Curriculum design and assessment of a multimedia storytelling course for nurturing creativity among secondary school students in Hong Kong (Abstract)

A Multimedia Storytelling Applied Learning course with 180 contact hours in the secondary school curriculum was introduced in January 2022. The program has the unique feature of a tripartite collaboration between a university, industry partners, and secondary schools in its curriculum design and program management. The first cohort recruited 120 students from seven secondary schools. This paper introduces the talent demands of the creative industry in Hong Kong and the curriculum design and the assessment methods of the Multimedia Storytelling Applied Learning course. In addition to classroom teaching, the curriculum design includes out-of-classroom learning activities such as boot camps, company visits, and professional development opportunities for teachers. A baseline survey was conducted among students of the first cohort of students. The survey compared students enrolling in the Multimedia Storytelling course (n=105) with a control group (n=103) recruited in the same schools who did not enroll in the course. Results showed that students who enrolled in the Multimedia Storytelling course showed significantly more positive attitude and behavior towards creative media and its industry than students in the control group. The enrolled students also demonstrated a significantly higher level of knowledge about multimedia storytelling, creative industry, and the workplace. The Applied Learning course is part of a larger program titled CLAP-TECH Educational Pathway which aims at offering multiple educational pathways to cater for diversity in student aspirations and the changing talent requirement in the 21st century workplace.