Teaching (and Learning) in the Time of Epidemics: Reflection on Humanities Teaching in Higher Education

During the global Covid-19 situation, there was a general shutdown of daily operations, including education. In Hong Kong, which was among the first locations to be hit by the epidemic, face to face teaching stopped early in February 2020, which was the beginning of the second semester of the academic year. The higher education sector was the first to respond to the situation by shifting to online teaching immediately, and finally extending to the end of the semester. The sudden shift to the eLearning mode posed a lot of challenges to both teaching and learning, including feasibility and effectiveness. This presentation is a sharing of my professional practice in Hong Kong higher education during this second half of the academic year 2019- 2020. Although it was generally felt that the humanities subjects encountered fewer challenges shifting to the eLearning mode, the outcomes of this semester was a strong reminder to us to review the current practice in teaching and learning, and to rethink how to engage with the new generation of learners and new circumstances. It is hoped that the presentation can share some observations about the challenges of e-learning, and facilitate some new thinking about how to conduct eLearning in higher education, more specifically relevant to the Hong Kong’s unique cultural environment.