サービス・ラーニング研究シリーズ 6Service-Learning Studies Series No.6

Service-Learning in the Era of “New Normal”:
Reflection on the Modes of Service-Learning andFuture Partnerships

国際基督教大学
International Christian University

サービス・ラーニング・センター
Service-Learning Centeriサービス・ラーニング研究シリーズ 6Service-Learning Studies Series No.6

Service-Learning in the Era of “New Normal”:
Reflection on the Modes of Service-Learning andFuture Partnerships

国際基督教大学 サービス・ラーニング・センター
Service-Learning Center, International Christian University

Service-Learning Studies Series No.6 (ISSN 1881-6282)
Service-Learning in the Era of “New Normal”:
Reflection on the Modes of Service-Learning and Future Partnerships
Copyright©2021 Service-Learning Center, International Christian University.
All rights reserved.
Service-Learning Center, International Christian University
3-10-2, Osawa, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181-8585, Japan
Printed in Japan

目次/CONTENTS
はしがき/Preface……………………………………………………………….……….v
執筆者紹介/Profiles of Authors……………………………………………….………..vi
1.

Service-Learning in the New Normal: Reflections on Modes and FuturePartnerships
Mikiko Nishimura…………………………………………………………………...1

2.

The Citizen Professional: Engaging the Social and Holding Complexity in
Challenging Times
Janice McMillan, Reneé Smit, Uzair Ben Ebrahim, Ruth Brain, Shannon Cupido,
and Pieter Levecque………………...……………………………………...……….5

3.

Reframing Service-Learning to Cultivate Social Innovators: A Case Study of
Lingnan University in Hong Kong
Chong Xiao…………………..…………………………………...………………..20

4.

Service-Learning Under the ‘New Normals’ and Beyond
Justin R Nayagam, Malini R, and Akhila Narayanan………...…………………….36

5.

Reflection on Online Service-Learning at ICU
Kenji Ishihara and Hitomi Yokote………………………………………………….46

6.

Promoting Whole Person Education Through Service-Learning in Pre and Post
Pandemic Period
Mercy Pushpalatha…………………...…………………………...……………….59

はしがき『サービス・ラーニング（SL）研究シリーズ』は、2005 年の初刊以来、これまで 5 冊が発刊されました。2011 年にシリーズ 5 が発刊されてから実に 10 年が経過してしまいましたが、ここに第 6 巻を発行できることになり大変嬉しく
思っています。
2020 年は、新型コロナウィルスの世界的な蔓延により、サービス・ラーニン
グも大きな挑戦を受け、高等教育の経験的学習のあり方を見直す契機となりました。本学でもすべての国際サービス・ラーニングが中止となり、オンライン
でのサービス活動のあり方が模索されました。第 6 巻では、本学とインド、香港、南アフリカのパートナー機関の事例から、ポスト・コロナ時代のサービス・ラーニングにおける教授法や取り組み方を展望することを目的としました。
サービス・ラーニングの本質を失わずに柔軟で広がりのあるサービス活動を展開するために何が必要になるのか、考えるきっかけを提供できれば幸いです。

Preface
Since 2005 ICU Service-Learning Center has published five volumes of ServiceLearning (S-L) Study Series. I am glad to publish this sixth volume after a long decade.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the year 2020 was an unprecedented time thattransformed our assumptions about higher education and adjusted how we frame theexperiential learning process. We had to cancel international service-learning programs,
while being challenged to explore alternative ways of implementing experiential learning
programs online. This volume aims at looking ahead to the prospective pedagogy ofservice-learning in the post-pandemic era from the case studies of ICU and partner
institutions in India, Hong Kong, and South Africa. We would like to provide an
opportunity to think about what is needed to develop flexible and expanding service
activities without losing the essence of service learning.

