Abstract

This is a collaborative teaching & learning (T&L) project between two hotel schools based in Hong Kong and U.S. respectively. The project involves two parallel undergraduate courses offered by the two schools in 2020-21. Each course requires students from both universities to form groups and solve business problems for hospitality companies in Boston and Hong Kong. Despite the different tasks, the two course projects follow the same teaching philosophy, i.e., to improve students’ team collaboration, to offer opportunities for students to solve real business problems, and to enhance students’ critical thinking skills (through researching and evaluating theories and industry practices), design thinking skills (through creative problem-solving processes), cross-cultural sensitivity, and teamwork skills. Students are expected to complete the projects by participating in a series of teacher-directed or student-initiated research and discussion activities. A set of videos will be produced to guide the students through the critical and design thinking processes. Multiple assessments will be used to measure students’ learning outcomes. By design, this project aims to expand “conventional” course projects to include real-world problems, cross-cultural learning opportunities, highly engaging and structured problem-solving processes, and use of most up-to-date online team collaboration tools.