Religious Education

Religious education provides opportunities for young people different point of views to deal with the important issues about life and death, suffering, love, value and meaning, existence, common good, etc.  It provokes the experience to reflect critically and sensationally the personal, spiritual, moral and social problems.

The aims of religious education are to enable students to:
(a) acquire knowledge of the religion they study;
(b) judge about religious, moral and social issues rationally;
(c) enhance their spiritual, moral, and social development; and
(d) develop a positive attitude towards people and respect for their beliefs.

By the end of the course, students are expected being capable of demonstrating the ability to:
(a) identify situations which require the prioritising of values and virtues;
(b) understand the complexities involved in making moral decisions;
(c) apply critical thinking skills to the making of reasoned and responsible moral decisions through discussion of various ethical issues;
(d) understand the origin, precepts, forms and practices of the religion they study;
(e) address problems in their daily lives and tackle contemporary moral or social problems by applying the teachings of the religion they study;
(f) take care of others by modelling the life of the religious founders they study;
(g) apply prior knowledge in ethics studies or religious studies to life experiences and other service experiences;
(h) appreciate the diversity in different religions and cultures, and develop a positive attitude towards people having different religions and respect for their beliefs; and
(i) reflect the issues in their daily lives.

The course will be mixed with humanistic and constructive pedagogy by having dialogue between the teacher and students, and among the students where most of them are living near the school and their social economic status are usually relatively in lower middle. Nevertheless, information technology will be used to enhance the students’ learning experience where blog, forum, wiki, and multimedia will be used throughout the whole course. A simple survey that was done in the beginning of the course indicates that most of the target students don’t have a blog or maintain a blog regularly. It may imply that some of the students may not be familiar with some of the online learning tools like blog or wiki.

Session	Course Content	Reference or Aid
1	Introduction
2	Prayer
3	Course Evaluation and Review
4	Introduction of Bible and the Readings	Bible + PowerPoint
5	What is life?  What does life contain?	Bible
6	Who am I?  What am I?	Worksheet
7	Power of Pressure	Bible + Worksheet + YMCA leaflet
8	Changing Family – Single Parent	Worksheet
9	Generation Gap	Bible + PowerPoint
10	Subject Examination	Bible
11	Subject Examination	Bible
12	School Examination
13	Organized Crime and Triad	Worksheet
14	Single Child	Worksheet
15	Brotherhood	Worksheet
16	Occupation	Worksheet
17	Christmas Break
18	Christmas Break
19	Discipline and Regulations	Students’ Handbook
20	True Love	Bible
21	Girl and Sea – Purity and Love Relation
22	Counsellor and Social Worker’s Time
23	Dilemma (e.g. cheating, wife or prison)
24	CNY
25	CNY
26	Marriage	Bible + Worksheet + YMCA leaflet
27	Subject Examination	Bible
28	Subject Examination	Bible
29	School Examination
30	Universal Declaration of Human Rights	2nd Vatican Council
31	Life or Death: Case Study on minorities	PowerPoint
32	Minorities and Marginal Groups: WWJD?	Bible + Worksheet
33	Sport Week
34	Dignity & Respect	Worksheet and Church documents
35	Public Area	Worksheet
36	Introduction to Ontology
37	John 6: Jesus is God and Life	Bible
38	Symbols and Signs of Life	Real Objects + Bible
39	Holy Eucharist	Real Objects + Bible
40	Subject Examination	Bible

Of course, multimedia will be provided to students to supplement classroom work across the whole course.

Success criteria	High	Medium	Low
Ability to demonstrate their knowledge on the moral, ethical, social and religious issues they learnt	Student can accurately answer most questions related to facts or theories	Student is able to accurately answer about 70% of questions related to facts or theories	Student appears to have insufficient knowledge about the facts, theories or processes used
Ability to analyze and make judgments on the moral, ethical, social and religious issues.	Student proves to have reasonably deep insight and analysis, with sufficient literature reference, on the topic for the judgments on the issues.	Student shows reasonable insight and analysis on the topic for the judgments on the issues.	Student seems to have little reasonable insight and analysis on the topic for the judgments on the issues.
Ability to apply the religious point of view, no matter Christianity or other religion, on the moral, ethical, social and political issues.	Student is capable to use religious thinking to explain, analyze, justify and evaluate the moral, ethical, social and political issues systematically and globally.  Student also reflects on his or her own daily life, community, environment or country by using a religious and affective way.	Student applies the religious care or thinking to explain, analyze, justify and evaluate a few points on the issues.	Student shows nearly no or very limited religious vision on the issues.

Throughout the course, the students will be required to accomplish some tasks by using the following online learning tools.

BLOG
Students will be asked to write a journal every two weeks for them to reflect on

• What they have learnt from the course in the past two weeks or in the past;
• How they can apply what they have learnt; 
• The most impressive scene and activities on the sessions, and;
• How they felt on the classes.

FORUM

Each class of students has to go to the online forum to discuss a topic opened by one specific students after each session.

WIKI
A Wiki about the relationship between religions and human societies is necessary to be created, designed, managed and maintained by all the students.