Description

The pilot of the subject "Real Estate and Housing for the Community" was conducted during the summer semester from 1st May to 30th June 2012. A total of 19 students were recruited. Among these 19 students, 2 of them were from the Department of Computing, 10 the School of Design and the remaining 7 the Departmentn of Building and Real Estates. In order that the project objectives could be achieved, the following teaching activities were employed:

(1) Lectures

A total of 42-hour formal lectures and tutorials were given to students to provide an understanding of the economic theories, training on their analytic skills and application to housing issues. Discussions were carried out in the tutorials where the framework and techniques were illsutrated and exemplified. This subject covers a list of topics, including, Housing Department and Housing Market in Hong Kong, Government Intervention and Social Justics, Property Development Process and Control, Property Management Problems and Urban Regeneration. For more details, please refer to the subject description.

(2) Collaborative Workshops

Apart from the workshops on buiding issues and project work delivered by the teaching team, collaborative workshops were organised with the social service groups and NGOs who provided hands-on training on conduciting surveys and home visits; and helped students get familiarised with the assistance schemes available, that meet the specific housing needs of the households. These social service groups and NGOs included:

• Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS)
• Society for Community Organisation (SOCO) 
• Engineers Without Borders (EWB)
• PolyU BRE alumni

(3) Community Service Learning Integrated Project

Based on the knowledge and skills equiped from the lectures and workshops, students were assigned to conducted an intergrated project on their 40-hour community service learning. Students formed groups of 3. Each group was assigned to a particular building located in the urban decay district arranged by the NGO to perform the survey. The survey included a site investigation, building inspection and interview with the households. Most of the households arranged for home visite were living in the sub-divided units in Sham Shui Po and Yau Ma Tei and some were elderly people living in Aberdeen. Students were required to set a topic which was specific to the needs of their assigned service recipients and to plan the service learning activities under the guidance of the supervisory team, and these activities included preparing site investigation and a buidling inspectioni checklist, designing interview protocol for home visit, and consolidating and analysing information. Students reported their progress of their community service and difficulties encountered at the consultations and periodic reviews arranged by the supervisory team. 

(4) Reflective Seminars

Upon the completion of the project, findings were disseminated at an oral presentation to which the participating NGOs were invited. All participating students submitted a written report to reflect not only upon their learning experiences and share their empathy for the disadvantaged people in housing need but also reflect upon their role and responsibilities being a real estate professional and a responsible citizen. An award with a book voucher valued at $1,000 was presented to the three best performed projects as a recognition of their outstanding achievements in the projects.

Efficacy of the Curriculum and Pedagogical Design 

The curriculum designed by the teaching team covered housing issues in Hong Kong. The pedagogical design of this subject was a combination of lectures, workshops and an intergrated project which were effectively tailored for the students to equip them with the essential skills and knowledge required for conducting the field work. The curriculum and pedagogical design of this subject had been reviewed and approved by the Departmental Teaching and Learning Committee before piloting.

Throughout the learning process, students were given opportunities to apply both the technical knowledge and analytical skills acquired in the lectures, tutorials and workshops in their projects. The students found the technical workshops particularly useful for carrying out site survey, building inspection and home visits. In their final reports, it shows that students were able to perform a detailed site investigation and buidling inspection in the assigned districits and buildings. Findings reveal that although the districts under study were affected by urban decay, public facilities and community services, including educational provision, medical and recreational faciltities were found adequate. However, serious safety and hygiene issues were found in the buidlings under study. These issues included concrete spalling, expired fire equipment, scattered electricity wires, rats and cockroaches, etc.

As for home visits, each group had visited 3-4 households arranged either by cold calls or by the NGOs. Apart from learning the difficulties faced by the families. In one case, a family of three was jammed in a room of only 100 sq. feet, suffering from concrete spalling, water leakage and electricity shortage. After identifying the problems and with the help from the NGOs, students searched for assistance schemes available and made a proposal of a set of schemes that could help the families to solve the problems that they were facing. These schemes might be the Intergrated Building Maintenance Assistance Scheme offered by the Housing Society, the Public Housing Schemed offered by the Housing Authority and Subsidy for Buidling Improvement by the Community Care Fund. Through this exercise, students found that they could play a bbigger role in fulfilling their social responsibilities besides offering professional services and advice. 

The efficacy of the pedagogical design of this subject was also reflected from the findings of the post-programme survey. It was revealed from the survey findings that students treasured the learning expereince of the subject with a high average score of 4.24 out of 5.  It also shows that students applied their professional knowledge and skills in the project work and students learned better from the service learning activities than traditional classroom learning mode. 

Student Feedback

Both pre-programme survey and post-programme survey were conducted with students to collect feedback for evaluation purpose.

(1) Pre-Programme Survey

According to the pre-programme survey, 15 out of 19 students who enrolled on the course partcipated in the pre-programme survey. Among these 15 students, 11 of them had prior voluntary service experience. Among these 11 students who had prior voluntary service experience, only 7 of them had this experience over 3 months. 

