Start Date
7-6-2013 5:25 PM
End Date
7-6-2013 6:35 PM
Description
Higher education has a long standing commitment to serving society. From the earlier days the objective of higher education has been for developing professionals who serve society, engaging learned individuals in civic responsibility, and creating leaders to head industry, community organizations, and government. Today we see higher education’s role in serving the public good is becoming defined narrowly as the education of students for the workforce and promote material civilization. Higher education’s current commitment needs to be rethought and refocused to meet the current needs of society. Working with the Community has been a regular practice in Teacher Education. The exposure to Service Learning strategy is a unique opportunity to faculty and students of St. Ann’s College of Education to reflect on the usual practice and redesign the pedagogical practice with a new perspective. The Service Learning strategy has given more meaning to learning through service by making it community oriented using local material and human resources, and as a force to address the social problems. The Scientific procedures or the steps used in Service Learning have made it more practical and applicable. The Service Learning activities designed and practiced at St. Ann’s College of Education to address the social issues include the target groups namely, specially challenged children from the community, elderly people in the old age homes and hospitals, unaffordable poor children of the community, rural school teachers and students, socially and economically deprived (e.g. poor, orphans, destitute, single parents) children of the community and the target areas also include Literacy, Competency Building, Peace Education, Sustainable Development, Environmental and Health Education etc. The Partnership with a number of agencies have been sought to organize relevant activities for these target groups and in these areas in order to sensitize the student Teachers towards social problems and enabling student teachers to realize that Service Learning strategy is indeed an effective strategy to solve the globally faced social problems and to develop most needed social values such as co-operation, responsible leadership, concern for others, service mindedness, social accountability, tolerance, empathy, mutual adjustment and communal harmony. This initiative has enabled us to prepare teachers who are committed to meet the current needs of the society, thus fulfilling the aims of higher education.
Recommended Citation
Menezes, L. (2013, June). Practicing service learning in teacher education as a force to address social problems. Paper presented at the 4th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Service-Learning: Service-Learning as a Bridge from Local to Global: Connected world, Connected future, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.
Included in
Practicing service learning in teacher education as a force to address social problems
Higher education has a long standing commitment to serving society. From the earlier days the objective of higher education has been for developing professionals who serve society, engaging learned individuals in civic responsibility, and creating leaders to head industry, community organizations, and government. Today we see higher education’s role in serving the public good is becoming defined narrowly as the education of students for the workforce and promote material civilization. Higher education’s current commitment needs to be rethought and refocused to meet the current needs of society. Working with the Community has been a regular practice in Teacher Education. The exposure to Service Learning strategy is a unique opportunity to faculty and students of St. Ann’s College of Education to reflect on the usual practice and redesign the pedagogical practice with a new perspective. The Service Learning strategy has given more meaning to learning through service by making it community oriented using local material and human resources, and as a force to address the social problems. The Scientific procedures or the steps used in Service Learning have made it more practical and applicable. The Service Learning activities designed and practiced at St. Ann’s College of Education to address the social issues include the target groups namely, specially challenged children from the community, elderly people in the old age homes and hospitals, unaffordable poor children of the community, rural school teachers and students, socially and economically deprived (e.g. poor, orphans, destitute, single parents) children of the community and the target areas also include Literacy, Competency Building, Peace Education, Sustainable Development, Environmental and Health Education etc. The Partnership with a number of agencies have been sought to organize relevant activities for these target groups and in these areas in order to sensitize the student Teachers towards social problems and enabling student teachers to realize that Service Learning strategy is indeed an effective strategy to solve the globally faced social problems and to develop most needed social values such as co-operation, responsible leadership, concern for others, service mindedness, social accountability, tolerance, empathy, mutual adjustment and communal harmony. This initiative has enabled us to prepare teachers who are committed to meet the current needs of the society, thus fulfilling the aims of higher education.