March 2021
Mikiko Nishimura

西村幹子

Director of ICU Service-Learning Centerv

Profiles of Authors (In the order of appearance)
執筆者紹介（執筆順）

Mikiko Nishimura (西村 幹子)
Professor, Sociology of Education and International Educational Development,
Director, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University, Japan
国際基督教大学教授（教育社会学・国際教育開発）、
サービス・ラーニング・センター長

Janice McMillan
Associate Professor, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of CapeTown, South Africa
Renee Smit,.
Senior lecturer, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South
AfricaUzair Ben Ebrahim
Educator and Facilitator, Cape Town, South Africa
Ruth Brain
Researcher and Urbanist, Cape Town, South Africa
Shannon Cupido
Educator and Researcher, Cape Town, South Africa
Pieter Levecque
Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town,
South Africa

Chong Xiao
Senior Project Officer, Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning,Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

Justin R Nayagam,
Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, Union Christian College, Aluva (Affiliatedto Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam), Kerala, India
Malini R,
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Union Christian College Aluva(Affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam), Kerala, India
Akhila Narayanan
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Union Christian College Aluva (Affiliated to
Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam), Kerala, Indiavi

Kenji Ishihara (石原 謙治)
Instructor/Coordinator, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University,Japan
国際基督教大学サービス・ラーニング・センター講師・コーディネーター
Hitomi Yokote (横手 仁美)

Instructor/Coordinator, Service-Learning Center, International Christian University,Japan
国際基督教大学サービス・ラーニング・センター講師・コーディネーター

Mercy Pushpalatha
Program Consultant, South Asia, United Board of Christian Universities in Asiavii

1. Service-Learning in the New Normal:
Reflections on Modes and Future Partnerships
Mikiko Nishimura
Service-Learning Center, International Christian University

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the year 2020 was an unprecedented time thattransformed our assumptions about higher education and adjusted how we frame theexperiential learning process, in particular, service-learning. Many institutions delayed
the start of their courses, canceled exchange programs, and international service-learning.
As a result, they were challenged to explore alternative ways of implementing
experiential learning programs that combine being, knowing, and doing. International
Christian University was not an exception to this struggle. Domestically, in Japan, we
have tried our best to seek an online and hybrid mode of service-learning. While exploring
our options, we were blessed to work with our U.S. partner, Middlebury College, to create
an online international service-learning strategy that allowed Japanese and American
students to jointly experience services for a U.S. museum and children in a Tokyoneighborhood. This online interaction expanded the social space for indirect servicelearning. American and Japanese students, from various cities, towns, and countries, werealso able to work together and engage in service activities with communities across thenational border.
In this volume of the monograph series, we attempt to capture the impact of thepandemic and how service-learning researchers and practitioners responded by reframing
courses and encouraging civic engagement in higher education systems in various partsof the world. This volume includes four articles featuring case studies about the
University of Cape Town in South Africa, Lingnan University in Hong Kong, Union
Christian College in India, and International Christian University in Japan. We also haveone article written by Dr. Mercy Pushpalatha, who was the president and pioneer ofservice-learning at Lady Doak College in India and now serves as a program consultant
for the United Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia.
The first article, written by McMillan et al., discusses how the University of Cape
Town implemented a course that focused on citizen professionals in engineering and thebuilt environment. This course was designed in 2019 for engineering students as ahumanities elective to equip them, as emerging professionals, with new lenses. The goal
was to create a new perspective that allowed students to contribute to society as civicminded professionals. This initiative was also in line with one of the university’s vision
2030 key pillars: to provide a socially engaged learning experience for all students. The
course included thorough and engaging discussions and attempted to disrupt the narrow
notions of engineering, development, and social change. The university accomplished its
goal for the course by acknowledging multiple perspectives and allowing for a thoroughexamination of complex issues like unequal access to resources, opportunities, land,development, food security, water, and sanitation. Students studied the mobilizing actions
1

