Abstract:

Service learning aims to open up the education and science system to society, whereby learners should apply their knowledge and competences to concrete social issues and problems and continuously review them through reflection [2]. Through their concrete social engagement, on the one hand, experience-based knowledge is to be generated and competences specific to the professional field are to be built up (learning) and, on the other hand, a contribution is to be made to improving social tasks and problems (service). These service learning projects at universities require, among other things, cooperation between universities and practice partners, the facilitation of collaborative teaching-learning processes as well as technical, organisational and didactic support for the actors. The aim of the project is to develop a Digital Service Learning Lab in the form of a digital teaching-learning environment for developing students' competences through service learning projects.

With regard to technical and methodological skills, service learning is to be located at the interface of academic training and the development of occupational field-specific action and design skills. Against the backdrop of concrete problems of an open civil society, the students' self-efficacy and problem-solving skills are particularly focused on. Through meta-cognitively based educational work, the learning process is related to the processing of complex, socially relevant tasks, such as those that exist in many cases in Germany, for example, in the area of regional mass and elite sports as well as non-profit nature conservation, social welfare, cultural promotion and children's aid organisations [1]. Firstly, this makes it possible to link the development of students' competencies in specific professional fields more closely with civil society dimensions and their value references. Secondly, a changed characteristic structure of learning arrangements and learning services enables students to develop their action and design competences to a greater extent than before. Fourthly, service learning focuses on the promotion of reflexive competences among students, which are to be demonstrably strengthened in view of the increasing importance of formal education. Service learning within the framework of the Lab is designed according to the didactic concept of the experiential space. In this context, an experiential space represents a teaching-learning situation that is structurally-organisationally and didactically-methodologically designed in such a way that new knowledge as well as professional and social competences can be acquired. Furthermore, it enables learners to experience or test their strengths and self-efficacy. An experiential space can be integrated into formalised educational measures on the one hand, but can also be experienced in the social environment of practice partners on the other.

The aim of the paper is to present and discuss the teaching concept of the Digital Service Learning Lab as well as the didactic design.

References:
[1] A. Schneider, T. Wendeborn, “Elite sports promotion through service learning: Case study of a student sports agency,“ in: Proceedings of the ICERI2018, Seville, pp. 5961-5969, 2018.
[2] P. L. Yorio, F. Ye, “A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Service-Learning on the Social, Personal, and Cognitive Outcomes of Learning.“ Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 9 – 27., 2012.

Keywords:

Service learning, educational technology, experiential space.