HKBU Graduate Attributes

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HKBU Graduate Attributes

• Prof. Tony Hung
• Language Centre

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Some Important Questions for the Institution

• What student learning outcomes are we trying to
  achieve? What kind of graduates are we trying to
  produce, and why? Are our desired learning
  outcomes reflected in all programmes?
• from the QAC Audit Manual 5.4

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Proposed Graduate Attributes for HKBU

• An undergraduate education at HKBU aims at
  developing all aspects of the Whole Person --
  intellectual, professional, moral, cultural,
  social and physical. In particular, it aims to
  foster the following attributes among its
  graduates, who should

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• Have up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of an
  academic specialty, as well as a broad range of
  general knowledge
• Be able to think critically and creatively
• Be independent, lifelong learners with an open
  mind and an inquiring spirit

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• 4. Have trilingual and biliterate competence in
  English and Chinese (including Putonghua), and
  the ability to articulate ideas clearly and
  coherently
• Have the necessary IT, mathematical,
  organisational, problem-solving and information
  skills to function effectively in work and
  everyday life
• Be responsible citizens with an international
  outlook, a sense of ethics and human values, and
  a readiness to serve and lead and work as a team
  member.

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Inculcating Graduate Attributes

• Up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of an academic
  specialty as well as a broad range of general
  knowledge
• Our undergraduate curriculum -- with its major
  requirements, and provisions for complementary
  and distribution subjects -- is designed to
  help students acquire reasonably in-depth
  knowledge of an academic specialty as well as
  broad general knowledge.

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• 2. Ability to think critically and creatively
• This demands more attention and effort from all
  academic programmes, where there is (generally)
  too much reliance on traditional modes of
  teaching as knowledge transmission -- to the
  neglect of getting students to think critically
  and creatively about what they are learning.
• Critical and creative thinking is best taught not
  in isolation, but by all teachers in the teaching
  of all subjects.

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• 3. Being independent, lifelong learners with an
  open mind and an inquiring spirit
• Students are unlikely to develop into lifelong
  learners if we teach them mainly by transmitting
  ready-made knowledge to them and getting them to
  regurgitate it at the end of the course
• If we really want them to become lifelong
  learners, we will have to foster a spirit of
  inquiry and help them discover knowledge for
  themselves instead of spoon-feeding them.

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• 4. Trilingual and biliterate competence in
  English and Chinese (including Putonghua), and
  the ability to articulate ideas clearly and
  coherently
• HKBU has adequate (?) provisions for core
  language courses in English and Chinese --
  including Putonghua (with the recently introduced
  Putonghua requirement for all undergraduates)
• What we need more of are language courses
  designed to develop higher-level communicative
  skills such as public-speaking, creative
  writing (in a broad sense), and language for
  specific purposes.

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• 5. The necessary IT, mathematical,
  organisational, problem-solving and information
  skills to function effectively in work and
  everyday life
• Existing IT and information courses, and the
  proposed introduction of a core course on
  Mathematics (tentative title) in the 4-year
  curriculum, may go some way towards meeting this
  need
• Like critical and creative thinking, these skills
  need to be taken on board by every academic
  programme (in whatever shape or form is
  appropriate).

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• 6. Being responsible citizens with an
  international outlook, a sense of ethics and
  human values, and a readiness to serve and lead
  and work as a team member.
• There are co-curricular and extra-curricular
  programmes aimed at fostering these attributes,
  but all teachers can contribute to them in one
  way or another through their teaching.

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Appendix Graduate Profiles/Attributes in other
HK universities

• CityU (i) http//tfq.cityu.edu.hk/obtl/idealGradu
  ate.php, (ii)
• http//www.cityu.edu.hk/edo/mylearning/ideal_grad
  uate/
• CUHK (i) http//www.cuhk.edu.hk/v6/en/cuhk/strate
  gicplan/ourtenyearvision.html (ii)
  http//www.cuhk.edu.hk/v6/en/cuhk/strategicplan/im
  ages/strat_plan_eng2.pdf
• HKIEd http//www.ied.edu.hk/strategicplan/index_e
  ng.htm
• HKU http//www.hku.hk/about/vision.html
• HKUST http//www.ust.hk/eng/about/mission_vision.
  htm
• Lingnan http//www.ln.edu.hk/info/about/lingnan/l
  iberal_arts.shtml
• PolyU http//www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/polyu/the_unive
  rsity/motto_e.php