CUHK Expo 2019/20

Background:
To investigate whether providing inter-professional elderly service learning activities to university students can improve their geriatric care knowledge and understanding on patients’ needs.

Summary of Work:
This inter-professional education (IPE) project involved 271 CUHK students of different disciplines across Faculty of Medicine, Department of Social Work, and Food and Nutritional Sciences programme. They participated in 78 sessions of community outreach service and reached out to 3723 community-dwelling older patients.

Students were assigned to carry out various duties during outreach service, such as conducting health interview, providing basic health check-up service, and giving health education to the patients.

Summary of Result :
We conducted pre and post project learning outcome evaluation among the students, and we found significant improvements among the students on following areas: understanding in geriatric care (+17.2%, p<0.05); medication safety (+11.3%, p<0.05); elders’ needs (+9.8%, p<0.05); attitude toward interprofessional education (+67%, p<0.05).

All in all the students appreciated this IPE learning experience as they got to serve with students of other disciplines and able to understand the physical and psychosocial needs of the patients through their direct interaction during outreach service.

Discussion & Conclusion:
Patients play an important role in interprofessional service learning. They are helpful for the growth of healthcare students and the development of high quality patient care in the long run.

Take-home Message:
In parallel with providing health service, students can also learn valuable real world experience from patients and peers of other disciplines.

UGEB2296 “Experiencing and Rethinking Science and Technology in Agriculture” is a newly developed experiential learning GE course first launched in the summer semester of 2018/19. After taking this course, students are able to describe and compare the principles and practices of modern agriculture and permaculture, be capable of analyzing a multitude of agricultural ethics, as well as to formulate personal views on how to live more ethically with nature. Students are encouraged to further reflect on the sustainable relationships between humanity, nature, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by the United Nations. This experiential learning course is designed with three parts, namely a pre-trip lecture, an overseas study trip and a post-trip seminar, to address various pedagogical needs. The one-day pre-trip lecture in CUHK provides pre-requisite knowledge on agriculture and permaculture, contemplation of relevant ethical issues, and general pictures of the SDGs. The six-day overseas study trip to Permaculture College Australia provides a precious opportunity for students to take part in diverse farming and permaculture practices with the guidance of Robyn Francis, a master and educator in permaculture. After the trip, students can apply the permaculture principles to re-design the Lake Ad Excellentiam in CUHK into a permaculture farm and present in the post-trip seminar. Selected final papers on the integration of permaculture principles and SDGs are nominated for the presentations at international conferences. This presentation shares the ideas and concerns when designing the experiential learning GE course.

Learning-by-doing is a significant learning approach that allows students to interact with the environment for authentic learning, improves their engagements, and enriches their learning experience. In the summer semester of 2018/19, 20 students from different disciplines had experienced a unique experience to practice permaculture in an overseas study trip in the new GE course UGEB2296 “Experiencing and Rethinking Science and Technology in Agriculture”. The six-day experiential learning trip in Permaculture College Australia had bridged the gap between the knowledge of permaculture ethics and principles and real-life situations and practices. Concepts of permaculture were not only obtained from lectures and interactive discussion but also pursued from the diverse permaculture-related learning activities, such as fertilizing soil, gardening and tree-planting, documentary watching under the star-light, taking care of livestock, visiting neighboring farmlands and local markets. Students’ comments showed that experiential learning could boost up their learning efficacy accompanied by great satisfaction and enjoyment. Besides, the wild-camping experience in winter, such as bucket-showering in chilly nights, sharing of life-stories while stargazing, and performing in a talent show, has strengthened students’ bonding and improved the peer-learning atmosphere. This presentation shares students’ fun learning and living experiences in the trip.

Focusing on the outreach and education programmes of the major performing arts groups in Hong Kong which are directly funded by the HKSAR government, the research will examine the emergent forms of outreach and education programmes as they relate to audience development. While outreach and education has been an indispensable sector of the major performing arts groups, there is very little known about the implementation and impacts of these programmes. This study aims to: (i) understand how the cultural leaders perceive the role of outreach and education in performing arts institutions; (ii) investigate how the outreach and education sector contributes to audience building in performing arts; and (iii) reveal the conditions that support and challenge the development of outreach and education in the major performing arts institutions in Hong Kong.

This study was largely grounded in fieldwork centred around the cultural leaders and practitioners of the major performing arts groups. Interviews with six cultural leaders who are at the top management level, and extensive observations (e.g. workshops and performances) were conducted during the fieldwork. Also, archival research on outreach was conducted and this has brought important insights into the changing ecology of cultural development in Hong Kong.

This project will contribute to understandings of the role and impacts of outreach and education programmes of the major performing arts groups in Hong Kong, particularly in relation to audience development. The findings may also have significant implications for the cultural development and policy-making in performing arts in Hong Kong and beyond.

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