Service Learning at the KU
The KU has been promoting Service Learning (SL) projects since 2013. Service learning combines academic studies (Learning) with volunteering for the common good (Service): Lecturers and students cooperate with regional non-profit partners from sports, culture, society, ecology or education and bring their wealth of knowledge and skills to the joint projects.
Essential for successful learning is a close link between the content of the lecture and its practical application as well as finding a partner organization who has a real need for student volunteers. Introspective processes in SL projects also promote students' personal develpment. Service Learning lets students take on real societal responsibility and they in turn process contents more intensively. So Service Learning does not change what is taught, it changes the way of learning.
The Service Learning working group is being successively expanded and is currently made up of the following KU members:
- Prof. Dr. Klaus Meier (Vice President for Studies and Teaching)
- Prof. Dr. Klaus Stüwe (Vice President for International Affairs and Profile Development)
- Prof. Dr. Simone Birkel (Religious education, sustainability officer)
- Ann-Kathrin Bremer (research associate in the "Senatra" | Sustainable KU project)
- Dr. Ulrike Brok (Coordinator of Continuing Education & Projects - "Mensch in Bewegung" project)
- Marina Fleck (QUADIS project assistant)
- Patrizia Hartmann (Sustainability Coordinator, research assistant in the "Mensch in Bewegung" project)
- Dr. Petra Hiebl (Head of the Centre for Teacher Education)
- Christiane Hoth de Olano (Project Manager Uniservitate Hub for Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East)
- Marian Hummel (research assistant at the Chair of Political Education)
- Maria Müller-Pulsfuß (Program Coordinator and Student Advisory Service STS, Online Lecturer Learning Facilitator)
- Olha Mykhailyshin (Project Assistant Uniservitate Hub for Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East)
- Prof. Dr. Tanja Rinker (Chair of German as a Second Language)
- Dr. Maximiliane Schumm (Representative for Didactics of Biology)
- Inga Schütte (Women's and Equal Opportunities Officer)
- Dr. Michael Wihlenda (Consultant "Transformative Teaching")
- Dr. Michael Winklmann (Consultant for Program Development in Studies and Teaching)
Examples from practice
In addition to the lectures and courses that apply the SL method, the KU annually offers workshops and open lectures on the topic. Beyond research and teaching, the KU sees itself as an academic practice community based on a science of commitment. As such, the KU offers its students various methods for personal development and encourages them to pull their weight in local communities and society as a whole. They often do this as part of extramural volunteering or of SL classes that are part of the curriculum or co-curricular programs, which means projects headed by students as well as projects organized by political, religious, ecological and creative student societies.
Why Service Learning?
In accordance with the Third Mission of the KU, SL projects enable an exchange of ideas and knowledge between the academic world and society, politics and economy, which generates more than a mere growth in knowledge. Research questions that have come up in society are taken to university while the results of academic research reach society. Consequently, SL supports teaching and research beyond campus walls. At the same time SL projects as part of degree programs and academic teaching promote an education, where networking, discourse, commitment and personality play a major role.
SL projects at the KU are symbols of innovative education or social innovation through volunteering, as they meet the requirements of defined subject-specific curricular criteria, all the while giving lecturers and students the necessary leeway to create individual new learning formats. In addition, Service Learning projects at the KU have to meet clearly defined quality criteria, which are continuously optimized through formative and summative evaluations. The active exchange in national and international SL networks (Hochschulnetzwerk Bildung durch Verantwortung and UNISERVITATE) means that current academic insights on SL practices are continuously being integrated into our program.
The close link between course content and practical application as well as the consideration of concrete social needs of our partners are a real asset for all the stakeholders in SL.
Students profit because they can:
- link their academic skills and knowledge with civic commitment,
- relate class content with relevant current issues,
- try out and hone their skills in real-life situations,
- get experience and reflect on challenging situations,
- give back to society,
- acquire professional, methodical and social skills and
- are in this way being prepared for current challenges.
Lecturers profit because they can:
- teach scientific methods and tools in great depth,
- combine academic theory with its practical application in a meaningful way,
- discover new ways to better combine research and teaching,
- coach their students through learning processes,
- reflect with students on their learning journeys,
- teach and learn on an equal footing with students,
- cooperate with extramural players.
Partners profit because they can:
- get support from committed students,
- use scientific expertise to address current challenges,
- get short or long-term support from a fixed partnership with the local university and
- get a chance to win new volunteers.
Service Learning-classes as an innovative learning and teaching format contribute greatly to fulfilling important quality criteria in the accreditation process of a degree program: Encouraging students to engage with civic society and to work on developing their personality are just as important requirements as qualifying graduates to take on professional employment.
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UNISERVITATE - the Service Learning Network
Mehr Infos
The KU is part of a global network of Catholic institutes of education that are concerned with the topic of Service Learning. The project supports efforts to institutionalize this teaching format as well as global cooperation.
In this program, the KU is a hub for the region but also for partners from Middle and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East (CCE & ME). Alongside six other Catholic universities worldwide, the KU was chosen to set up a regional center and widen and intensify cooperation with other Catholic universities.
Creating a network and exchanging knowledge and ideas from one participating university to the other directly contribute to anchoring Servie Learning in academic syllabi.
Have you become interested?
Write to us at service-learning@ku.de or just talk to us!
Christiane
Hoth de Olano
Project Manager Uniservitate Hub for Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East
Building
Ulmer Hof
|
Room: UH-011
Olha
Mykhailyshyn
Project Assistant Uniservitate Hub for Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East
E-mail Olha.Mykhailyshyn@ku.de
Room: UH-011