In regard to the purpose of taking up this community service learning subject, most  students (60%) stated that they intended to broaden their horizon on understandingn of life of the underprivileged people. Over half of the students (53%) stated that they intended to develop their problem solving skills. About half (47%) of the students considered helping peopel in need as important and this could improve their commuication with other people. 40% of the respondents said this was something meaningful and important; 33% of them said this would give them an opprortunity to contribute to the society;  and 27% of them expected this would build up teamwork skills. The responses have shown that students who registered this subject did not only intend to understand the living of the underprivileged people and exploring how they could contribbute to the society but also developing their generic skills in problem solving and communication. Some students had other expectations, such as, gaining learning experience from other departments; and preparing for their final year project. 

(2) Post-Programme Survey

Upon the completion of the subject, a Post-Programme Survey was conducted with 17 students. The survey findings reveal that students treasured the learning experience in this subject (4.24 out of 5). They stated that they were able to apply their professional knowledge and skills for the project work and also found that they learned better from the service learning activity than traditional classroom. Students were asked to respond to the same set of questions in the Pre-Programme Survey. A comparison of the ratings between the Pre- and Post-Programme Surveys was conducted. Findings suggest that students had achieved an overall improvement in both their generic skills and their empathy for people in need upon the completion of this subject.

In regard to generic skills, students showed significant improvement in performing teamwork. They were more confident in doing their best to meet team goals; more willing to consider criticisms or opinions from other team members; and more able to develop creative solutions which satisfy both sides when there were conflicts. The improvement is particularly obvious in the case of sharing the latest and relevant iniformation with team members with a 15% increase in the rating and listening accurately to team members' ideas before making judgment with an increase of 11% in the rating. They also demonstrated good team effort in their excellent project presentations and final reports. 

In regard to interpersonal effectiveness, students found it easier to have a sincere conversation and/ or sharing with other people and more comfortable being with the people from different background. However, students still found it difficult to turn down an unreasonable request. Furthermore, the skill to handle their conversation in different social settings has yet to improve. 

The survey findings also reveal an improvement of students in problem solving, in particular, the ability of ranking problems by urgency and importance. Other areas include defining key issues of the problems, identifying the real problems and listing all solutions, selecting the best solution and revising the plan when there were unexpected difficulties.

In regard to social responsibility, students were more aware of the social issue in the community; more concerned about the well-being of the people in the community; and willing to help others without getting paid. However, it is interesting to find that the rating in regard to making contributions to meeting the needs of the community dropped from 4.13 to 3.88. As revealed from the final report, some students stated they felt frustrated when seeing the underpriviledged hourseholds live in desperate housing conditions but they could do only a little to help solve their problems by showing them their care. 

Comments on the overall arrangement of the programme and suggestions on the areas for improvement were also collected. In regard to the arrangement of the programme, students found ths subject very simulating and well-organised. They also found the lectures and workshops very useful in the way they offered the knowledge, techniques and insights for critically thinking about contemporary issues. A lot of activities were also arranged to provide an all-round development for the students and each activity could effectively achieve the learning outcomes. 

For the pre-service training, a project guide was distributed to all students and a briefing session was delivered to brief the students on the design and assessment of this subject. Besides, the participating NGOs were very supportive in offering collaborative workshops for training on conducting site visit, building inspection and household interview. Useful materials such as building inspection checklist, sharing of cases of disadvantaged groups with desperate living condutions and materials of the existing assistance schemes available were also distributed by the NGOs for students' reference.

In regard to areas for improvement, since home visit was the key activity, students would like to have more home visits. Furthermore, the whole programme lasted for only 2 months in the summer and time was not sufficient enough for the students to compile their reports. It was suggested to elongate the programme so that students would have more time for the preparation work. 

(3) Feeback from the Collaborators

Feedback from the participating NGOs was positive. They found this subject meaningful and agreed that the related workshops could help students engage themselves with the disadvantaged residents and know mroe about their needs and the support available. They also found that our stduents to be proactive in preparing the home visits and positive in conducting the interviews. In regard to future collaboration, more communication was recommended to help clarifiy the focus of the study and expectation between the partnering organisation and the students. 

Lessons Learned 

The subject, Housing for the Community, was well-received by the students. On the one hand, this topic has been one of the hot issues in Hong Kong. On the other hand, this subject provides a real life situation learning experience. Wtih the benefits of hindsight, the success of this pilot was attributed to the substantial effort on the design of the programme and the development of the subject content. In addition, the practices listed below should also be counted:

• The development of the programme must engage members of the involved NGOs which take up the responsibility and challenging actions in achieving the common goal, thus the choice of NGOs and working closely with them are significant in developing the programme and focus of the study.
• An effective programme must articulate clear service and learning goals for every participant involved. As seen from the project, the problems that households encountered in real situations are much more complicated in which sometimes students were frustrated. However, they could still show their concern and care to the underpriviledged people by visiting them and understanding their difficulties and offering them care and attention.
• To ensure the effectiveness of the programme, all-round training must be provided to students which can fully equip themselves with skills required for technical work, handling household interviews and also solving problems under unexpected circumstances in which human interaction is involved.
• Time commitment and management is very important when offering community service. A lot of them is needed to coordinate with NGOs, households, students and the supervisory team. The commitment on the time spent on home visit is also significant in making the project successful. There is no guarantee that the household will be willing to conduct the interview even though it was arranged by phone beforehand.
• The commitment of the NGOs in the programme is the most important. Although the programme was considered meaningful, not all NGOs were willing to participate in the project for many reasons: fristly, students lack the experience in handling home visits to the underpriviledged people; secondly, the help that our students can provide to solve the housing problems of the affected households is limited.