Abstract:

Service-learning (SL) offers students the opportunity to acquire new skills, apply their knowledge to solve a social need and contribute to improving the lives of others in a meaningful way (Middaugh & Kahne, 2013). It also helps future teachers gain a sense of purpose, especially the belief that they can make a difference in the community. This sense of 'making a difference' is especially important for teachers. Perhaps the most difficult facet of becoming a teacher is understanding and acting on one's power to influence the lives of others. Learning to care transforms teachers, and service-learning promotes this. In this article we examine how service-learning in teacher education in virtual environments can support the agency of student teachers. In doing so, we will focus on the ability of the SL methodology to help build a community of learners, strengthen the capacity of teachers to improve the community, and encourage greater teacher participation in the community development process.

In this article we seek to further study collaboration and knowledge building in teacher education through Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). To do so, we will adopt an agentive perspective from which to explain the results obtained through the methodology of SL in the self-development, adaptation and change of student teachers in a CSCL environment.

Keywords:

Service learning, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, teachers education, students agency.