Moving to e-Service Learning in Higher Education

Service Learning is a methodology in which students achieve academic and transversal competences related to the curriculum of a subject while performing a service for the benefit of the community. With the COVID-19 pandemic, it was necessary to reorganize the Service Learning activities developed in recent years so that they do not lose their pedagogical value and community service. This scenario has been an opportunity to kick-start an e-Service Learning experience. For that purpose, this work shows how different Information and Communication Technology tools are integrated into an online platform to develop both activities and assessment following an e-Service Learning methodology. Since the experience was performed with two collaborating entities serving people with autism and in two schools of the University of A Coruna, the tools are available not only to professors and students, but also to entities. Our experience includes the assessment of both competences and service satisfaction using different resources for virtual collaborative work. The main contribution of our work is that we have greatly simplified our previous project on-site and also the monitoring of the student's progress, the work of both professors and students, and the analysis of results, providing a virtual service that responds to user needs.

Automated summary

Service learning is an educational methodology where students gain academic and cross-disciplinary competences while serving the community. Due to COVID-19, service learning activities needed to be reorganized into an online format. This study presents the integration of different information and communication technology tools into an online platform for e-service learning, including activities and assessment. The main contribution is the simplified project implementation, progress monitoring, and result analysis, providing a virtual service that meets user needs.