Abstract

Being highlighted in the CUHK 2025 Strategic Plan, service learning (SL) is a three-win situation for the university, students, and community. SL allows students and teachers to apply their knowledge and skills to meet the community’s needs and gaining further understanding of course content and improvements in the pedagogy design in return. As credit-bearing service learning courses is one of the major foci in the upcoming university policy and will be put into the compulsory undergraduate requirement in the long term, equipping teachers and faculty members with sufficient SL knowledge is of utmost importance in promoting SL as well as putting different enormous ideas of SL into practice. The objectives of the current proposal includes: (1) preparation of a handbook; and (2) an interactive and informative platform about SL. The handbook provides (1a) course design and assessment guidelines, and (1b) safety guidelines for outreach programs. The platform provides (2a) a series of events such as training workshops for teachers to get to know SL, the needs of the community, and (2b) an interactive webpage includes a Q&A session about SL, consultation services for SL course planning, and information of funding opportunities for SL courses. The handbook will be posted on the webpage.