我自2012年起任职中大通识教育部讲师，有幸于在中大通识教育的三大范畴中任教，包括：通识基础课程（UGFH1000「与人文对话」)、四范围大学通识（UGED1112「逻辑与论辩」；UGED1800「思考方法」）和书院通识教育(GENA1113「新亚书院通识学生为本研讨」，2014/15学年开始与梁卓恆博士合教)。虽然三者从课程结构到具体内容都不尽相同，但我任教时总希望培养学生批判思考的能力与态度，帮助学生超越自身学科的视域限制，以下是我的一些经验，谈不上什么心得，各位或可作参考:

课程设计：中大学生学术水平其实甚高，但往往不热衷表达意见，是以教师应安排多样化的课堂活动促进同学交流。在UGFH1000「与人文对话」一科中，导修课设有讨论环节，我会指定小组之间必须回应彼此的讨论成果，而在最后数次导修更设有辩论与台下发言环节，以不同形式刺激学生交流。而于新亚书院通识GENA1113「学生为本研讨课」中，每一论题我皆安排两篇对立想法的文章作阅读资料，要求他们归纳和分析双方的立场，再申述自己的想法，务求令学生有机会接触不同的理论，接受思想上的冲击。

教师态度：通识教育并不限于知识的传授，更包括价值教育。身为知识份子，求学态度以开放、持平、批判三者最为根本。教师应言传身教，展示知识份子的应有之义。比方说，教师凡事要以理为先，不应盲从某套理论，时刻警醒自己须向学生清楚解释所有想法的理据。再者，教师应致力把学生的意见诠释为最合理的见解，并鼓励他们反对自己的论点。只有在这种开放和平等的对话环境下，学生才能放开怀抱讨论，主动思考自己与他人论点的优劣。

透过不同层次的对话，我希望培育学生作为知识份子的一些重要能力：

清晰准确的表达能力：毫无疑问，这是顺利沟通的先决条件。在UGED1112「逻辑与论辩」一课中， 我会展示如何以抽象的逻辑概念釐清日常语言的意思，例如以必要条件和充分条件这一对逻辑概念准确分析日常用语中的条件关系。

持平的批判能力：通识教育强调批判思考，但真正的批判思考绝不止于指出对方论据的不足，更应持平发掘和强化对手的论点。具体而言，我会要求学生批评某理论时，首先要把对手的意见诠释为最合理的见解，再同时设想对方可以如何反驳，然后自己又如何进一步回应此反驳，唯有如此才算是公允有力的批评，而不是刺稻草人。透过这种反覆的思想对话，学生的批判能力必可提升。

扣连理论与实际生活的能力：近年有批评指人文学科内容「离地」，不著边际，其实不然。我在「逻辑与论辩」一课时常分析学生熟悉的政治人物或名人言论中的逻辑推论，让学生体验逻辑原则如何应用于日常生活。就「与人文对话」一课而言，当中教授的经典对现实生活的影响其实俯拾皆是。以《论语》为例，我就曾经引用近年中国与韩国一些以孝道为基础的法律条文，与学生讨论儒家「道德政治」在现代社会实行时的利弊。

于我而言，通识教育的重要目标之一就是通过与不同观点的对话，批判各自的立场，从而认识彼此优劣，达致真正的相互理解。而只有瞭解，才有可能超越。个人如是、学科如是、文化亦如是。

最后我要借此机会向很多人致谢。首先是评委的勉励，然后我要感谢中大通识教育部一众教学与行政同事的协助；与及哲学系师长多年来的教导。再者我希望向所有修过我课的香港中文大学与香港专上学院学生致谢，是你们成就了作为老师的我。最后，我必须感激父母一直以来无私的支持。

I am honoured to receive the Exemplary Teaching Award in General Education. This award is particularly meaningful to me, as it recognizes my efforts in teaching and reminds me the wonderful experience of meeting students from different backgrounds over the past few years.

Most of our undergraduate students show their interests in history, but some also have negative views. For example, students believe they have to memorize a lot of materials about the past, which appear to be useless and boring and hence, wasting their time. As a history teacher, I try to make history alive for my students, especially for those who are not history majors. I try to arouse their interests and curiosity. I believe that it is important to develop courses in which students could learn to apply historical contents and methodology to they own disciplines.

