Service learning is a teaching method, which combines community service with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility. Service-learning programs involve students in organized community service that addresses local/global needs, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility, and commitment to the community. Here service learning is focused on applied sustainability.
Service learning can be taken from three points of view, which are present on Appropedia:[1]
- As a methodology within a class or learning module where students focus their work on the needs of the community.
- As a pedagogical movement based on student actions in their communities after natural disasters or economic crises.
- As student-led social interventions.
Service learning using Appropedia[edit | edit source]
Your class or your personal research project can be involved with creating new content on Appropedia, on topics, or describing projects you are carrying out. Then, rather than assignments sitting unused on a hard disk, they become part of a structured, useful set of knowledge for humanity, available to all online, distributed through OLPC's XO (a.k.a. the $100 Laptop), as well as through offline distribution. Knowing this motivates students and teachers alike.
Translating content is another form of service learning. A Clarion University student project involved a collaboration between the physics department, which routinely uses sustainable technologies to teach physics, and the department of modern languages and cultures, chaired by Dr. Eleanor ter Horst. Students wrote and translated in the languages they were studying, and were inspired by the experience.
Service learning using Appropedia helps to create an essential knowledge base for the world via learning experiences for individuals and classes.
The Appropedia Foundation and the Appropedia community work with universities via service learning courses, as well as service learning programs to create these opportunities. Appropedia internships also offer opportunities for service learning.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Appropedia:Service learning - Details on Appropedia's service learning programs
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Briede W, J. C., & Mora, M. L. (2016). Diseño y Co-Creación Mediante Aprendizaje y Servicio en Contexto Vulnerable: Análisis de Percepción de la Experiencia. Formación Universitaria, 9(1), 57–70. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-50062016000100007