scholarly journals An analytical review on rethinking service-learning as critical transformative paradigm in higher education

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-334
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saeed ◽  
Iqbal Ahmed

In recent times, service-learning has emerged as a popular community-based instructional pedagogy. However, scholars have a sharp contention about the role of service-learning as a community engagement paradigm in higher education. Furthermore, limited studies exist on service-learning as a transformative instructional pedagogy in higher education. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by presenting an analytical review on the potential of service-learning as a transformative pedagogy in higher education. A traditional narrative review method was used to survey on the theme of the study to establish a theoretical framework and draw conclusions. An extensive survey of existing literature was conducted on the role of service-learning as transformative pedagogy in higher education. This research may help answer the following two critical questions: What are internal and external limits to service-learning in higher education? To what extent can service-learning replace the traditional mode of teaching and learning in higher education successfully? The review shows that service-learning is a critical transformative pedagogy that helps achieve the boarder goals of higher education in a more effective way. The review further informs that service-learning is a community engagement approach that can also be used as a teaching method for achieving specific civic and democratic goals of higher education.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Snider Bailey

<?page nr="1"?>Abstract This article investigates the ways in which service-learning manifests within our neoliberal clime, suggesting that service-learning amounts to a foil for neoliberalism, allowing neoliberal political and economic changes while masking their damaging effects. Neoliberalism shifts the relationship between the public and the private, structures higher education, and promotes a façade of community-based university partnerships while facilitating a pervasive regime of control. This article demonstrates that service-learning amounts to an enigma of neoliberalism, making possible the privatization of the public and the individualizing of social problems while masking evidence of market-based societal control. Neoliberal service-learning distances service from teaching and learning, allows market forces to shape university-community partnerships, and privatizes the public through dispossession by accumulation.


2022 ◽  
pp. 902-916
Author(s):  
Ndwakhulu Stephen Tshishonga

This chapter interrogates the notion of community engagement or service learning. The chapter argues that universities pay lip service to community engagement to the detriment of teaching and research functionaries. Most prestige universities operate on the belief that it is only research that matters; hence, research is prioritized. Universities and their staff have adopted an ‘ivory tower' attitude. This modus operandi negates the reality that reliable knowledge could be produced through responsible community engagement and can become the source of empirical data that can be used for teaching and shared through publications. For universities to impact transformational change within and in their surroundings, community engagement should be elevated to equal teaching and learning.


Author(s):  
Amanda L. Vogel ◽  
Sarena D. Seifer

The movement for greater civic engagement in higher education in the United States has taken hold across the core academic missions of teaching, research and service. One manifestation of this movement has been growing participation in service-learning, a teaching method grounded in community-university partnerships in which students provide services that simultaneously address community-identified concerns and meet key learning objectives. In order to assess the benefits of long-term sustained institutional involvement in service-learning, in 2007–2008 we interviewed 23 faculty members, staff and administrators from 16 academic institutions that had participated in a national demonstration program for service-learning, which ended in 1998. We found that 15 of these institutions had sustained service-learning to some degree and 12 had integrated service-learning into the curriculum, with varying degrees of institutional support. Interview participants described five main impacts of their institutions’ sustained participation in service-learning: 1) increased community engagement and community-engaged scholarship, and increased valuation of both, among participating faculty members; 2) greater capacity for community-university partnerships among academic and community partners; 3) improved community-university relations; 4) diffusion of service-learning and/or principles of community-university partnerships to other departments and schools; and 5) recruitment of students seeking community engagement opportunities. This study provides evidence that sustained institutional participation in service-learning can foster an understanding of the scholarly value of community-engaged teaching and research among participating faculty, and increase community-engaged activities at participating academic institutions. These findings suggest that funding agencies, faculty members and academic administrators can use service-learning as a strategy to foster a culture of community engagement in higher education institutions. Keywords Community-university partnerships, service-learning, community engagement, sustainability, impact, higher education


Author(s):  
Ndwakhulu Stephen Tshishonga

This chapter interrogates the notion of community engagement or service learning. The chapter argues that universities pay lip service to community engagement to the detriment of teaching and research functionaries. Most prestige universities operate on the belief that it is only research that matters; hence, research is prioritized. Universities and their staff have adopted an ‘ivory tower' attitude. This modus operandi negates the reality that reliable knowledge could be produced through responsible community engagement and can become the source of empirical data that can be used for teaching and shared through publications. For universities to impact transformational change within and in their surroundings, community engagement should be elevated to equal teaching and learning.


