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UGC Funded Project

UGC Funded Project: Transforming internship for transformative learning and reciprocal knowledge transfer between university and workplace

Real world learning provides an important complement to classroom learning. As such, internships provide an opportunity for our students to apply their university education to the complexities of real world problems, issues and challenges in a given organizational context. Yet, how much of our university education is effectively transferred into the workplace and make a difference to organizations facing these challenges?

Just as importantly, how much of the students’ internship experience is brought back into the classroom environment in a structured and systematic way so that this iterative process fosters deeper learning and re-examination of the underlying assumptions that drive our theories, models and teaching methods, and in the process better prepares our students for a complicated world?

This three (3) year Teaching and Learning grant proposal aims to provide the impetus to change the way UGC funded tertiary institutions view student internships by requiring students to document evidence-based examples of specific applications of what they learned at school to Problem-based Learning work-assignments during their internships. This reflective practice is then directly tied back to the classroom environment where such discussions and sharing is assessed as part of the individual student’s subject grade.

This bridging of the “knowing-doing” gap will also engage teachers with a view to “teach for knowledge transfer”. To facilitate the importance of this iterative process in a structured and measurable way, provide students with a framework (called “Staying F.O.C.U.S.E.D.”) developed and successfully tested with students over a seven-year period (by the project leader at PolyU) which has helped students learn better, faster and more than they are currently used to when dealing with complex problems, issues and challenges.

Five UGC funded universities have all agreed to take part with financial backing to this proposed project. We also have the support of Harvard Business School, Northeastern University and the University of Toronto on board to share their international experience with student internships. Using Kurt Lewin’s Model of Change, we plan our three-year project framed around Unfreezing-ChangeRefreezing. Our key stakeholders will be students, teachers, internship coordinators, employers and the institutions that guide them.

Project Leader

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Dr. Robert WRIGHT

Associate Professor & Project Leader

Department of Management & Marketing

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Co-Investigators

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Lucia Fung P.S

Lecturer I, Associate Director, BBA (Hons)

​Department of Management

The Hong Kong Baptist University

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Daphne YIU Wing-yee

Chairperson and Professor

Department of Management

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

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Helen ZHAO Hailin

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Business and Economics

The University of Hong Kong

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Albert, KO

Director of Service Learning

Lingnan University

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Josephine CSETE

Senior Educational Development Officer

Educational Development Centre

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Basak Denizci GUILLET

Associate Professor

School of Hotel and Tourism Managment

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Chung Chak

Director

Quilty Teaching and Learning Unit

Chu Hai College of Higher Education

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Melina LAI

Former Director of CAPS (Retired)

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Susanna LO Y.F

Former Director of

Community Relations (Retired)

The Hong Kong Baptist University

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James POUNDER

​Charmaine CHAN

Former Director of Teaching and Learning Centre (Retired)

Adjunct Professor

  Lingnan University 

Former Head and Assistant Professor (Retired)

Department of Business Administration

Chu Hai College of Higher Education

Overseas Experts

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Prof. Roger L. Martin

Ranked #1 in Thinkers50 (2017)

Emeritus Professor and Institute Director

Rotman School of Management

University of Toronto

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Felix OBERHOLZER-GEE

Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration
Co-Unit Head, Strategy

Harvard Business School

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Ms. Mary M. Kane

Assistant Dean for Employer and External Engagement

D’Amore-McKim School of Business

Northeastern University

Project Staff

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July, Rongjiao ZHU

Senior Project Manager

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Project Associate 

Hong Kong Baptist University

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Kori, Shuning LIU

Project Associate

The University of Hong Kong

Dr. Muhammad Aamir, KHAN

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Cherry CHOI

Project Associate 

Hong Kong Baptist University

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Kubert, Tianhang WANG

Project Assistant

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Bobo, Ho Yan TO

Project Assistant

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Nick TIEN

Project Assistant

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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