(AACS 2010)

The Feasibility of Building

Service-Learning Experience into Higher Education Curriculum in China

Ping Zhang

School of Foreign Language Studies

Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University, China

Phylis Lan Lin

Asian Programs

University of Indianapolis, USA

Abstract

Service-learning is an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates volunteer community service and active reflection with academic work. Curriculum development is an important component in America’s higher education. Despite the fact that service-learning has been widely practiced in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many other countries across the world, it is a relatively new concept in mainland China and thus deserves greater attention and serious research from educators. This chapter explores the feasibility of incorporating America’s advanced service-learning pedagogy and successful curriculum practice into the context of China’s higher education reform. It presents some approaches that universities in China can take in promoting the service-learning practice in the process of teaching reform that greatly emphasizes the cultivation of students’ practical and innovative abilities. Some challenges to higher education practitioners are also explored.

Key Words: feasibility, service-learning, curriculum, higher education reform, China

Introduction

W

ith Dewey’s (2002) experiential learning as its theoretical basis, service-learning has developed into an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates volunteer community service and active reflection with academic coursework. Ithas become an important and indispensable part of the higher education curriculum in the United States and many other countries around the world (Bellner & Pomery, 2005; Colburn & Newmark, 2007; Moore & Lin, 2009). Service-learning has been widely recognized and actively promoted in Hong Kong and Taiwan but is a relatively new concept in mainland China, and not much research has been done into it, especially in terms of the possibility of building service-learning into the higher education curriculum in China. This chapter attempts to explore the feasibility of incorporating America’s advanced service-learning pedagogy and successful curriculum practice into the context of China’s ongoing higher education reform. It discusses some possible approaches that China’s colleges and universities can take to pioneer the service-learning practice in the process of establishing a practical teaching system and cultivating students’ overall practical and innovative abilities. Some challenges to practitioners in higher education are also discussed.

Service-Learning in the United States

In the United States, service-learning has grown rapidly and dynamically at all levels as a result of America’s historical traditions, federal legislations, and evidence of positive outcomes. Historically, such great people as founding father Benjamin Franklin and philosopher John Dewey have had strong influences on education that have focused on civic duty, virtue, and the improvement of human conditions (Langworthy, 2007). Federal legislations like the National and Community Service Act of 1990 andthe National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 and subsequent documents have provided legal and financial support to the development of service-learning. The positive outcomes of service-learning are summarized in the findings of service-learning research in higher education from 1993 through 2000. The findings show that service-learning has a positive effect on students’ personal development in terms of their sense of personal efficacy, personal identity, spiritual growth, and moral development. It has a positive effect on interpersonal development and students’ abilities to work well with others to develop leadership and communication skills. It also has a positive effect on students’ senses of social responsibility and citizenship skills and on their commitments to service. Service-learning has also been found to have a positive impact on students' academic learning and career development. It improves students' abilities to apply what they have learned in the real world (Eyler, Giles, Stenson, & Gray, 2001).

The popularity of service-learning programs in the United States is reflected in the annual surveys done by Campus Compact. The 2006 service statistics from Campus Compact (2007) indicated that 32% of students at member institutions were involved in service and that 91% of member institutions offered discipline-based service-learning courses.

Service-Learning in the Chinese Context

Service-learning programs have been developing rapidly in Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years. In 2000, community service became one of the five essential learning experiences in the school curriculum in Hong Kong (UIC, 2008).Statistics for the school year from the Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) show that 87 schools had service-learning classes in 2006. There were 1,373 teachers involved in the programs, and 62,212 college students attended the classes, on which each student spent an average of 1.3 hours a week (MOE, 2009). The MOE in Taiwan will see the service-learning program results as one of the indexes used to evaluate school performances and to grant subsidies (MOE, 2009). Lingnan University and Tunghai University are the first institutions of higher learning to offer service-learning programs in Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively, followed by a large number of universities and colleges establishing service-learning programs and incorporating community service into their curricula. In fact, the co-author, Lin, who graduated from Tunghai University in 1966, was engaged in service-learning projects during her undergraduate study at Tunghai.

