IPNL — Intelligent Positioning and Navigation LaboratoryTeaching
Teaching at IPNL spans undergraduate aviation engineering, GNSS-focused subjects, postgraduate research training, and a multi-year research line on GitHub-based pedagogy for engineering education. Subjects taught consistently rank in the top 10–25 percentile of PolyU e-SFQ ratings since 2017, and the work has been recognized at department, faculty, university, and UGC levels.
Major Recognition
- 2024 — PolyU President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement (Individual, Teaching) — the university’s top individual teaching honor. PolyU news release.
- 2024 — UGC Teaching Award nominee (General Faculty Category) — PolyU sole nominee. The University Grants Committee award is Hong Kong’s most prestigious teaching recognition.
- 2024 — URIS Outstanding Supervision Award — recognizing the mentorship pipeline that carries forward (Louise Zhou, supervised through the URIS programme — the chain extends to Max Lee, then to a new generation).
- 2023 — Outstanding Award in Teaching, Faculty of Engineering, PolyU
- 2020 — Merit Award in Teaching (Individual), Faculty of Engineering, PolyU
- 2020 — Peer Review of Teaching Practice rated EXCELLENT (by Prof. Felix Chan)
Roles & Programme Leadership
| Role | Period | Department / Programme |
|---|---|---|
| Associate Head (Learning and Teaching) | Jul 2021 – Jun 2025 | AAE |
| Chairman, Departmental Learning and Teaching Committee | 2020 – 2025 | AAE |
| Member, Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee | 2020 – 2025 | FENG |
| Programme Leader, BEng (Hons) in Aviation Engineering | 2018 – 2020 | AE |
| Deputy Programme Leader, BEng Aviation Engineering | 2017 – 2018 | AE |
| Quality Assurance Manager, PolyU Flight Training Organisation | 2019 – 2020 | FTO (HKIE / CAD509(A)) |
| Co-founding academic staff | 2016 – present | AAE (first appointed; helped establish the department) |
HKIE Accreditation. Led the AE programme through HKIE provisional accreditation in 2018 and full accreditation in 2020 — coordinating submission documents, presenting to the visiting panel, and developing the learning-outcomes assessment plan. Outcome: 5-year provisional accreditation across ACE, LTE, and MIE streams; full accreditation after the first graduating cohort.
Programme ranking. During tenure as Programme Leader, the AE programme rose from 3rd to 2nd in FENG by DSE entry marks (2019/20 cohort) — only behind biomedical engineering.
Funded Teaching Programs (as PI)
- PolyU Online Teaching Development Grant — Quality Incentive Scheme on Online Teaching, HK$960,000 (PI), 2021–2023. Project focus: systematic development of online group collaborations for a 4-year undergraduate programme through a global online software collaboration platform (GitHub).
- PolyU Large Equipment Fund for Teaching — HK$1,107,012 (PI as team leader), 2016–2018. Procured Aircraft Satellite Navigation System (NovAtel SPAN-CPT, HK$237k), 3D LiDAR (Velodyne, HK$304k), and Vision-based Motion Capture System (VICON, HK$591k) for student learning of flight mechanics, navigation, and control.
- URIS Undergraduate Research Internship Scheme — 4 funded UG projects (~HK$300k aggregate), 2021–2023.
GitHub-Based Pedagogy — Multi-Year Research Line
The lab’s signature teaching-innovation research thread. Began in 2020 with the HK$960k Online Teaching Development grant, peer-disseminated at EDC and SUSTech, and culminated in the ICLT 2025 conference paper.
Core idea: GitHub workflows (version control, pull requests, issue tracking, code review) — when used as the primary classroom collaboration platform — develop students’ online collaboration, problem-solving, and learning-to-learn (L2L) competencies far more effectively than traditional submission portals.
