President's Awards

Individual Award
(General Faculty Member Category)

Dr YANG Lan
楊蘭博士
Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Grounded in her innovative teaching philosophy, Assessments Reenergize Teaching (ART), Dr Yang Lan (Joy) helps students adapt to the rapidly changing world. She helps them accurately assess themselves to improve their learning processes en route to become self-directed learners and creative problem solvers to address complex issues (e.g., post-disaster recovery, ethics in technology-assisted assessment, and opportunities and challenges in using AI in assessment).

Dr Yang applied ART to create the Assessments and Blended Learning (A+BLe) online platform to promote teaching excellence and nurture self-directed learners. Through this platform, teachers can integrate assessment practices (e.g., self/peer/teacher assessments and team-based assessments) to create a structured, student-centred learning environment. A+BLe provides visualized learning analytics to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, improving teachers’ feedback practices and students’ subsequent learning.

The A+BLe platform is scalable and effective across educational contexts. EdUHK's three faculties (FHM, FEHD and FLASS) have applied A+BLe to 25 undergraduate and postgraduate courses so far, and over 1,000 students have received and used self-directed assessments to improve their learning.

Furthermore, over 212 teams of students in EdUHK’s three faculties have used the Team-based E-Assessment (TEA) to support their teamwork, aid in peer assessment, and facilitate teachers’ immediate feedback (and remedial instruction when needed). The students’ reflections provide evidence of their self-directed learning (e.g., ownership of learning, engagement, positive emotions and active learning).

Dr Yang has raised over HK$30 million in joint grants and donations to extend and practice the ART approach across educational settings. She has also expanded her sharing of this approach to over 400 teachers in various Greater Bay Area schools and eight universities abroad. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped 8,568 teachers and 21,737 students in 80 Guangdong schools adapt to the new online and blended teaching and learning environments. Her contribution to extending the ART approach to diverse educational settings was recognized by the EdUHK President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Knowledge Transfer in 2021/2022.

In this global era of constant change and innovation, Dr Yang’s innovative ART approach offers a scalable solution for improving teaching and nurturing self-directed learners locally, regionally and internationally.