Basil TAN Song Sze* and Sadaf Ansari
Ridge View Residential College
Tan, B. S. S., & Ansari, S. (2024). Enabling Students as Community Change-Makers by Bridging Theory and Practice [Lightning Talk]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-tan-and-ansari
SUB-THEME
Opportunities from Engaging Communities
KEYWORDS
Sustainability, Stewardship, Place-based learning
CATEGORY
Lightning Talk
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
Imagine a society that loved its future so much that it enabled students to create it.
Empowering students as stewards of society and the environment during their time at university is crucial to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as universities have not only the opportunity but also the responsibility towards society to develop solutions for global challenges. Enabling students as future change makers requires learning to shift from knowledge-centric pedagogies that are often split between theory and practice, to integrated formats that offer opportunities for students to translate theory into practice with a visible and meaningful impact. This presentation showcases an exploratory project on how closing the pedagogic gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experience empowered students as community changemakers on the National University of Singapore (NUS) campus.
NUS, like many universities committed to achieving the SDGs, endeavours to promote best practices in institutional performance while developing synergies between education, research, operations, and the commitment to sustainability (NUS Sustainability, 2024). However, key efforts for infrastructure changes are often initiated and implemented by university management and faculty, with limited agency afforded to students. This presentation showcases “Project Revitalise II” at NUS Ridge View Residential College (RVRC), where these traditional methods were flipped with the adoption of a ground-up approach, fueled by student experiences in formal coursework, leadership roles on campus, and critical community stakeholder engagement. The project, co-led by RVRC staff and students, saw the renovation of an outdated 10-year-old student electronic resource room into a customised and multifunctional live-work-play space.
The idea for Project Revitalize II was first formed when students participated in the formal coursework taught as part of RVRC’s curriculum. The module course RVSS1001; Imagining Wakanda: Cities for work, life, and play is anchored around the UN SDG number 11 to “make cities and communities inclusive, resilient and sustainable”. In reading the course, students were encouraged to adopt a critical approach to understanding the challenges in achieving SDG number 11, grounded by their personal lived experience of the spaces they inhabit. The university was introduced as a microcosm of the larger urban community, to foster stewardship responsibility in students.
During coursework, students were offered immersive learning experiences of differing complexities to observe contextual, inclusive, and sustainable solutions for achieving SDG number 11. Throughout the course, data was collected to evaluate if such place-based learning enabled students to successfully bridge theoretical concepts with practical application. One of the key findings of this data was that introducing new concepts by framing them from a relatable perspective for students, in this case by using their personal lived experiences and observations, was impactful for student learning. The course concluded with students synthesising community-centric solutions for a ‘live’ ongoing project on the NUS Campus. An analysis of this completed student work highlighted a strong prevalence of community stewardship themes in the proposed solutions, aligned closely with the course learning outcomes and SDG number 11.
Having read the course, a group of student leaders were inspired and empowered to initiate change within RVRC’s living spaces. Through “Project Revitalize II”, the electronic resource room at the college was identified to need immediate up-gradation to better suit the current needs of students. With the previously completed coursework’s campus development project, there was an existing pool of ideas available, and the student leaders engaged various stakeholders to identify and consolidate the needs of the community. Working in close collaboration with an RVRC faculty member, the college administration, and the housing services team, students supervised the design, costing, and execution of the renovation. Despite being undertaken under strict budget limitations, the project was completed six months early in January 2024. In addition to providing a customised community space for college residents, it directly benefited 144 residents impacted by other ongoing construction on campus.
The completion and long-term impact of this student-led project demonstrate that closing the pedagogic gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experience in coursework can empower students as community change-makers on the campus and beyond.
REFERENCES
National University of Singapore. (n.d). Sustainability at NUS. National University of Singapore. https://sustainability.nus.edu.sg/commitment/