[Webinar] The role of technology in innovative pedagogic practices: Re-tooling, re-imagining and re-creating

To most educators, the sudden shift to online teaching brought about by COVID-19 has been a catalyst to their professional development. This is no exception to Nicole. In this talk, she will trace her pedagogic growth as a teacher educator supporting pre- and in-service English teachers in learning to teach online with a focus on three key insights she has gained. Guided by the Students-as-Partners model (Healey et al., 2014), she initiated the Students-as-Perusall-Managers approach which has proven to be invigorating in motivating learners to read collaboratively despite social distancing. Inspired by Carless, Stoakes and Moody (2020), she experimented with the use of video feedback which has been shown to significantly boost students’ agentic response to teacher feedback. Drawing on data from Nicole’s two-year self-study of her own virtual classroom practices, she challenges the widely cited dictum of putting the pedagogy horse before the technology cart (e.g. Sankey, 2020). Findings of the study indicate that her awareness of the affordances of technology has guided her in re-tooling these affordances to achieve and re-imagine pedagogic goals. The positive impact on students’ self-efficacy and Nicole’s own self-efficacy in online teaching has led to the emergence of her new pedagogic practices which enable her to surpass what she could achieve in face-to-face classroom settings (Tsui & Tavares, 2021). How this sheds light on her current practice of integrating blended learning into her university-based classes, creating enhanced opportunities for learner interactivity and engagement, will also be discussed.

Nicole Tavares is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education of The University of Hong Kong (HKU). She specialises in English Language Education (ELE) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and teaches related courses on BA&BEd, PGDE, MEd and MA programmes. She is currently the MA(TESOL) Programme Director and Coordinator of the Faculty English Language Proficiency Tests for BA&BEd (ELE) students, and was the former MEd(CLIL) Programme Coordinator (2015 – 2021).

Nicole has published in the areas of 21st century skills, online teaching and learning, using educational technologies in promoting reading, writing and teacher professional development, and good ELT and CLIL practices. Her 2017 co-authored Springer book 21st century skills development through inquiry-based learning: From theory to practice. International examples in wikis, digital project creation and game contexts has achieved 266 citations to date.

Nicole has received multiple teaching awards in her career, notably the HKU Teaching Innovation Award (2020), her Faculty’s Emergency Remote Teaching Award (2020), and the HKU Outstanding Teaching Award (2015).