Implementation of the Subject

• The lectures and seminars were conducted to introduce the students to the relevant issues in this subject. In the lectures and seminar, there were opportunities for small group discussions, assignment, and presentations to explore these issues in greater depth. In addition, students were arranged to engage in service sessions in which students could apply what they had learnt in class to support a group of children with LD.
• The first pilot of the service learning subject was conducted within the period from Jan to April 2012, and was completed successfully.
• The project team took an initiative to conduct a second pilot in the summer term (from May to June 2012). This second pilot was completed successfully.

Outcomes of the Pilot Run

• As the subject has also been opening to students from disciplines other than social sciences and rehabilitation sciences, some students found the subject content distal to their experience, and also encounter difficulties in absorbing the knowledge about LD and making active contribution in class. To address this matter, the instructor adjusted the syllabus to cover only those major types of LD that students would encounter in their service and spent more time for detailed illustration and live demonstrations of service skills and practices.
• Moreover, in addition to the use of PowerPoint presentation and readings, instructors showed some locally produced documentary clips about the topics in an attempt to give student a vivid and contextualized introduction of the situations.
• Comparison of the experiences from the second pilot (2-month) with the first pilot (4-month), it seems that deeper conceptual changes might be more easier to be induced with the subject period spread over a longer period of time as in regular 4-month term, which might allow students more time to reflect upon what they have learnt in class and integrate the experiences.

Self Evaluation of the Project

The project team will continue to refine and improve the coordination of service learning sessions in order to facilitate positive changes among both the university students and the service recipients (the LD children). The current operation work well with a class size of around 20 to 25. The project team is prepared to allocate more human resources to accommodate a larger class.