Stimulating Student Learning through Community Engagement: Fieldwork Participation as Learning Process

Project Title

Stimulating Student Learning through Community Engagement: Fieldwork Participation as Learning Process

Project Leader

Prof Ngok Ma

School / Dept

SHSS / SOSC

Project Duration

June 2004 - June 2005

Project Description

To encourage students to better understand real-life politics through community engagement, this project prompts them to participate and analyze social situations using the knowledge they have learned. In SOSC200X Parties and Elections in Hong Kong, to be offered in Fall 2004, students will do fieldwork studies of the 2004 Legislative Council Election campaign. They will study the campaign process: observing different candidates’ campaign strategies, reviewing literature, interviewing voters and campaign volunteers, and analyzing the poll results. In this way, they undergo the campaign themselves. They have to write reports on selected topics based on their observations. Results collected in class projects will be uploaded to the website and published in multimedia forms, e.g. VCDs and booklets. Students will be given free copies as a reinforcement to study social issues. The project will be evaluated and the results will be incorporated into similar courses, which comprise fieldwork studies of social phenomena.

Project Outcome

• Fieldwork participation was used as a major venue of learning in course SOSC 200V Parties and Elections in Hong Kong, offered in Fall 2004.  The course received very good student evaluation in the course evaluation (COSSET course evaluation score 87.5, instructor score 91.7) and in the written feedbacks to CELT’s assessment questionnaire and other assessments (e.g., evaluation for the TA).

• Students were asked to present their fieldwork projects in a semester-end workshop in December 2004.  The total of 20 group projects were published in the form of a book named Experiences on the Election (選舉初體驗), which can be purchased in major bookstores in Hong Kong.

• The Web CT for the course collects all the student projects, provides interactive chatrooms, and all the campaign materials of the candidates for the 20043 Legislative Council election.  This Web CT can be readily used by this instructor, other instructors and students in the future.

Status

Completed

Project Documents
(Only accessible by HKUST users)

• Project Plan
• Final Report

Adaptation

Full Project