We present a road map for providing course-embedded service-learning team projects as opportunities for undergraduates to practice as service leaders in Asia and beyond. Basic foundations are that projects address authentic problems or needs, partner organization representatives (PORs) indicate availability for ongoing consultation, students receive a complete orientation to service leadership, and project themes align with course curricula. Infrastructure and support involves a bridge of interinstitutional commitment and trust, initial site visits, in-class project consultations, helping teams to form and to elect conveners, providing service leadership reporting templates, and requiring project reports as graded coursework assignments. Potential road blocks include diversion from genuine service needs, POR/data unavailability, free riders, and failure to connect the project to course content. A bridge of student commitment leads to four other ingredients for successful project experiences: a sense of progress toward Downloaded from 2 Journal of Management Education making a difference, constructive student-POR learning relationships, distributed leadership and initiative-taking, and applying course material to gain insight, guide actions, and frame recommendations. Besides attaining course-level goals, desired outcomes are that students and PORs perceive that the project has delivered good service, and that students can explain their practices and development as service leaders. We present three qualitative case illustrations.
Service-learning, where university students are trained to serve or educate the less able for a defined number of voluntary work hours and where the service experience is relevant to the course into which the service is integrated, can be an effective means of community engagement. Many universities in the US have factored in a term for credit-bearing service-learning courses, so that students are oriented to developing a service mentality and nurturing a ‘giving culture’ on campus. In the Asia Pacific region, Lingnan University, with its liberal arts ethos, is the first university in Hong Kong to use service-learning as a vehicle for knowledge transfer between university and community. The first service-learning program was offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences in 2004 as an optional learning experience, and the university is now moving towards making service-learning a graduation requirement that bears academic credits. Service-learning is currently integrated in the majority of disciplines of the university, as part of the undergraduate program. In addition to detailing the history, development and operation of the service-learning program, this article discusses the lessons learned in the institutionalisation of service-learning, as well as the way forward for service-learning in higher education in Hong Kong. Keywords: service-learning, knowledge transfer, whole-person education, experiential education, higher education, campus-community partnerships
This paper examines the role of international service learning (ISL) in facilitating undergraduate students' exploration of their conception of self-the use of specific values and beliefs to define one's role in society and relationships with others. ISL is intentionally structured activities involving students in social services for community members in overseas settings. Existing research underscores the importance of inducting students to other-oriented (showing care and empathy for others) values in facilitating students' self-exploration. In this paper, students' development of other-oriented values in the moral, cultural and leadership domains are considered in the context of ISL experiences. Findings from interviews conducted with 48 Hong Kong students suggest the need for students to exercise critical reflection and perspective taking when engaged in ISL experiences, which facilitated their incorporation of other-oriented values into their conception of self. Implications for service learning practitioners to support students' self-exploration in ISL are proposed.
Projects that challenge students to practice service leadership for civic improvement can address the aim of developing civic-mindedness in undergraduates. We conducted two qualitative studies. First, we investigated the learning experiences of four teams of undergraduate business students, who undertook semester-long course-embedded service-learning projects in partnership with four Hong Kong-based social enterprises. The students described five modes of civic engagement as project purposes, mentioned applying six types of service leadership practice for civic improvement, and described eight types of developmental outcome within the domain of civic-mindedness. Comparisons suggested that besides relational support through training and guidance, empowering infrastructure, opportunities to exercise autonomy, and opportunities to demonstrate competence, three project-related features that varied between projects were important in fostering civic-mindedness. These were direct contact with grassroots-based beneficiaries; the experience of making a tangible difference; and linking the campus with the wider community. A second qualitative study indicated that course-embedded team projects with these features that were undertaken in mixed teams that included freshman and senior year business students fostered civic-mindedness for both categories of student
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