Español
What is “Service-Learning”?
Service-Learning (SL)
In a few words, service-learning can be defined as a solidarity educational project actively led by students, intentionally integrated with learning content (Tapia, 2000:26-27). It involves projects with the following characteristics:
Service-learning as pedagogy
Community/solidarity service experiences, projects or institutional programs developed by students, and intentionally articulated with learning contents, that can be carried out in educational institutions of all levels and modalities, as well as in social organizations. (PASO JOVEN, 2004; Tapia, 2006).
A teaching-learning methodology that generates meaningful learning, allows problem-based learning, offers concrete solutions and optimizes the development of knowledge, competencies and attitudes by motivating students to investigate and be involved with the social context with a solidarity approach. (PASO JOVEN, 2004; Tapia, 2006).
A philosophy or pedagogy: “Service-learning is a way of thinking about education and teaching (a philosophy) with corresponding teaching tools and strategies (a pedagogy) that requires students to learn and develop through active participation in service activities to achieve objectives defined by community organizations… “(Osman y Petersen, 2013:7).
Why does CLAYSS work to provide services to the educators that teach students to be socially engaged and serve their communities?
Because we understand that we need to know more to transform reality than to pass an exam, and research shows that in schools where service-learning grows, dropout and repetition decrease, and academic results and coexistence improve.
Because we know that Higher Education Institutions that incorporate service-learning practices also generate technological innovations, socially relevant research and train professionals with a better capacity to respond to challenges of the changing reality.
Because we know that by strengthening service-learning experiences we are simultaneously contributing to better education and working for the rights and quality of life of many vulnerable populations.
- The practice of service-learning
- Service-learning as a pedagogical proposal.
- Definitions of Service-Learning.
Service-learning takes place when:
- children apply what they have learned in the classroom to the service of the community, and thus transform reality, and learn things that can not be found in books
- children and youths leave their role as “beneficiaries” to become protagonists when they are no longer regarded as “poor things,” “dangerous,” “superficial,” or “the hope for tomorrow” to be acknowledged as active and creative builders of the present.
- students learn not only to describe social problems but also to think of concrete solutions, to do by doing things that help people with their needs and to be engaged citizens by being engaged.
- Language is learnt by teaching to read and write to others, and literature is promoted through reading sessions in neighbourhoods without libraries. Chemistry is learnt through performing analysis in the school laboratory the quality of the water that neighbours consume. 6th-grade students learn Geography by making three-dimension relief maps for a school of visually impaired students, and 6th-grade blind students make signs in Braille so that the streets of their city are more accessible to everyone. Five-year-old students help plant seedlings from their kindergarten garden in a park, and technical-school workshop students produce wheelchairs or glasses for people with no means or solar panels and hydroelectric turbines to communities without light.
- future teachers leave the safety of model-school classrooms for “the practices”, to make contact with the reality of the children who need it most, providing remedial classes, acting as tutors, and discovering together that everyone can learn, also those rejected by the traditional school.
- medical students leave the teaching hospital to knock on the doors of rural areas to diagnose and treat child malnutrition before it is too late. Students of Architecture and Design go from scale models to the construction of a soup kitchen in a community, or the design students create models of toys that can be produced by the community microenterprise. Agronomy students develop networks of urban gardens for the unemployed, and Veterinary Medicine students advise the smallest and most forgotten farmers. University no longer values academic quality for the kilometres of printed paper of publications for the initiated, but for the impact of what has been learned and researched on real-life problems of the supported community, and for the ability of its graduates to apply their knowledge to the service of the development of their country.
- the solidarity work of the youths or the community organization is also a conscious way of learning and applying things that are best learned by participating, such as how to work in a team, how to obtain and manage resources, how to communicate ideas and ideals, how to influence those who have decision-making power, how to give a loud voice to those who generally do not have it.
- All these examples are real and come from educational institutions as well as organizations that are in contact with CLAYSS, and which CLAYSS accompanies, supports, advises or trains so that they can continue developing their projects.
- An educational methodology that develops significant learning and promotes problem-based learning, to offer specific solutions and optimize the development of knowledge, skills and attitudes. This methodology implies motivating students to explore and get involved in their social context with a solidarity approach.
- A philosophy or pedagogy: “Service-learning is a way of thinking about education and learning (a philosophy) with an accompanying teaching tool or strategy (a pedagogy) that asks students to learn and develop through active participation in service activities to meet defined issues in community organizations” (Osman and Petersen, 2013:7). (CLAYSS, 2015)
Service-learning as a pedagogical proposal means:
- A way to develop a pedagogical connection where both educator and student learn from experience and engage in the transformation of reality at the same time. It involves action and reflection on the practice and the establishment of solidarity bonds that enable to act and learn reciprocally with and from the community.
- Active and meaningful learning focused on the students’ protagonism.
- An idea for active citizenship training that is not limited to the knowledge of rules and values, and the diagnosis of political and socio-economic problems, but advances in the elaboration of proposals and in the active participation in initiatives that include not only reports and claims, but also taking responsibilities and commitments on the provision of constructive alternatives, and working in coordination with the authorities and civil society organizations.
- An innovative approach to the very identity of educational institutions, overcoming the “ivory towers” and the “islands” linked by “bridges” to reality. In this proposal, educational institutions do not “extend” to a supposed “outside,” nor are they transformed into a kind of community centre that tries to meet all the multiple social demands. Instead, they see themselves as part of their territory and community, and are connected as network hubs that work in alliances, establishing bonds of mutual enrichment (Tapia, 2000:141-50). In a traditional educational institution, you learn only in classrooms and laboratories. The service-learning pedagogy acknowledges that you can also learn from and in the community.
- From the epistemological view, it understands knowledge as a social good, and promotes engaged and participatory action research as well as the dialogue between scientific and lay knowledge, and ancestral wisdom (GUNI, 2014).” (Tapia, Bridi, Maidana and Rial, 2015).
Some service-learning definitions:
“Service-learning seeks to engage students in activities that combine both community service and academic learning” (Furco, A. 2002:25).
“Community-learning activities planned by high schools, with the participation of the educational community, serving community demands as well as the learning of the students involved. It is an experience that enables students to apply concepts, procedures and skills from the formal learning approach of the different subjects, in their daily environment” (Chilean Education Ministry, 2006:15).
“In this proposal, solidarity is objective, content and teaching strategy at the same time. The education of solidarity individuals requires coherence between the values held and how we encourage them. (…) Service-learning promotes integral education, through the development of community service with integrated curricular contents, contextualizing academic learning and promoting citizenship education based on solidarity, critical thinking and participation” (Centro del Voluntariado del Uruguay 2007:15-17).
“A solidarity action concerned with the young volunteer training. (…) It is an action and reflection volunteering, a space of socio-political education that contributes to the development of a critical sense, human and social rights awareness, respect for the cultural differences and a solidarity testimony and experience” (Sberga, 2003).
“An educational proposal that combines processes of learning and community service into a single well-integrated project where participants learn while working on the real needs of their environment to improve it” (Service-learning Promotion Centre in Catalonia, 2010).
“Service-learning differs from other forms of community service or voluntary work because the education of students and young people is always its core. Students actively participate in the process of understanding, integrating and applying knowledge from various subject areas as they work to improve their communities” (Berger Kaye, 2010).
“A method under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community; is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program, and with the community; and helps foster civic responsibility; and that is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students or the educational components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled; and provides structured time for the students or participants to reflect on the service experience” (National and Community Service Act, Congress of the United States of America, 1990).