In mainland China, in contrast with Hong Kong, service-learning is at its beginning stage. Research relating to service-learning done by some Chinese researchers and educators focused mostly on the discussion of the definition, history, theoretical basis, characteristics, and positive effects of service-learning in the United States as well as its implications and inspirations on China’s civic and moral education (Shan, 2004; Zhang, 2007; Zhao & Zou, 2001; Zhou, 2004), and few touched upon the incorporation of service-learning into the higher education curriculum in China. In practice, Yunnan University, Tsinghua University, and Shantou University are among the first institutions of higher learning to have implemented pilot service-learning programs and projects in China. For example, Project Blessing and Loving Initiatives through Servicing and Support (BLISS), a co-curriculum service-learning project jointly organized by the University of Hong Kong and Shantou University, is aimed at bringing the participants, with these exceptional learning opportunities through the service-learning project, for the population in poverty and disability in the villages of the Shantou area. In 2009, more than 40 students participated in the week-long BLISS project (HKU, 2007). With support from the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, faculty in Yunnan University’s social work department have developed a curriculum that engages social work students in community-based learning projects that meet the growing needs of the local communities while providing high-quality field experiences for both students and faculty (United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, 2007). The initial service-learning practices in mainland China seem to have produced quite positive outcomes. They mainly fall into one of the following categories: (1) church and non-governmental organization related activities (e.g. Amity); (2) international collaborations (e.g. Wang Foundation); and (3) short-term or summer volunteer programs (e.g. poverty relief programs, disaster relief programs, and English skill enhancement programs).

Most of these projects and programs, however,are one-time, small-scaled and short-term based; and many of them lack systematic designing and active reflection. Moreover, the link between university and community is often not well established. Being a relatively new concept in China, can service-learning be widely developed and implemented in China in order to bring about more positive outcomes and benefit China’s higher education reform?

Higher Education Reform in China

The Chinese government attaches great importance to the reform and development of education and implements the strategies of “Rejuvenating China through Science and Education” and “Developing China through Talents” with a view to developing an overall well-off society. The reform and open-door policy in 1978 brought valuable historic opportunities to the educational reform and development. Since then, higher education has undergone tremendous development, including a transition from elite education to mass education. When Deng Xiaoping reinstated the national entrance examination in 1977, about 5.7million Chinese competed for the 270,000 university study opportunities because universities had virtually zeroenrollment during thedevastating period of Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 (Brandenburg & Zhu, 2007). Since 1999, when China began todramatically expand its college admission system, an incredibly large number of students have gained access to college. In 2008, the Ministry of Education announced that a record 10.5 million people hadapplied for the national entrance examination and about 5.99 million entered college (admission rate of approximately 57%.) This number of college entrants is 5.5 times that of 1998 (People’s Daily Online, 2004). As a result, China’s scale of higher education surpassed that of the United States and became number one in the world (People’s Daily Online, 2004).

The Chinese government promotes educational reform in all aspects, including furthering competency-based education to take the place of the old test-based education and emphasizing the whole-person development of the students. In 2003, the Ministry of Education initiated the “Higher Education Institution Teaching Quality and Teaching Reform Project.” From then on, the strategic priority of higher education reform has been shifted to the improvement of education quality and efficiency, which marks a new phase of higher education development. More and more higher education institutions in China are trying every possible means to reform their teaching systems, taking into consideration their own objectives and characteristics, in the hope of cultivating talents who can meet the ever-growing demands of the changing society and economy.Centering on quality, teaching reform is deepened in both methodology and content. Teaching methodology is undergoing a transition from the traditional teacher-centered approach to a student-oriented one. The incorporation of practical content into teaching is also greatly emphasized and encouraged in the higher education curriculum. Moreover, an increasing number of student practice bases are being established both on and off campus.

In addition to the admission-expansion policy, such factors as the structural transformation of higher education, the merger of universities, globalization, and social and economic reform have all contributed to the complexity of China’s ongoing higher education reform and presented unprecedented challenges. Among many challenges, teaching quality and the employment of university graduates are two key issues prompting public concern. With the rapid growth in the number of colleges, universities and students, such problems as lack of qualified teaching faculty and facilities as well as high unemployment rate of university graduates have become more prominent.

Voluntary Service, Community Service, and Social Practice in China

Although the concept of service-learning is new to most Chinese universities, traditions of voluntary service, community service, and social practice do exist among universities in China. In 1989, the Community Volunteers’ Association was founded as the first volunteers’ organization in China. In 1994, the China Youth Volunteers Association was established under the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League to promote the development of the cause of youth volunteer services. Since then, a network of voluntary service organizations at the provincial, municipal, and county levels were basically formed. According to preliminary statistics, as of December 12, 2007, more than 268 million youth volunteers throughout the country were providing over 6,100 million hours of voluntary service for society in areas such as poverty relief through development, community building, environmental protection, large-scale activities, emergency relief, and overseas services; and the number of formally registered volunteers totaled more than 25.11 million (China Net, 2008). Volunteer service saw its vigorous development in 2008 when 1.7 million people volunteered their service at the Beijing Olympics (The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, 2008). Hundreds and thousands of college students are spending their summer vacations doing all sorts of community-service work in rural and poverty-stricken areas. The co-author, Lin, is an advisor for such an organization and has advised a group of students in Shanghai to engage in a service-learning project (mobile library). Although there are more and more Chinese students who have developed profound interest in community service projects, the service-learning concept and spirit have not rooted in the minds of the vast majority of students in China.

