Teaching From the Heart: FLASS Honours Its 2025/26 Award Winners

FLASS established the Faculty Teaching Award and the Faculty Caring Teacher Award to acknowledge faculty members who demonstrated outstanding teaching practices, inspired students through meaningful learning experiences, and showed genuine care and support in their teaching. In the 2025/26 academic year, the Faculty Teaching Award went to Dr Deng Wenjing of the Department of Science and Environmental Studies (SES), while Dr Claudia Wong Ming-yu of the Department of Health and Physical Education (HPE) received the Certificate of Merit. Ms Wang Sha of HPE earned the Certificate of Merit of the Faculty Caring Teacher Award.

Dr Deng Wenjing, Associate Professor and Acting Head of SES, has worked at EdUHK since 2011. She shared that students are at the heart of her teaching philosophy, which emphasises catering to diverse learning needs, keeping knowledge current, and allowing time for deep learning. “Since there are always differences among students, some of which could be significant, we must design lessons that accommodate these variations as much as possible, ensuring that the majority can grasp the key concepts,” Dr Deng explained. She added that whenever she finds students are struggling to understand, she adjusts her pace and uses more relatable expressions and examples to help them understand.

Based on more than twenty years of teaching experience, Dr Deng believes deep learning takes time, for students and teachers alike. “Students need time to digest and consolidate what they learn. Teachers also need to constantly update their knowledge about new concepts and pedagogy. The rise of AI has profound implications for learning and teaching. In such a fast changing world, teachers need to proactively keep their knowledge current, both in AI applications and in their own discipline, to support effective learning,” the awardee of the Faculty Teaching Award said.

Dr Deng believes real-life stories and examples can stimulate students to learn. She uses everyday issues to explain how environmental pollution is affecting people’s lives. “To change students’ common perception that chemistry is obscure, I teach students how chemistry knowledge could be applied in daily life, making the subject applicable and interesting,” the environmental scientist said. As an expert on the study of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and their effects on people’s health, Dr Deng tells her students that many windproof raincoats contain large amounts of fluoride, which is a pollutant. “This raises students' awareness of the connection between everyday items and pollution,” she said.

As an expert in positive psychology, Dr Claudia Wong Ming-yu of HPE looks to self-exploration as the starting point for her teaching. She uses various methods to help students gain a deeper understanding of themselves, and to discover their strengths and personal interests. “I believe deep learning is based on a deep self-understanding, which will also help people find their unique place,” the HPE scholar said.

At HPE, Dr Wong teaches several sports psychology courses and leads students in their capstone and honours projects. “I noticed that students today experience a lot of negative emotions, possibly stemming from social pressure or anxieties about the future, such as fear of being replaced by AI and worries about poor job prospects,” Dr Wong said. To help students manage these feelings, she draws on the same self-exploratory approach in the classroom, weaving mental tools like positive psychology, mindfulness, and self-compassion into her lessons.

“In a world which is less than perfect, we need to teach our students to coexist with a stressful reality and uncertain future, and to continuously guide them to find what they truly love and are good at,” Dr Wong said. She is confident these tools can help students calm their minds, discover themselves and find their unique place and value in the classroom and beyond it. “Even in a high-pressure environment and a rapidly-changing world brought about by AI, building inner resources helps us better navigate our lives. My students at HPE not only learn these mental tools as theories, but apply them to improve academic learning and athletic performance,” the merit recipient of the Faculty Teaching Award said.

Where many predict that AI may one day replace human teachers, Ms Wang Sha of HPE takes the opposite view. She emphasises that while AI can teach knowledge effectively, it lacks the essential emotional connection and genuine care that define human instruction. To her, care is as fundamental to the education profession as technical expertise.

Ms Wang views pastoral care, which includes listening to students’ struggles, offering personal advice and building supportive relationships, as central to effective teaching. She believes that students can feel care from teachers through their words, facial expressions and body language. “Care fosters students’ trust in both their teachers and themselves. And such a sense of self-belief is an outcome that mere knowledge or teaching methods alone cannot achieve,” she explained.

This care philosophy is central to Ms Wang’s work at HPE, where she teaches gymnastics, aerobics and dance. She observed that students who feel cared for show greater confidence and competence, and are more likely to master the movements and skills required in her classes. “By providing a supportive environment, I help students change their mindset from feeling ‘unable to perform’ to ‘confidently completing’ all their learning tasks,” the recipient of the Certificate of Merit of the Faculty Caring Teacher Award said.

Dean Professor Ferrante Neri praised the hard work of the three awardees. He said: “At the heart of FLASS’s mission is the commitment to fostering a culture of teaching excellence and pastoral care. We achieve this through visionary leadership and guidance, experience sharing and the recognition of excellence by awards and acknowledgments. I hope all faculty members will continue to achieve higher grounds in delivering effective and caring teaching.”

Professor Neri thanked all the nominators, nominees and the Faculty Selection Panel chaired by Dr Dennis Hui Lai-hang, with panel members Dr Sarah Lee Hoi-man, Dr Carman Leung Ka-man and Professor Naubahar Sharif, and student representatives Mr Cheung Ho-kwan and Mr Leung Hoi-fung, in making this year’s awards a resounding success.