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The Common Core@HKU: Transdisciplinarity-in-Action Team (Common Core Teaching Team) of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) is the winning team of the University Grants Committee (UGC) Teaching Award this year.

Led by Professor Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Director of Common Core, the team comprises teaching staff from different Faculties, including Dr Xiao Hu from the Faculty of Education, Professor Gina Marchetti from the Faculty of Arts, Mr Mathew Pryor from the Faculty of Architecture and Dr Julian Tanner from the Faculty of Medicine.

The Common Core programme, introduced in 2012, is a key element of the new four-year university curriculum for all undergraduate students. It is divided into four Areas of Inquiry (AoIs): Scientific and Technological Literacy, Humanities, Global Issues and China: Culture, State and Society, and has over 170 courses for students to choose from that are taught by over 300 members of staff across all ten Faculties.

“The Common Core,” Professor Kochhar-Lindgren remarked, “emphasizes transdisciplinarity across academic disciplines as well as between the university and many local and global partners. With the innovative dedication of colleagues from all ten HKU faculties, the Core has created multiple learning formats including flipped classrooms, summer school courses, experiential learning classes, and Common Core Global Experiences. To support student learning, we have also established partnerships with community organizations in Hong Kong and created GLADE: Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments, which enables us to work with 60 research-intensive universities around the world to deepen the holistic and integrative learning for our undergraduates. We want all of our students to have a flexible, intellectually rigorous and resonant experience of learning.”

One of the signature courses is the Transdisciplinary Team Project, an Open Platform Course launched in 2018 in which small groups of students apply their research and outreach skills to tackle a common real-world challenge. In the first iteration, six students teamed up to investigate and compare Hong Kong and Canadian residents’ understanding of Hepatitis-C and explored how to invent and distribute an inexpensive diagnostic tool for the disease.

Third-year MBBS student, Elaine Tian, was on exchange in Canada when she surveyed residents there. “This course,” she observed, “allows us to take a proactive role in our learning, from selecting the direction of our research to producing outputs that will hopefully make an impact in society. I also enjoy the flexible nature of the course, which allows me to participate even though I am overseas and it even takes advantage of that.”

Another course highlight is Digitizing Cultural Heritage in Greater China, where students learn how digital technologies can be used to conserve and preserve cultural heritage worldwide by creating a Common Core Digital Archive and participating in digitized recording of, for example, the famous DunHuang caves.

For the award proposal, the Teaching Team plans to partner with students from all UGC-funded universities to facilitate transdisciplinary projects on three United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Good-Health and Well-Being, Gender Equality and Sustainable Cities and Communities. Different student teams will take part in research in their chosen SDGs, while all participants will gather once a year to reflect and learn from others. Expected project outcomes for the 3-year project include community health interventions, startups, performances, digital stories or policy recommendations etc.

“Transdisciplinarity,” Professor Kochhar-Lindgren concluded, “enhances our capacity to pose questions, invent research methods across disciplines, and learn together how to better co-create scalable responses in the context of our most difficult and fascinating challenges. It is a wonderfully interactive pedagogical design and a completely unique experience for students, helping them to develop skills like critical thinking, creativity and collaboration to address the complexities of 21st century life and to bring a greater holistic understanding to their lives and to the world in which we live.”

About the UGC Teaching Award
he UGC launched the Teaching Award in 2011 to honour academics in UGC-funded institutions for their outstanding performance and achievements, as well as their leadership in and scholarly contributions to teaching and learning within and across institutions.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Rashida Suffiad, Communications and Public Affairs Office (Tel: 2857 8555, Email: rsuffiad@hku.hk)