SLS-8b1 A Teacher Training Program

e-Learning Course for Teachers

Funding from this Teaching Development Grant was used to develop the “Service-Learning Pedagogy & Practice” e-Learning course fort teachers.  The course consists of the following units:

1. What is Service-Learning
2. Benefits and Challenges of Service-Learning
3. Developing and Sustaining Community Partnership
4. Designing and Implementing Service-Learning
5. Facilitating Reflection
6. Assessing Students in Service-Learning  

There are some contents, such as the basic concepts of SL, that are similar to those in the e-Learning course for students.  But the majority of the content are quite different.  The difference is a little like the difference between a textbook for students and the teachers’ guide for using a textbook.  

Teacher Training Course

The e-Learning course is then used as part of a teacher training course “Service-Learning in Higher Education: Teacher Development Course”.  Details of the course has been discussed in an earlier section (7a) in this book, under the topic of the UGC Teaching Award.  Part of the award money was used to subsidise the operation of the teacher development course.  This way the course can be financially viable while keeping the course fee low.   

The teacher development course was designed to run in face-to-face mode in Hong Kong, with a field experience trip to Cambodia, as was done in summer 2019.  In 2020, however, the social distancing imposed by the coronavirus pandemic made travelling impossible.  Hence the teacher development course was run in online mode, with 22 participants (10 from PolyU, 5 from University of Hong Kong, 4 from Open University of HK, 2 from Baptist University, 1 from Education University).  This kind of teacher training for service-learning is currently in short supply in Asia Pacific.  

e-Learning Course for Teachers (Chinese Version)

The Chinese version of the e-Learning course is being developed with an aim to offer it to secondary school teachers in Hong Kong as part of a campaign to promote service-learning in the secondary school sector.  

With separate funding support being arranged, the e-Learning course will also be offered on other platforms to reach a wider audience in Hong Kong and Mainland China.  Hopefully these effort will go some way towards addressing the severe lack of teaching material in the Chinese language for service-learning.