LiA Review Blog - A Secondary School Sleep Health Programme (Part II)

Unexpected challenges emerge halfway but are successfully overcome with the effort of other student leaders and enthusiastic participants. The inaugural cohort of the programme wrapped up as a great success, which was very impressive for a first iteration of its kind as well.
LiA Review Blog - A Secondary School Sleep Health Programme (Part II)
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Previously in part one of my LiA Review Blog things went generally well – despite some administrative hurdles that I had to go through as the programme's coordinator, and having to look after tens of high school students during their first two weeks at HKU. For first-time readers, this is part two of my Leadership-in-Action (LiA) Review Blog, going through the second half of my LiA project at the HKU Sleep Research Clinic and Laboratory, hosting its first-ever summer research programme for secondary school students ("SRPSSS").

Week 3 (15 Jul - 21 Jul 2024)#

It's time to introduce my colleagues (undergraduate students interning at the lab at the same time) as promised in part one of the blog – this week was also when I reunited with programme leaders who volunteered to help with selected project components. Their contribution was indispensable to the success of this programme which consisted of many unique elements from lectures and workshops to outings and video filming. With students from institutions in the UK and Canada interning at the lab this summer, the diversity in their backgrounds surprised me at first. Guess what – some of them are studying in UCL, Durham, Cambridge UofT, etc, which are all Laidlaw Scholarship-offering institutions. It's a pity that they have not applied for this Scholarship in year one, but now at least they know! As a side note, some of them were aware of the programme back in their schools, further demonstrating the international exposure that the Laidlaw programme brings to us. I am grateful for the support my fellow programme leaders rendered, on top of their busy schedules with the existing internship work they got.

*My trustworthy colleagues (UG programme leaders)

Back to the programme work: after the first two weeks of general research training (and mentor shadowing), as well as lectures/workshops on various fields of sleep and psychological sciences, we went out of the classroom and lab settings. The high school students were tasked with producing Instagram reels for psychoeducation/knowledge exchange initiatives of the lab under our guidance. One team worked on recruiting new research interns while the other went around the campus to conduct street interviews. The “recruitment team" made a lip-dubbing music video (similar to what you often see on TikTok) that highlights the internship work and our polysomnography lab; while the "street interview team" worked on a reels debunking common myths about dreams. Not being an expert in filming reels (I just post pictures sometimes), I just stuck to my administrative role and passed the baton to the social media leaders to guide the process of preparing and filming the video. This clearly shows how sensible and appropriate division of labour could help a team work, and as a leader, it's always important to acknowledge other's expertise and sometimes let the more capable ones do the job that they are more competent in than you are.

Planning the storyboard before filming their reels at HKU

After the filming and editing concluded near the end of the week, we brought the whole cohort to set up booths around the campus and even at external sites to promote awareness and knowledge about sleep and circadian health. This could also further help recruit potentially interested and eligible participants to join the range of research projects that the Sleep Lab has to offer. This was certainly a nice activity and out-of-classroom element to have in the programme, but as expected, outings present too much uncertainty and are prone to cause unexpected scenarios. Initially, the group decided to set up their street booth at a free pedestrian area near the entrance of a popular shopping mall, which was also close to the MTR exits. The ideal assumption was that it would gather a lot of foot traffic and easy to encourage passers-by to stop for a while. However, it turns out that the venue expressively prohibits certain types of promotion activities (and bringing roller banners put us in such exact category), which startled security who then started to kindly ask us leave. Even though our intentions were for a proper education institution (from the HKU) and not obstructing the paths, we had to abide by their rules.

Taking a dozen students out on a raining day is certainly a challenge!

Some were disappointed, some were frustrated. Anger might even be justified given the lack of thorough planning on the adult's side. But we were not there to dwell on mishaps and blame the status quo. We quickly packed and decided to head elsewhere. Despite the weather that day, we ended up finding an even better spot, on the pedestrian bridge connecting Wan Chai station and the HKCEC where the book fair was then being held. That translated into considerable pedestrian traffic and a favourable demographic of majority adolescents (unfortunately for them, it meant buying more supplementary exercise or summer assignments at the book fair...). Ultimately, with the cooperation from our students and the quick response on our end (including the research staff and other programme leaders who were on site), the crisis was averted and we had a great afternoon engaging with the public about our research. Being well-planned is for sure a prerequisite for a successful programme, but having the capacity to take on unanticipated events even better shows how a good team could work together.

Week 4 (22 Jul - 28 Jul 2024)#

After a more exotic third week in the secondary school programme, we went back to some more hands-on research tasks, from data analysis for the various projects to literature reviews with their mentors. Some mentors grouped their mentees to help with filming updated versions of the protocol/instruction videos of DLMO (dim-light melatonin onset) and EEG (electroencephalography) tests for our projects. After the three weeks of training sessions, our high school interns are undoubtedly more capable than when they came in and were tasked with more complex duties. At the same time, the administrative team (i.e. me) and programme leaders (other UG student interns) were also working behind the scenes to prepare for the final Designathon competition, as well as the closing ceremony on Friday. There were various props (e.g. name tags) and pre-event set-up work to settle, meaning time was tight for everyone.

