City University of Hong Kong, elaborates: “What we want to achieve is a learner-centric environment, we want to focus on people and we are embracing technology to facilitate this. Our goal is to enable the learner to learn in a more effective way. We want students to be able to inspire each other.”
CityUHK’s drive led it down the path of team-based learning. Professor Cheung says: “We are categorised as an international university, and we have multiple campuses with the latest one being at Dongguan, China. We believe the future classroom will not be in one location. The students will be dispersed and can be anywhere, and this is a model we are implementing and planning for. We want to be able to support our students wherever they are and empower them to be able to create learning patterns that benefit them. We believe in creating classrooms and learning spaces that can support a whole range of teaching and discussion styles, from cluster or island-based discussion to peer-to-peer models where students can share their screens and content with each other.”
The team-based learning spaces at CityUHK have been designed from the ground up to be flexible, modular, and agile. The spaces put people at the centre of the experience with technology being pressed into action to create the desired outcomes. AV over IP is the foundational pillar of the technology systems.
These are built on a Huawei S5732 48-port switch and S5735 16-port network switches as well as Kramer KDS-EN7 encoders and KDS-DEC7 decoders. A Kramer SWT3-41-H HDMI and Blustream MV-41 multiview switcher help to provide localised switching.
Sony VPL-PHZ61 8,000 lumens brightness laser projectors, paired with Seemax 120-in projection screens, and Samsung QB85C 85-in flat panel displays serve as the visual endpoints.
The choice to go with AV over IP was a simple one and Deep Batra, IT manager, engineering and design section, computing services centre, City University of Hong Kong, expands: “The inputs and outputs are unlimited with AV over IP. Just today, I had a request to manage multiple sound outputs for a freeform discussion format that the teacher wanted to implement. All I had to do to enable this was export the audio over IP and give the audio feed to the relevant endpoint, which was simple and easy to do. This shows the power of AV over IP and that is why we went in this direction.”
The flexibility delivered by AV over IP was also crucial in creating the teaching and learning methodologies CityUHK wanted to implement.
Professor Cheung says: “In order for team-based learning to be effective, we have to deviate from traditional classrooms. We have to create an environment where students feel empowered to speak up and even lead the discussion. We wanted to incentivise the students to be able to get the ball rolling on their own and the technology systems had to enable this.”
Student interactivity is enabled via both wired and wireless options. Three HDMI ports are provided for each island and pod in the team-based learning spaces. Students can connect their laptop to the broader technology system via HDMI cables. They also have the option to connect via Apple TV and Miracast wireless receivers. A physical button, when pressed, sends a permission request to the teacher in charge of the session who can then permit the content from the student to be shared across all endpoints in the space.
Additionally, the pods can also operate in a self-sufficient manner. If the discussion is contained between the students situated at the pod, the teacher can grant a student the privileges to present just to the localised set of three monitors. The monitors on the island are slightly smaller than usual to ensure that students can maintain eye contact during discussions.
CityUHK has not just focused on in-room participants, but has also streamlined the experience for remote participants which is in line with the principles of team-based learning. Three ScanVis cameras, Sennheiser TCC2 ceiling microphone tiles, and the Crestron control system provide speaker tracking features.
Batra provides more details: “We have camera tracking in the classrooms to ensure that all students, no matter where they might be joining the sessions from, be it Hong Kong or Sweden, are engaged and involved. We have ScanVis cameras in the space and we get the XYZ coordinates of speakers through the Sennheiser TCC2 ceiling microphones which are then sent to the Crestron control system. The control system then processes these signals and directs the three cameras to effectively frame the speaker and zoom in on them to ensure meeting equity.”
The speaker tracking application at CityUHK is a proprietary solution that has been developed in-house by the CityUHK team and the integrator for the project, i-Control.
Batra talks about why the university went down this route: “Pricing and customisability were our biggest considerations. We investigated the off-the-shelf options, Crestron One Beyond and Q-SYS Seervision. But both are proprietary systems and the pricing was high. We had the capabilities to take this task in-house and the result of these endeavours has been that the project has been completed under budget which is amazing since we are making a lot of magic happen in these spaces.”
Regarding the selection of the Sennheiser TCC2 microphone, Batra comments: “We compared the Sennheiser TCC2 with the other options on the market and our criteria was quality of audio and speed of response for camera tracking. We had audio files which we recorded with the different microphone options, and we found that Sennheiser outperformed the competitors across both metrics. And the cherry on top was that the pricing also fit within our budget.”
L-Acoustics X8 speakers, Shure MXN5W-C ceiling speakers, powered by a Powersoft Mezzo 602 AD amplifier and managed by a Q-SYS Core 8 Flex DSP, deliver sound. Audio is picked up by Sennheiser TCC2 ceiling microphones together with a provision of Shure handheld microphones. Audio signals are transmitted over the network via Dante.
The provision of L-Acoustics speakers is interesting and worth exploring further. Batra says: “L-Acoustics is a professional audio company, and it is the brand chosen for top-end concerts. We decided to go with L-Acoustics because we knew it would deliver premium sound for the spaces.”
When seeking to achieve a breakthrough, challenges are par for the course. Batra sheds light on the obstacles CityUHK faced when creating these team-based learning spaces: “This was a project with multiple moving parts, many of which we could not anticipate during the design phase. The biggest challenge was addressing the requirements of the project as it was being implemented. We had multiple conversations about minor purchases and additions to the technology systems. The interactivity enabled by the wireless buttons was one such component. I remember discussing the matter of how to enable interactivity with Professor Cheung and we went through the analogue options such as students raising their hands as a mode of requesting permission to present. But when we started to discuss the possibility of using technology for granting permission for student interaction, I had the backing of CityUHK’s leadership coupled with investment which made these spaces possible. There were a lot of final touches, and it was a learning process for us. While the current outcome is great, I think we are better placed with better ideas for the future.”
Professor Cheung echoes similar sentiments: “To me, the process of improvement and advancing is continuous, it is like a river. What we are discussing today is a snapshot of the spaces and technology systems we have available. Of course, we have sourced the best technology and integrated it into our physical spaces. But we don’t know how our faculty is going to use the facilities. We have tried to come up with the best scenario but there are a lot of variables at play, and we do not know how the different faculties will respond. So, we must always look to continually improve based on feedback. We believe we have sparked the fire for our faculty to look at these spaces and see how they can leverage them through their teaching journey.”
With the team-based learning spaces operational, CityUHK has been evaluating the effectiveness of the endeavour and Professor Cheung shares: “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from the students and faculty. We are seeing them be highly engaged and encouraged by what we are doing with these team-based learning spaces and more and more faculty members are looking to give it a try which bodes well for the future.”
However, CityUHK is not stopping its march towards progress and creating better outcomes for its students and faculty. Batra identifies one area where improvements are planned: “Maintaining and operating these spaces is going to be a challenge, especially considering that CityUHK is always improving and investing in new technology projects. We’re nearly at 200 spaces and we have a team of four handling tier 3 or above requests. However, we are actively engaging in training our IT teams to address our growing needs. We believe that if we have the resources to maintain and operate our growing spaces, we will be able to ensure that these spaces deliver return on investment and push us forward.”
Professor Cheung concludes: “The whole university is undertaking a major mission of digitisation. We are learning and we believe in the transformation that is happening at CityUHK. We are willing to invest more into making sure that our vision for the future of teaching and learning comes to pass.”