The traditional term for community service work and service work outside the classroom in China is “social practice.” The concept can be equated to civic engagement as we understand it in America. Social practice, started in the early 1980s in China, is an important component of China’s higher education and a link between society and the classroom. It may take the form of professional practice, graduation practice, social survey, social service, or voluntary labor. In response to the government’s call for social practice, universities and colleges launch all kinds of social-practice projects and activities at different scales, mostly during summer and winter vacations. Some universities attach great importance to the implementation of social practice by allocating special funds, setting up social practice bases, incorporating social practice into their teaching systems, and assigning credits accordingly. Others pay little attention to the implementation of social practice, ignoring its practical functions.

Unlike the service-learning programs in the United States, voluntary service and social practice in China, to a large extent, only serve as add-ons to the college curriculum.Various problems arise in the course of development, and the effects achieved are far from satisfactory. In some universities, social practice and volunteer service are just a formality and their important functions have yet to be understood by the students. At a time when education is undergoing fundamental changes and students’ practical abilities are more and more emphasized, service-learning seems to be a better approach that closely links community and university; therefore, the issues challenging the Chinese government and educators who advocate service-learning include curriculum development, assessment, community linkage, and the fundamental questions that have been spelled out in the recent International Symposium Proceedings (Lin, 2009). Issues such as “Is service-learning a social movement or a social reform in higher education?”, “How can we get students to engage enthusiastically in service-learning projects?”, and “How do institutions offering service-learning opportunities and student volunteers work effectively together?” are some of the fundamental questions that Chinese educational authorities need to address before they can make strategic plans for creating and implementing service-learning curricula in Chinese higher education system.

Feasibility of Building Service-Learning into Higher Education Curriculum in China

Types of Service-Learning Programs. The advanced service-learning pedagogy and successful curriculum practices in countries like the United States hold a lot of implications and inspiration for China. Service-learning proves to be a practical and effective way to combine classroom learning with community service. It helps to develop an educational mode that puts an equal emphasis on both learning and service. It advocates “learning by doing.” By involving students in a service-learning experience, the university is developing students’ social responsibility and preparing students to be more adept at contributing to society via civic engagement (McAndrew, 2001). It is obvious that service-learning has great potential to advance many of the goals of the ongoing educational reform in China. As an alternative educational approach, service-learning can be adapted according to the Chinese context to help further the reform.

Although service-learning pedagogy inspires the reform in many aspects, the specifics of its incorporation and implementation in the Chinese context need to be carefully explored. In some universities in Taiwan, two types of service-learning are successfully implemented: project-based service-learning and course-based service-learning. These two types of service-learning, together with community-based service-learning, can be adopted by universities in China (Moore & Lin, 2009).

As far as project-based service-learning is concerned, the projects have to go through five stages before they are implemented. These five stages include preparation, action, reflection, demonstration/celebration, and performance assessment (CES Northwest Service Learning Exchange, 2009). The key lies in the careful designing of the projects to produce expected outcomes. Social practice or summer programs that prevail in Chinese universities can be redesigned or modified based on the five stages. Teachers play a key role in the redesigning or modifications of the programs in order to bring about the desired learning outcomes. By involving themselves in real projects that benefit communities, students may become more active and motivated. The real projects allow students to develop their interpersonal skills, real-world skills as well as their ability to address social concerns and community needs. In fact, many social practice or summer programs can be developed into service-learning projects, with equal stress on service and learning. Reflection and assessment contents, which used to be either missing or neglected in the summer programs, should be phased in. Assessment methods may include a proposal for the project, a reflective report, and the assessment of students’participation and application of problem-solving skills and teamwork skills.

As far as course-based service-learning is concerned, those courses requiring the introduction of a significant proportion of practical content can be modified first to incorporate service-learning into the curriculum. Again, these courses have to follow the five steps and require careful designing to ensure positive results. Take, for example, the curriculum reform at Ningbo Institute of Technology (NIT), Zhejiang University. Striving to be a high-quality local institute cultivating “practical, inter-disciplinary and foreign-oriented” innovative talents, NIT prioritize its teaching reform, especially its curriculum reform. It plans to build a practical teaching framework within which a significant amount of practical teaching contents are to be incorporated into the curriculum, and each major has the autonomy to restructure and integrate its courses according to the specific situations of its respective majors and the demands of the local market.