Virtual Service-Learning
Introduction
To promote the integration of virtual teaching and learning (VTL) methods in service-learning (SL), CISL partnered with the Society for Innovation and Technology in Social Work (SITSW) in a collaborative project to devise, deliver, and evaluate the adoption of new tech in six VTL-SL courses. The Project took place from Aug 2021 to June 2023. By integrating VTL methods and tools in SL courses, we were able to serve communities during the pandemic, as well as to upskill and update SL pedagogy to advance with the times.
The Project entailed:
- working with instructors and community partners to identify concrete ways to integrate new tech in SL courses;
- working with instructors and community partners to deliver VTL-SL courses;
- training instructors, community partners, and students through workshops;
- evaluating VTL-SL courses’ outcomes and impacts;
- consolidating experiences and sharing good practices, lessons learned, and emergent VTL-SL strategies with academic peers and community partners
Workshops for Course Instructors
The project adopted a train-the-trainer approach. CISL and SITSW worked with SL instructors and community partners to either build new VTL-SL courses or to transform existing SL courses into VTL-SL courses. The project aimed to transfer VTL knowledge and skills to SL instructors, students, and community partners involved in the VTL-SL courses through training workshops and support in adopting VTL-SL tools and tactics in delivering SL courses and services.
Offering Terms
AY2021-2022: 4 courses
AY2022-2023 Semester One: 2 courses
AY2022-2023 Semester Two: celebration and finale
Our Collaborations
CMED3058/CMED3068
Chinese Medicine: Orthopaedics & Traumatology of Chinese Medicine & Tui Na I
Course Instructor | Mr Cheung Chun Hoi
Collaborating with Community Rehabilitation Network of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation, the course arranged students to provide services online to the people in need in the community. Students met their service users in groups, which were elderly and patients suffering from various discomfort and illnesses such as sarcopenia and spinocerebellar atrophy. While the students provided acupuncture treatment for our service users, they also produced videos that guided the patients on how to locate different acupressure points and demonstrate different home exercises for pain relief.
Check out the Students' Deliverables:
ORGC2025/PRAD2037
Interpersonal Communication
Course Instructor | Dr Henry Fung
In this course, each HKBU student was paired up with an underprivileged secondary student who was going to take the DSE exam to give valuable advice, arrange workshops, and prepared a virtual mock interview for them. The finale was a “real” online group interview session hosted by university staff members. Towards the end of the project, our students also wrote Christmas cards together with a care pack filled with stationary, masks, and candies to the secondary school students.
GFVM1036
Happiness: East and West
Course Instructor | Dr Lee Siu Fan
In With the support of our community partner, People Service Centre, students were connected with groups of underprivileged families. After a couple of virtual meetings and workshops, in which students played games and even sang songs with the kids, everyone simply bonded together. The parents also shared a lot of amusing and touching family stories with the students, filling the sessions with laughter and even tears. During the final presentations, students shared the videos they made for the kids as their memorable keepsakes.
Check out the Students' Deliverables:
TRAN4047
Translation Workshop
Course Instructor | Dr Janice Pan
The course provided a chance for students to collaborate with Hong Kong Neurofibromatosis Association to produce brochures about NF1 and NF2 in Chinese for the public. Students had a challenging time to go through all the technical and medical jargons, but they all reflected that they were very happy with the experience as they could help the general public to understand more and arouse their attention about rare diseases in the local language given most information was only available in English.
Contact Us
To know more about the VTL-SL Project, you can reach us at 3411-2472 / cisl@hkbu.edu.hk
Integrating Service-Learning and Virtual Teaching and Learning Technologies: A Collaborative Project with Teachers and Community Partners (or the “VTL-SL Project” for short) was a funded by the Special UGC Grant for Strategic Development of Virtual Teaching and Learning (VTL).