The goals of my General Education courses are to help students gain some basic and fundamental ideas in histories; and to help them critically analyze and interpret the eras/ideas in Chinese history, focusing on important individuals, personalities, ideas and social events in history that have shaped the present societies. In each of the classes, I have deployed a variety of teaching methods to make my lessons lively and interesting. I would show excerpts of some movies to help students visualize an historical event. Outside the classroom, I have also organized some field trips and interviews so that students could learn history from the fields. Students would be guided to read historical materials for pleasure by researching their own family’s genealogy, caring about the minority groups, telling stories of their past, or travelling and visiting historic sites and museums.

General Education courses provide me the opportunity to reflect and re-organize my courses to introduce history to non-majors, and to re-visit the way to communicate the past events in history to the general public. By teaching these courses, I always re-discover the joy of learning alongside with my students. I hope that they will have broadened their horizons, and have had richer and more interesting lives as a result of their enhanced interests and enjoyment in studying history through my General Education courses.

I am truly honoured to receive the Exemplary Teaching Award in General Education. The General Education course titled Earth as Seen from Space was passed to me in 2011. I modified the course structure and content to make it more interactive with the students. Thus, not only is this award meaningful to me, but also recognizes the collective effort of colleagues in my department.

One of the goals of General Education is to help students jump out of their comfort zone and to learn subjects they are unfamiliar with, in which they somehow show a certain degree of interests. It is this little seed of curiosity that can be cultivated and blossomed into sustained motivation to learn. My strategy is to simply make the class interesting and to engage students in class through course design, in-class activity and innovative way of presentation.

Earth journey in the space is about the science of remote sensing. The subject seems unfamiliar to most people, not only students. I implant a lot of real life examples in course contents to demonstrate science is essentially everyday experiences. Starting from daily and personal encounters of a digital alarm clock waking one up in the morning; Google Map that guides one to identify the shortest path to a Michelin star restaurant; whether rain will come in the next couple of hours; tightknit plots in movies like Gravity; to global events of locating the debris of missing MH370 in the ocean and tracking the flow of volcanic ashes disturbing the air traffic.  All these are prevalent to satellites which seem too far away but are in fact keeping an eye on us high up in the space. Using examples connecting to their daily experiences, students’ attention can be drawn and interests in the subject aroused. Most importantly, they would become aware of and start to be able to appreciate the presence of the influence of science and technology in their life, the society and even the world.

“Concepts lead the way; applications as showcases” is how the course is designed. Theoretical concepts of remote sensing are introduced in the first half of the course, and real-life applications focusing on how remote sensing is implemented in our society follow. In fact, the technology connects people’s life in many aspects. Students are encouraged to study the subject from different perspectives such as issues of practicability, technical and environmental considerations, etc. Through these examples and discussions, students are trained to think more critically.

‘Seeing’ from space is not enough, decoding messages from space is equally important. These messages are presented through images. The course emphasizes on developing skills to extract information from images, which is indeed a practice-make-perfect exercise. Other than traditional tutorial classes in which students can learn to cooperate and communicate with each other, an in-class game known as “Image of the Week” is designed to engage students throughout the learning process. The game is carried out in every lecture during the break and is facilitated by the student response system built in the classrooms. Students use their mobile phones, laptops or tablets to immediately respond to the preset questions in class. Designed as a game, students are not respectively graded and they are encouraged to use the skills they learnt in the course to tackle the questions. After the game, the correct answers are explained and the students will learn the analytical skills involved. The cumulative experiences and sharpened skills make them more confident in the ensuing ‘game’.

Quality teaching and learning experience in class would be affected by how content materials are presented and delivered to the students. The key ingredients are technology plus a bit of humor. Technology allows lecture contents to be delivered in a more creative and innovative way using well-designed graphics and animations which capture students’ attention in class. I present course contents in the form of a mind map which is effective in organizing thoughts and communicating ideas. While the contents can be discussed in depth, the linkages among different topics, as well as the whole picture, will not be lost. A bit of humor does ice-breaking and helps make the class more interesting.

The earth is mysterious; satellites reveal the unknowns to human-beings by capturing images from the space. Knowledge is limitless; teachers unveil the key to acquire knowledge by motivating students to learn with fun. On one hand, the journey from the space lets students know more about the earth. On the other hand, I hope students can endure the momentum to learn and use their knowledge to contribute to our homeland.