WEBINAR #4: Social Responsibility in Teaching and Learning — What Works?
The USRN Webinar Series #4 is a three-week webinar series hosted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Pretoria:
[Week 1] Civic Learning through a Service-Learning Requirement: Does It Work?
| Date: | Monday, 21 March 2022 |
| Time: | 18:00 – 19:00 (Hong Kong SAR time, UTC+8) |
| Venue: | Online via Zoom |
Service-Learning is well-known as an effective pedagogy for nurturing students’ civic awareness and social responsibility, and it is very common to find service-learning programmes in higher education institutions. However, most of these programmes are voluntary. Though they have been found to be impactful on students’ learning, students who participate of their own volition may already be somewhat civically inclined.
Less is known about the impacts of mandatory service-learning. Is it possible to mandate civic awareness and empathy? Will forcing students to serve the community backfire? Or, is civic learning no different from the common language, or mathematics requirement, which ensure that even students who are weak in language or maths achieve a basic level of competency?
In 2012, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University took the bold step in instituting a service-learning requirement for all undergraduate students. Today, ten years later, this programme reaches a total of almost 5,000 students annually. Students learn about a social issue and a potential solution, are prepared with the skills and expertise to execute their service project, spend 40 hours in direct service to the community, and are facilitated to reflect and learn from the experience.
This talk will present the results of two studies on this service-learning requirement: (1) how does such a requirement impact students, in particular, the less-inclined ones; and (2) whether this requirement have a lasting impact after graduation.
[Moderator]
- Prof. Daniel T. L. Shek, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
[Speakers]
- Dr Grace Ngai, Head, Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Dr Stephen C.F. Chan, Consultant and former Head, Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Webinar Recording [Week 1]
[Week 2] Community Engagement Using a Hybrid Approach
| Date: | Monday, 28 March 2022 |
| Time: | 18:00 – 19:00 (Hong Kong SAR time, UTC+8) |
| Venue: | Online via Zoom |
Digital media have increased the resources available to universities to develop and implement innovative university social responsibility (USR) projects using hybrid approaches of engagement. This webinar will focus on the USR projects developed by three different Faculties at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, in order to continue with their USR projects, despite the constraints imposed by the national lockdown conditions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Pretoria Law Clinic will provide a presentation focusing on how the Clinic had been able to continue its community interventions through the creation of unique virtual communication and file management systems (parallel to the High Courts’ virtual “CaseLines” litigation system) and a hybrid infrastructure enabling virtual communication with clients. Department of Social Work & Criminology at the University of Pretoria will discuss the following three projects developed for their final-year students: (a) a video on motor skills exercises for learners, (b) podcasts shared on a virtual platform with older persons who had become increasingly isolated during the lockdown, and (c) a virtual support network for health care workers at a hospital using the WhatsApp platform. The Occupational Therapy Department will provide an input on interprofessional and interdisciplinary work coordination in resource-constrained contexts.
[Moderator]
- Prof. Norman Duncan, Vice-Principal: Academic, University of Pretoria
[Speakers]
- Prof. Antoinette Lombard, Head of Department: Social Work and Criminology, University of Pretoria
- Mr Eddie Hanekom, Director, University of Pretoria Law Clinic
- 4th year social work student (2021)
- Mrs Helga Lister, Lecturer, Department of Occupational therapy, University of Pretoria
Webinar Recording [Week 2]
[Week 3] Service-Learning as a Vehicle for Global Learning and Internationalisation
| Date: | Monday, 4 April 2022 |
| Time: | 18:00 – 19:00 (Hong Kong SAR time, UTC+8) |
| Venue: | Online via Zoom |
Internationalisation and global learning are important learning outcomes in higher education, and an increasing amount of resources are poured into learning programs that facilitate global learning, such as student exchange or study tours.
Service-learning is a well-researched pedagogy that is known to be effective at nurturing students’ civic learning. Considering that many service-learning projects require students to cross socio-economic boundaries, including those of race, ethnicity and/or culture, and some projects even bring students offshore to serve, it makes sense to wonder whether service-learning could also be a vehicle to promote students’ global learning and Internationalisation.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has been running a large offshore service-learning program for several years. Prior to COVID-19, almost 1000 students travelled away from home to serve communities from mainland China to Cambodia to Rwanda. This effort has continued with online international service-learning after COVID-19 put restrictions onto student and teacher mobility programs. Do students learn intercultural competencies and global citizenship through these programmes? What are some of the inherent challenges to teaching and measuring global learning in the context of service-learning? This talk will explore some of these issues and present our experiences and findings.
[Moderator]
- Prof. Daniel T. L. Shek, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
[Speakers]
- Dr Grace Ngai, Head, Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Dr Stephen C.F. Chan, Consultant and former Head, Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Webinar Recording [Week3]
About the USRN Webinar Series:
The USRN Webinar Series provides a virtual platform for member institutions of the University Social Responsibility Network (USRN) and other higher education institutions to share good university social responsibility (USR) practices and impact stories on a regular basis. Through the Webinar Series, the USRN aims to advocate for wider social responsibility in higher education and expand the global USR movement.
Recordings of previous webinar sessions
