The implementation of service learning in civic engagement: A middle school interdisciplinary course project

Start Date

26-3-2021 2:40 PM

End Date

26-3-2021 2:50 PM

Description

As one of the new education innovations, service-learning is a bridge that connects students with community needs in real world while achieving both academic goals and personal inner development. However, there is very few systematic service learning courses and existing research towards to middle school students in mainland China. With this significant concern, this study aims to implement a systematic service learning course project middle school students in Shenzhen and measure the students’ development on civic engagement. Based on service learning pedagogy, the course focuses on research-based method that encourages students to propose their findings and suggestions to local government in Shenzhen. Shenzhen was the first Mainland city applied child-friendly city in United Nations Children's Fund. This course will start with designing an interdisciplinary term service course project for a middle school’s students. This course includes twenty-one hours lecturing and counseling on six different academic domains; social science, data analysis, professional writing, public speaking, urban planning, art design. Eventually, students will write their policy proposals to the local government on childfriendly community and present their research results in public. This research will use a mixed method. For the qualitative part, researchers will collect students’ reflections in journals and discussed with them once a week. In the end of this project, students will report their final reflection about this service learning experience on civic Responsibility. For the quantitative part, participants will complete questionnaires on civic responsibility before and after this course.

Recommended Citation

Xiao, S. (2021, March). The implementation of service learning in civic engagement: A middle school interdisciplinary course project. Presented at the Postgraduate Conference on Interdisciplinary Learning: Re-Imagining Postgraduate Studies in the 21st Century and Beyond. Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

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Mar 26th, 2:40 PM Mar 26th, 2:50 PM

The implementation of service learning in civic engagement: A middle school interdisciplinary course project

As one of the new education innovations, service-learning is a bridge that connects students with community needs in real world while achieving both academic goals and personal inner development. However, there is very few systematic service learning courses and existing research towards to middle school students in mainland China. With this significant concern, this study aims to implement a systematic service learning course project middle school students in Shenzhen and measure the students’ development on civic engagement. Based on service learning pedagogy, the course focuses on research-based method that encourages students to propose their findings and suggestions to local government in Shenzhen. Shenzhen was the first Mainland city applied child-friendly city in United Nations Children's Fund. This course will start with designing an interdisciplinary term service course project for a middle school’s students. This course includes twenty-one hours lecturing and counseling on six different academic domains; social science, data analysis, professional writing, public speaking, urban planning, art design. Eventually, students will write their policy proposals to the local government on childfriendly community and present their research results in public. This research will use a mixed method. For the qualitative part, researchers will collect students’ reflections in journals and discussed with them once a week. In the end of this project, students will report their final reflection about this service learning experience on civic Responsibility. For the quantitative part, participants will complete questionnaires on civic responsibility before and after this course.