Onboarding videos (AAE2004 series)
The student-facing tutorials we produced. Used in the AAE2004 course, AAE engineering pedagogy outreach, and the lab’s GitHub-pedagogy showcase:
Setup and daily Git workflow — short student-facing tutorials:
- Installing Python and VS Code (Windows)
- Installing VS Code, Git, and Python (macOS)
- VS Code + Git: basic operations
- VS Code + Git: resolving merge conflicts
Project example — A* algorithm
Introduction to the A* algorithm — the representative project the students implement collaboratively on GitHub.
Publications and presentations
- Hsu, L. T.*, Cheng, M. H., Wen, W., Li, B., Wen, C., Zhang, G., Luo, X., & Xu, R. (2025). Implementation of GitHub as a Supplementary Educational Tool to Improve Online Collaboration & Communication, Problem-solving and Learning-to-learn Attributes. ICTL 2025. See the news post.
- Hsu, L. T., Wen, W., Zhang, G., & Wen, C. (2022). Using GitHub as an Assistive Educational Tool to Improve Students’ Online Collaboration, Problem Solving and Communication. SUSTech New Engineering Education Forum (invited), Shenzhen, March 2022.
- Hsu, L. T. (2022, October). Using GitHub to Shape Students’ Problem-solving and L2L Abilities through Flip-Class Project Teaching. PolyU Educational Development Centre (EDC) — Education talk on Technology-Enhanced Learning Showcases (invited).
- Hsu, L. T. (2022, November). Strategy on Adapting GitHub-based Pedagogy. Internal PolyU showcase to colleagues from AP, HTI, RS, and CEE.
Public Engagement & Outreach
Beyond formal teaching, Prof. Hsu has delivered widely-watched public lectures on GNSS for non-specialist audiences:
Global Navigation Satellite System and Our Daily Lives (全球導航衛星系統與我們的日常生活) — Hong Kong Space Museum public lecture, November 2022. Government Aerospace Pop-science Activities.
Earlier: BeiDou Satellite Navigation System and Our Daily Lives — PolyU Public Aerospace Series, November 2021.
STEM outreach — recurring workshops (e.g., Building a Robot from Scratch) for secondary-school students; HK Youth Aerospace Innovation Competition (香港青少年航天創新大賽) recurring judging role.
FYP Supervision and Student Development
| Year | FYP groups | UG research interns | Other |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 1 capstone | — | LAM Pui Yan — autonomous robot car with GPS+Radar |
| 2017-18 | 4 FYPs | — | ME FYP nominated for ASM Technology Award 2018 |
| 2018-19 | 3 ATE FYP × 3 students | 2 UG research interns | ATE FYP nominated for ASM Technology Award 2019; 1 international intern (Oman) |
| 2019-20 | 5 FYP groups | — | — |
| 2020-21 | 5 FYP × group of 3 = 15 students | 5 UG research interns | 3 consecutive STEM internships |
| 2021–present | continuing | URIS pipeline ongoing | — |
Also developed an AAE Academic Advisor (AA) family tree system — a pilot to formalize the AA mentorship structure with periodic AA-student gatherings.
Promotion of Teaching Quality Among Peers
- Peer Reviewer for Teaching Practice — assessed Dr. Chee Tong’s promotion case; Dr. Tong successfully promoted from Teaching Fellow to Senior Teaching Fellow.
- Advised colleague on internal teaching grant — supported Dr. Peng Lu’s HK$1,020,915 teaching equipment proposal; served as team member.
- Subject-based Rubrics rollout — co-developed with Dr. Frank Zou and Dr. Kam Ng; adopted across AAE core subjects; used in HKIE 2020 full accreditation.
Student Voices (selected, from AARs across years)
“He teaches us with heart and answers every question.” (2016-17)
“He is always passionate in his lectures, making the lectures always interesting to attend.” (2018-19)
“Best Lecturer I ever meet.” (2018-19)
“Even while in hospital after an accident, he ran make-up classes and replied every email.” (2018-19)
“Some other lecturers are like zombies from walking dead, just reading whatever is on lecture slide. His lectures were the best I have had this sem so far.” (2022-23)
“Active and with passion when teaching.” (2020-21)
“Timely feedback received 4.9/5” (postgraduate subject, 2024-25)