Abstract:

The increasing need for Higher Education institutions to respond to social demands and prepare future professionals to face new challenges, is making them explore alternative ways to link academic training with field practice and service to different communities. Service Learning methodology, which in American universities has been a regular practice for decades, now in Europe is becoming more and more widespread at different levels of education. But how to make the best of these experiences and be able to assess not only knowledge but also competences, attitudes and values involved and developed in students is still a challenge for many institutions. This paper presents the ways and instruments designed to assess a service learning project carried out by undergraduate students from six different programs at the Catholic University of Avila (Spain). The assessment of the project, done and shared by all the participants involved, proved to be highly formative so as to result in the transformation of the community served and the university students who volunteered to work on this pedagogical experience.

Keywords:

Community Service Learning, formative assessment, shared assessment.