SLS-4b2 Explosion - Large SL Classes with diverse challenges

An important strategy developed to deal with the large demand for student places is the development of large classes. The initial projection was for small SL classes with a maximum of 40 students each, because of the need for personal support and guidance on community service projects.  It was gradually realised that larger capacity can be achieved by engaging and training suitable teaching assistants to assist the subject lecturer in supervising the students.  With this arrangement, a subject can take in 100 students or more, who will then be divided into smaller groups to carry out the service projects.  With this method, the average size of a SL subject can be increased to around 70, reducing the number of distinct subjects needed.  Some departments would hire and train their own assistants.  Others seek the help of OSL, who can provide their staff to work alongside the subject teachers as assistants, at least in the early stages in developing a large scale SL subject. 

Large classes are more efficient in the sense of providing a large number of students with similar learning experiences in service-learning.  For example, the same type of project  can be assigned to multiple teams of students, each serving a different group of clients.  However, there are also inherent risks to guard against.  There is the tendency to assign pre-designed, unchallenging tasks, year after year.  It saves the effort in designing the projects, standardizes assessment, and makes it easy to support and monitor the students.  On the other hand, of course, it is not challenging to the students, and produces less desired learning outcomes.  We have found that, fortunately, it is possible to specify a common project framework for multiple project teams, and still allow sufficient room for student initiatives to make the projects challenging, impactful and rewarding.  

Some subjects would divide the class into teams that serve at different sites.  For example, a Biomedical Engineering subject runs STEM projects for under-resourced schools.  They have multiple student teams serving multiple schools with similar projects.  At the end of the project they bring all the school kids together for a competition.  It is a lot of fun and also creates a lot of opportunities for the different schools to mingle. It is a big endeavour, accommodates a lot of our students and is very rewarding.  

Some would take their different teams to different cities or countries.  One English-teaching subject sends its teams to teach in under-resourced schools in Mainland China, Taiwan and Cambodia.  The teaching contents are similar but the target clients are very different in terms of culture, language, education system, degree of poverty, …  The students have to be trained in different ways.  The students, in turn, have to come up with different materials, teaching plans, …  For the teaching team, it is not that much different from teaching multiple smaller subjects.  In fact, the professor often have to organise different teaching teams to teach the different teams of students serving in different countries.  It is a big challenge.  But the teaching team is rewarded by the visible impact on our students and the community.  Nevertheless, some big subjects often need the support from OSL to make connections, organise the trips, and sometimes in training and supervising the students on site.  

The toughest challenge is when different projects have to be run in different countries.  For example, the Computing team have sent separate teams to Cambodia, Myanmar and Rwanda. The Cambodia team set up community learning centres, out of converted cargo containers, in villages in the countryside where there is often no running water nor electricity. The Myanmar team run STEM workshops in school and also install solar panels to generate electricity in rural villages.  The Rwanda team install solar panels to generate electricity for hundreds of households in villages on steep slopes in remote mountains.  Each team is in a different culture, language, political, economic and geographical environment.  Each project is different.  It really is 3 different subjects although formally it is recognised as only one.  This is no doubt one of the most challenging setups that we have even seen.  But also one of the most rewarding precisely because of the challenge, the desperate need and the consequent impact.