headereng.swf

Service learning is a cutting-edge teaching and learning methodology embracing social action with critical inquiry and classroom work. The value of this approach lays in its potential to transform students’ understanding of both disciplinary knowledge and the particular societal issues and problems that they address. Service learning curricula aim at providing students with authentic learning experiences, those that emphasize critical reflection about social policies, decisions and behaviors. At the same time they help students strengthen their analytic and academic skills and social sensitivity. Transformative potential and empowerment that such curricula can foster is becoming increasingly recognized and valued among faculties in higher education around the world today.

In late August 2008, NGO Fractal organized, in cooperation with the American Council, a regional conference about service learning, entitled Service Learning: Implementation, Impact, Visibility. The conference brought together 22 professors and educators from different countries of South Eastern Europe (SEE) region who all have a unique academic experience by participating in the American Council administered exchange program, Junior Faculty Development Program. This conference offered them an opportunity to discuss educational development and educational trends in the region. Moreover, it gave them the opportunity to present their implemented service learning projects, exchange information, and to discuss perspectives, challenges and opportunities for the implementation of service learning in SEE.

It was especially valuable that the conference included presentations from numerous fields of study (linguistics, psychology, business administration and economics, architecture, engineering, public health, etc) and in this way brought fresh and varied perspectives. Regional setting, variety of professional backgrounds and the quality of presented papers demonstrated how the experience of one institution can be complementary to or applicable in other institutional settings.

By exploring and discussing different aspects of service learning, the conference participants agreed to a large extent that service learning, as a compelling teaching methodology in many respects, could effectively respond to a number of current problems and challenges at their home universities and countries alike.

• Service learning in its emphasis on providing students with "real-life" knowledge fits in with the goals of the Bologna Process.

• Service learning entails stronger connections between University and community groups. It responds to problems and needs of different community groups by offering assistance that can be provided by University students.

• Students who participate in service learning projects tend to come away from the experience with a better and more in-depth understanding. Rather than memorizing data or information, they get to use their knowledge in socially meaningful contexts, which improves the relevance and applicability of their education.

• Service learning programs engage students in complex social endeavors and encourage them to create, assess, criticize and influence social policies, decisions and behaviors.

• Service learning projects can also make life easier for professors. Especially those that are short on material resources, since one is utilizing facilities that already exist in the community.

The last conference day included workshops in the fields of advocacy, civic activism, communication and team work, which was aimed at supporting participants to assist their students and how to realize service learning programs more effectively in the future. This regards to increasing the impact of their projects both in terms of educational value and benefits to the community, enhancing the service learning projects’ visibility and recognition, and fostering exchange and communication through a regional network.

In on-line discussions that continued in the weeks after the conference, participants decided to use društveno korisno ućenje as a translation for service learning in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian language. In the Macedonian language the agreed translation is primeneto ucenje.

For NGO Fractal, it is a great experience and opportunity to work with this group of high education institution representatives, diverse in expertise and background, but in same time quite coherent when it comes to expressed creativity and the readiness for pro-active engagement in their own society. We are also inspired to dedicate our time and resources in support of a process of wider recognition and implementation of service learning in the region, with the belief that it can offer transformative teaching and learning experiences and become a backbone for stronger academic involvements in contemporary social processes.