Description

Another workshop series were held in May by Dr. Barbara Jacoby. Dr. Jacoby facilitates initiatives involving academic partnerships, SL and civic engagement and launched community service-learning at the University of Maryland since 1992. About 144 academic staff, practitioners and NGO partners from local, Vietnam and Myanmar attended the workshops.

Impact

Workshop 1: Assessing Student Learning in Service-Learning

This thematic workshop received very positive feedback (Appendix D) as over 95% of the respondents (n=53) agreed or strongly agreed that their learning experience and usefulness of the workshop were very fruitful. The mean scores of the overall rating on the learning experience and usefulness of the workshop for their practice were 4.45 and 4.49 respectively.

The workshop encouraged an evidence-based teaching pedagogy in the SL (Objective ii) and improved the self-adequacy and preparedness of staff in assessing SL courses (Objective iii). 94% of respondents (n=53) agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop enabled them understanding the dimensions of student learning in SL (mean score= 4.38). 94% agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop helped them identifying informal and formal approaches to assessing student outcomes in SL (mean score=4.40). 80% agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop enabled them developing an assessment plan for assessing student learning in SL (mean score=4.02).

Workshop 2: Publishing Papers on Service-Learning

As shown in Appendix E, 100% of the respondents (n=35) indicated that the workshop was a very good learning experience (mean score=4.60) and 97% stated that the workshop was very useful to their practice (mean score=4.57).

The workshop stimulated and encouraged a scholarly/evidence-based teaching pedagogy in SL (Objective ii). 97% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they learned the different publication outlets for publishing SL related papers (mean score=4.60); 94% learned the different types of SL papers that are published (mean score=4.49); 94% understood the reasons that papers are rejected by reviewers (mean score=4.46); 92% examined issues and barriers in publishing papers on SL (mean score=4.31).

Workshop 3: Taking Service-Learning to the Next Level

This workshop was delivered by another well-known overseas speaker, Dr. Barbara Jacoby. She shared many good practices and experiences in U.S (Objective i). As shown in Appendix F, the mean scores of the overall rating on the learning experience and usefulness of the workshop for their practice were 3.97 and 4.18 respectively (n=39).

The workshop provided knowledge on designing, running and assessing SL courses (Objective iii). 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Workshop 3 has enabled them to distinguish between SL and other forms of teaching and learning (mean score=4.13); 95% agreed or strongly agreed that they understood the role of reflection in SL subjects (mean score=4.26); 85% agreed or strongly agreed that it was important to develop reciprocal relationships with the community (mean score=4.03)

84% agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop enabled them to compose a high-quality SL syllabus and the mean score was 3.90 (Objective ii).

Workshop 4: Designing, Facilitating and Assessing Critical Reflection

The workshop 4 also has excellent feedback from the attendees. As shown in Appendix G, around 90% of the respondents (n=41) stated that the workshop was a good learning experience and very useful for their practice and the mean scores of the learning experience and usefulness were 4.17 and 4.27 respectively (Objective i).

93% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Workshop 4 enabled them how to differentiate critical reflection (mean score=4.24) and 95% agreed or strongly agreed that they could identify the different forms of critical reflection after the workshop (mean score=4.41) (Objective iii).

88% agreed or strongly agreed that they knew the steps of integrating critical reflection into SL (mean score=4.17) (Objective ii).

Workshop 5: Evaluating your SL Courses and Programmes: Methods and Instruments

As shown in Appendix H, the mean scores of the overall rating on the learning experience and usefulness of the workshop for their practice were 4.16 and 4.27 respectively (n=37).

All 100% respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Workshop 5 enabled them to understand the forms of assessment and evaluation of SL (mean score=4.27) and 86% stated that they learned the appropriate approaches and methods to assess student learning through SL (mean score=4.19) (Objective ii).

84% agreed or strongly agreed that they learned the appropriate approaches and methods to assess SL reflection (mean score=4.03) and 89% agreed or strongly agreed that they learned the appropriate approaches and methods to assess SL from the community perspective (mean score=4.08) (Objective iii).