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Events

11

Aug

How students ‘work-from-home’ in a summer internship “service leadership practicum”, and what we have learnt from it

Staff

Prof. May Wong, Mr. Calvin Lau, Mr. Chad Chan

11 Aug 2021

12:30 pm to 2:00 pm

Abstract

Traditionally, Service-Learning (S-L) has been an in-person experience held in the community to yield the connection with, and reflection on, that community. However, COVID-19 imposed socially distancing measures which necessitate the use of work-from-home (WFH) mode to conduct SL activities. This talk is about our experience of conducting an eight-week summer S-L internship programme called “Service Leadership Practicum” during June to July 2020, and what we have learnt from such experience which may serve as a guidepost for educators and S-L practitioners of higher education sector. Such knowledge on the community partners and student interns would be of great benefit when planning future WFH S-L internship programmes. We will also talk about the advantages and disadvantages of WFH internship, critical factors and practical recommendations for WFH success in terms of student learning outcomes and work outcomes.

Prof. May Wong is an Associate Professor of Management Department, Lingnan University. She has been teaching Service-Learning courses since 2006. She is interested in researching in the development and implementation of online/virtual Service-Learning courses in the higher education sector.

Mr. Calvin Lau was working for Office of Service-Learning of Lingnan University (currently Service-Learning and Leadership Office (SLLO) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University). He has years of experience conducting both academic and business research, on various topics including social psychology, human capitals, market research, scale development, public opinion poll, and service-learning. His current research interests include developing measurement instruments for assessing impacts created by service-learning, faculty engagement in service-learning, e-service-learning and work-from-home.

 

Mr. Chad Chan is a Senior Project Officer in the Office of Service-Learning at Lingnan University. He has managed over 20 service-learning and student development projects and conducted over 20 research studies related to service-learning and community engagement in his work capacity. He started doing service-learning during his undergraduate study and has developed a passion for education, service-learning, and community engagement. His research interests include assessment development and service-learning impacts on students’ learning outcomes, career development, and community.

CoP-SLHE is one of the initiatives of an UGC-funded project, “Cross-institutional Capacity Building for Service-Learning in Hong Kong Higher Education Institutions (Project No.: PolyU4/T&L/16-19)” jointly organised by Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, The Education University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Our goal is to facilitate sharing of experiences among SL practitioners and interested staff from all UGC-funded institutions and to promote collective learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning in Service-Learning.