In order to explore the development in teaching and learning in countries along the Belt and Road countries and other regions, to share the developments in higher education quality assurance and facilitate the enhancement of quality in higher education in Macao, Macao Polytechnic Institute once again joined forces with the Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) to organise the 10th Higher Education International Conference on Innovation and Developments in Teaching and Learning Quality Assurance. Over 40 experts and scholars in higher education coming from the United Kingdom, Portugal, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and other countries and regions gathered in Macao to explore factors affecting the quality of higher education, and share the trends and developments in the quality assurance in teaching and learning. 

Our two teachers presented their research achievements in the conference and the details are as follows: 

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of an Integrated Outcome-based Curriculum for Developing Research and Project Skills in Computing

While project-based learning (PBL) is an established teaching method to cultivate engineering students, many students have encountered difficulties. This is particularly serious in the Final Year Project commonly found in the last year of study of undergraduate degrees. To better prepare our students to take up the FYP challenge, the Computing programme of Macao Polytechnic Institute has implemented an integrated outcome–based curriculum for developing research and project skills. In this paper, we evaluated the effective of this curriculum using a semi-structured exit interview. Two major research questions are (1) what were the challenges that the recent cohort had actually encountered? (2) What are the factors contributing to the effectiveness of this curriculum? Using stratified sampling, 12 out of 46 students were invited to participate and a thematic analysis was made on the interview transcript. The findings show that the curriculum has supported the students the most in technical reading and writing. The FYP has also strengthened the technical knowledge acquired in previous courses. However, more efforts are required to improve students’ self-study and time management skills.

An Evaluation of the Year Tutor System in the Computing Programme at the Macao Polytechnic Institute

The transition from high school to higher education is a dramatic experience for students. In order to assist students to adapt themselves for their college lives, the Computing Programme at the Macau Polytechnic Institute (MPI) has organised a year tutor system for them. In the very beginning of Year 1, each computing student is assigned to a member of academic staff, i.e. a year tutor, for the duration of the 4-year programme. The objectives of the year tutor system are to offer students support with their academic development and personal guidance, including scheduled and ad hoc meetings; monitoring of progress; personal assistance; and directing students to seek additional support if necessary.
The study focused on the factors that influenced the year tutor system experience. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the year tutor system and discuss the essential factors for success.

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