Author(s):  
Rich Janzen ◽  
Sam Reimer ◽  
Mark Chapman ◽  
Joanna Ochocka

  Over recent decades a significant shift has been taking hold on campuses of higher education in Canada and around the world. It is a shift towards community engagement. In this article our focus is on the research aspect of community engagement, and explores how this shift towards community-based research is playing itself out on the faith-based campus. We provide examples of two Canadian faith-based universities (Crandall University and Tyndale University College & Seminary) who were involved in a two-year community-campus research partnership called “The role of churches in immigrant settlement and integration”. Reflecting on this experience we learned that, similar to other institutions of higher education, an intentional shift towards community-based research on the faith-based campus requires attention to both the internal and external drivers that support such a shift. We also learned that faith-based campuses have their own unique ethos and therefore have distinctive drivers that can be leveraged to support such a shift. While our learnings arise out of the experience of two participating universities, their applicability may be of interest to other faith-based campuses in Canada and elsewhere.


Author(s):  
Hans Gustafson

This chapter offers instructors in higher education some basic tools and elements of course design for interreligious encounter in the undergraduate classroom. Aiming at practice over theory, it provides practical suggestions for fostering interreligious understanding from the first day of class through the end of the semester. These suggestions include the use of guest speakers, interdisciplinary case studies, in-class reflections, and interreligious community engagement (i.e., “service learning”), among others. Further, it provides a concise bibliography of basic introductory texts for both students and instructors in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religions and religious pluralisms, and interreligious studies and dialogue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Gabriel Machimana ◽  
Maximus Monaheng Sefotho ◽  
Liesel Ebersöhn

The purpose of this study is to inform global citizenship practice as a higher education agenda by comparing the retrospective experiences of a range of community engagement partners and including often silent voices of non-researcher partners. Higher education–community engagement aims to contribute to social justice as it constructs and transfers new knowledge from the perspectives of a wide range of community engagement partners. This qualitative secondary analysis study was framed theoretically by the transformative–emancipatory paradigm. Existing case data, generated on retrospective experiences of community engagement partners in a long-term community engagement partnership, were conveniently sampled to analyse and compare a range of community engagement experiences ( parents of student clients ( n = 12: females 10, males 2), teachers from the partner rural school ( n = 18: females 12, males 6), student-educational psychology clients ( n = 31: females 14, males 17), Academic Service-Learning ( ASL) students ( n = 20: females 17, males 3) and researchers ( n = 12: females 11, males 1). Following thematic in-case and cross-case analysis, it emerged that all higher education–community engagement partners experienced that socio-economic challenges (defined as rural school adversities, include financial, geographic and social challenges) are addressed when an higher education–community engagement partnership exists, but that particular operational challenges (communication barriers, time constraints, workload and unclear scope, inconsistent feedback, as well as conflicting expectations) hamper higher education–community engagement partnership. A significant insight from this study is that a range of community engagement partners experience similar challenges when a university and rural school partner. All community engagement partners experienced that higher education–community engagement is challenged by the structural disparity between the rural context and operational miscommunication.


Author(s):  
Daniela Janssen ◽  
Christian Tummel ◽  
Anja Richert ◽  
Ingrid Isenhardt

<p class="Abstract"><span lang="EN-US">In light of the increasing technological developments, working life and education is changing and becoming more complex, interconnected and digital. These changed circumstances require new and modified competences of future employees. Education has to respond to the changing requirements in working life. To prepare for this, a technological-oriented teaching and learning process as well as gaining practical experience is crucial for students. In this context, Virtual Reality (VR) technologies provide new opportunities for practical experience in higher education, where they can further intensify the students learning experiences to a more immersive and engaging involvement in the learning process. To evaluate the potential of immersive virtual learning environments (VLE) for higher education and to understand more deeply which kind of experiences students gain while learning in immersive virtual environments (VE) an experimental research study is carried out. The paper describes education in light of industry 4.0 first and gives an overall view of immersive learning and the role of VR Technologies. Then the user study to measure user experience (UX) in immersive VLE is presented. Preliminary results are outlined and discussed with a view of further research.</span></p>


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