In order to foster students' appreciation of the significance of diversity, involving ethnicity, gender, religion and disability and to encourage them to develop cross-cultural communication skills through community services, the following work was carried out:

• Students were asked to participate in an in-class exercise designed to heightened their awareness of what it was like being in the situation of a person with a diversity. The activity required them to form a team of two, each taking turn in terms of navigating, then sitting on, a wheelchair, making a return trip from PolyU to some selected shops and banks to either make some simple purchases or to withdraw some money from the ATM machines in East Tsim Sha Tsui area. They were then asked to describe their experiences of their "trip" in-class and reflect on the difficulties they had encountered and reflect on their observations of how people of diverse backgrounds are generally disadvantaged and stigmatized by the general public.
• Students were then given opportunities to meet representatives from the partnering community organizations to find out in greater details what their community services entailed and how to prepare themselves for cross-cultural communication with the ethnic minority children at the community centre. Students were told the do's and don'ts in cross-cultural communication and learned to develop proper respect for other cultures in personal and social communication before they were fully engaged in their service learning project.

In order to help students reflect on how to become an active life-long learner, the following work was carried out:

• Students were required to spend 40 hours on performing community service-learning. They were monitored and assessed by supervisors from both the partner organization and teaching staff of this subject on their skills in planning, implementing activities, communication and problems solving, as well as their commitments in service-learning.
• Three reflective seminars were organized so that students could share with their colleagues and supervisors their learning experiences and progress, and discuss their service delivery as well as learning strategies when necessary. Feedbacks from supervisors in the partner organization were sought, and they were also encouraged to spend time at the community centre before they commence their service there.
• Students were required to submit three short pieces of reflective reports at different intervals throughout the servicelearning project to indicate how they interpreted their service-learning experience, particularly in terms of their critical appreciation of the relations between diversities and social inequality, as well as their understanding of civic responsibility and social justice. Students were also asked to reflect on their interpretation of their learning experiences and the impacts on their perspective on life-long learning.

Evaluation of the Subject

Efficacy of the Curriulum and Pedagogical Design

Based on the feedback obtained from the students, overall the curriculum and pedagogical design have been effective.

Three rounds of evaluation were carried out throughout the course:

• In an attempt to understand students' background and expectation on the course, a pre-course evaluation was implemented at the beginning ofthe project.;
• Another evaluation exercise using questionnaire was carried out mid-term to monitor and identify if students were having learning problems and whether remedial measures were needed;
• Two final evaluations aimed at feedback from both students and the were held at the end of the semester when the project was completed.

Feedback from the Students

Students' feedbacks were collected by focus group session on 2nd May 2012. Here students reflected enthusiastically about their learning experience and agreed that it was a fruitful, inspiring, and unique experience when compared with other general academic subjects they had taken and some felt that it was a totally different learning experience from their professional placement where they learned only about job requirements and performance. In service learning, however, they were allowed to be creative in experimenting what they felt might work in organizing and delivering their activities or services. They were equally appreciative of the freedom as well as assistance the service organization and teaching staff had provided them for innovation.

More specifically they found it novel but most beneficial to engage with diversity, allowing them to be much more aware of other perspectives of seeing things. Students also found the subject was fun and creative when there was no formal examination even though in the beginning they were a bit uncertain how things were playing out, and felt a bit uncomfortable in providing tutoring services to school children with a different cultural background. Most students agreed that the subject had widened their horizon and they felt the subject had provided them with an opportunity to get in touch with and learn more about a cultural group whom they would not have bother to contact had they not enrolled in the subject. They believed the subject had made them realize that learning does not have to involve traveling a thousand miles or read a thousand books.

Feedback from the Collaborators/ Partners

Two key stakeholders from the partner organization (Chan Hing Social Service Centre), Ms Tina Lee and Ms Nancy Wong, were interviewed after the subject was completed.. They both felt that in Hong Kong few are interested and willing to teach Ethnic Minority (EM) children. For this reason, the tutors who work at the centre always had to tutor four to five EM children at the same time in the past. In this context, the students from PolyU were really a great help to their agency as they filled not only a shortage of volunteers for the centre but more importantly, the EM children were learning faster and better on a one-on-one basis with the PolyU students.

Likewise, they were most appreciative of the contributions the PolyU students had made in tutoring the EM children. In their view, the PolyU students were generous, good-natured, patient, and willing to spend time engaging with the children and their community. Some students even spent extra hours helping the EM children throughout the project while also helping out in other activities organized by the agency. At the same time, they also thought that it was most helpful for the subject to designate a staff member supervising the PolyU students during their community service so that their workload at the centre was not further burdened. They felt however, the duration of the service learning was too short and it would be better if the subject could be extended to be offered in both semesters in the future.

 
Lesson Learned

• The requirement of 40-hour community service should include other service-related activities such as agency visit, activity-planning, debriefing, and other agency activities.
• Alternatively, a minimum quota of community service should be set up -- for example, 20 or 30 hours, and 10 for other related activities. Likewise, rewards should be given to those who are willing to perform more than 40 hours of community service, either in the form of extra marks/higher grade, or a certificate of merit.
• Although the university policy stipulates that all subjects have to be delivered in English, language flexibility will be needed for delivering service-learning subjects as students found it more comfortable and easier to communicate their feelings and experiences in reflective seminars in Chinese. They had no problem in writing their reflective journals in English, however.
• For a subject that requires reflective discussions, the size of seminar groups is important - no meaningful reflections will be possible ifthere are more than 20 students in a group.

 

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