While the high school intern work requires little input on my end (PhD/MPhil mentors are taking good care of them), I spent several fruitful afternoons sharing the office with other UG interns, occasionally asking for their input on the slideshow video I was editing for the final day. That said, this is the first time I am tasked with planning for a closing ceremony entirely from scratch, from inviting guests to preparing the on day setup for the event. There were so many moving parts and variables, meaning that anything could go wrong! Fortunately, with the experience shared and facilitation by my supervisor (Dr Cheung), most logistical planning and preparation work was completed by the end of Wednesday, ready for the Designathon competition (which was the programme finale) to come on Thursday.

Our high school participants working hard for their Designathon deliverables

We welcomed the participants as usual on Thursday morning, briefing them on the competition guidelines and deliverables requirements. The designathon is similar to a hackathon, but instead of proposing business solutions or coding for a UX/UI product, students are required to design an innovative programme within 24 hours. In our version of the designathon, they are tasked with proposing a promotional campaign to promote awareness of sleep and circadian health in the community. On the next day, they had to present their proposals, as well as their leaflet and poster design to an adjudication panel comprising our lab director Prof Shirley Li, who is an expert in adolescent sleep sciences, community mental health researchers and youth representatives. This was part of the lab's existing biweekly meetings so the high school interns have the opportunity to showcase their work to lab members as well.

As I have reasonably prior experience in event management and coordination on-site, this was not too much of a challenge to me. Instead, getting the different elements pieced together before was the challenge, and luckily as said I had the support from my colleagues and supervisor, making the closing ceremony quite smooth that day. Moreover, the videos that I edited (one was a slideshow review for the whole programme; another one was a highlight recap for the Designathon itself) were well received by the audience, including the lab director herself. In all, while the closing ceremony was not a super glamorous production, everything that should have been done was right in place and was as nice as I could ask for. See the embedded iframe at the end for the 3-minute highlight video~ 

*Designathon Presentation cum Closing Ceremony of SRPSSS 2024
and... the programme brochure to make the closing event more authentic~

Honestly, there wasn't much I would say I have "learnt" this week as a leader, as I was mostly applying what skills I have had so far. Instead, I was more grateful than ever to have supportive peers who ultimately yielded a successful closing of the programme.

Week 5 (29 Jul - 4 Aug 2024)#

Following the uneventful closing ceremony at the end of Week 5 (which also marked the end of the programme for our participants, but not yet for me), we tidied up the programme materials and headed onto the actual "final boss" behind the scenes. One may wonder why pre-post survey data was collected from the participants on the first and last day of the programme – this summer programme embedded a research (evaluation study) element and we have to analyse the data. There was also a group evaluation after the event concluded to provide a basis for qualitative analyses. It might be a tedious process to clean and organise all the data from various channels, including the pre-post Qualtrics survey, written programme evaluation questionnaire and focus group transcripts – but certainly worth it as I could have a better understanding of their thoughts.

*Programme Director, UG Programme Leaders and Adjudicators all in a picture!

While compiling the summarised findings with fellow programme leaders at the lab office , I did notice quite a number of compliments and 'thank you' messages at the comment box. I am certainly happy to see that students were grateful for our effort to curate this programme for them, especially knowing that's the first time we are having such an event for secondary school students. However, what's more important is the honest feedback they mentioned regarding the activity content or programme logistics. Even though some of those might be harsh, or make me feel that they have failed to appreciate our intention, it's worth remembering that the courage to voice out is commendable. Likewise, I could also remain open to their suggestions and think in their shoes – perhaps the academic perspective from someone in a university might not suit secondary school students that much. Being able to think beyond our viewpoint is important as a great collaborator within a team, even more so when being a leader. Looking back on leading the implementation component of this project, there were definitely times when I could have been more open-minded or at least, rethought the situation from another perspective.

Closing this (nominal) project period on a Friday evening was a meeting with my supervisor and other key programme team members. We decided to work on a evaluation study that shall ultimately lead to writing up a paper for publication. But that shall be the next chapter. It has been an awesome journey with Sleep Lab since my internship during semester time, now even extending into this meaningful six-week LiA project to grow my leadership and organising skills. I look forward to summing up the whole experience in the final report and exploring deeper into the programme evaluation in the coming weeks as well!

==

Photo courtesy of Dr Forrest Cheung and Sleep Lab team members (see asterisks marked in captions)

#Note: The nominal project period runs from 24 June to 8 Aug for six weeks. As the induction day (in w/c 1 Jul) for programme high school participants is denoted as in week 1, the actual first week of the nominal project period becomes week 0. As noted in Part 1 of my LiA review blog and the project online, project-related work would have commenced before the nominal period (which covers the four-week programme itself). Weeks 0 to 5 in this (and subsequent) blogs or reviews, hence, correspond to other scholar's weeks 1-6.

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