of groups and social movements in South Africa and across the continent. Utilizing
pedagogy of care and intention, students focused on new methods of professionalism.
They also examined so-called wicked problems that were difficult to solve because offactors like deep histories, contradictory stakeholder positions, and complex
interdependencies. As a result, the program was able to produce deep reflection,
engagement, and learning outcomes. Not only did the course utilize texts, but it also
focused on the students, their peers, and their emergent professional identities. In 2020,
due to the cancelation of field work during COVID-19, the program introduced weekly
writing assignments allowing students to engage with being and to analyze and reflect on
the course materials in relation to their own lives and personal experiences. By doing so,
the program brought social issues into focus for the class.
The second article, written by Xiao, discusses the case of the transformative
service-learning model at Lingnan University. Since 2018, the university’s office ofservice-learning has been working on this model. The school piloted it in a servicelearning course during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years. As the first
university to introduce a service-learning program in Hong Kong in 2004, Lingnan
University made it a compulsory course for all students in 2016. In 2017, the school
changed its pedagogical focus from direct service to social innovation with emphasis on
problem solving, community needs assessment rationale, solution development, andstrategies in sustaining impact by introducing design thinking and an evidence-based
community needs assessment. During this course, students’ social innovation practices
were a continuous process that led to their participation in various entrepreneurial
competitions. The school granted significant autonomy to students in selecting theirchallenges and solutions. The case of Lingnan University shows an outcome-based
approach that steered the instruction and assessment design to connect a periodic semesterwith a continuous process of addressing social challenges. Even during the pandemic, thisapproach enhanced reciprocity between students and communities.
The third article, written by Nayagam et al. articulates the importance of the plural
reality of the “new normal” within a specific country and concerning different parts of
the world. Having been challenged by floods in 2019 and 2020, Union Christian College
explored possible ways of conducting international service-learning during a time of
unpredictable natural disaster. To maintain the mission of international service-learningand enhance the intellectual development of students, the college focused on basic skill
acquisition, ethical and social responsibility, along with personal growth, and adopted amodel that blended offline and online learning. As part of the course, students posted
daily activity reports in the official WhatsApp group. They also regularly wrote about
their impressions of the sites they visited, their experiences, acquired knowledge, andreflections. The student reporting practice evolved into a discussion with each participant
commenting and responding to the views shared by others. Resource persons also had theopportunity to make timely interventions and put things into perspective. The platformgenerated more interactions among the participants and resource persons during the
program and established a more intimate bond between the parties. Nevertheless,
Nayagam et al. caution that an online international service-learning mode is not acomprehensive solution, because it can set a dangerous precedent for countries like India,
where there is a sharp digital divide between the rural and urban populations and a low
rate of digital literacy among the elderly population. Under such diverse contexts,
Nayagam et al. suggest a combination of components, including pilot visits to community2

sites for data collection, digital device training, appointing educated monitors to eachlocation for future access, reaching out through social media groups, and periodical
webcasting with real-time reflection through social media.
The case of International Christian University, presented by Ishihara and Yokote,indicates the necessity to revisit modalities of service-learning during COVID-19. Online
service-learning, also called virtual or electric service-learning, was a new approach to
our program. It utilized the Internet to provide full or partial components of instruction,
service, and reflection online. When the service component occurred online, the program
was more accessible, cost-effective, and even more inclusive for students who haddifficulty conducting onsite service activities. Furthermore, it was effective to engage ina blended mode of teaching in combination with a service activity. It made the border
between international and community programs less significant. By utilizing online
service-learning, the university removed geographical barriers and helped students
engage in remote projects together with peers and community partners in other countries.
While online service-learning is a solution, there can be challenges. In this mode, teambuilding or bonding can be difficult. For students who cannot afford to buy digital devices
and obtain Internet service, it can be costly to join online programs. It is also evident thatwhile it is more feasible to conduct indirect, research-based, and advocacy-based service
activity in online service-learning, it cannot, through direct service, reach people inserious need. The online collaboration also made us question the existing definition of"community" in service-learning in comparison to international service-learning when we
can remotely serve worldwide communities.
Finally, Pushpalatha illustrates a variety of service-learning programs that theUnited Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia funded between 2015 and 2019. The
areas of intervention included education, health, welfare, care for the elderly, genderissues, inclusive society, local tourism, climate change adaptation, poverty alleviation,
online financial management, and small and micro enterprise development. She maintains
that, under uncertain new normal conditions, civically engaged students are equally, if
not more, important and that higher education institutions should not ignore servicelearning. According to Pushpalatha, service-learning can be a pedagogy that builds theclassroom on the screen with the reality on the streets, allows for seamless character
formation, and enables whole person education. In service-learning experiences, students
develop many personal skills, such as self-awareness, interpersonal abilities, teambuilding, risk taking, and empathy. They also gain the ability to appreciate the positive
feelings they can experience in connecting with people in the community, engaging incitizenship, and gaining social consciousness, which are not easily provided by the virtual
classroom. Pushpalatha proposes that higher education institutions need to provide ample
opportunities for college students to engage in virtual volunteerism by evolving strategies
for online service-learning to enable community engagement through social media, online
courses, and other web-based platforms.
These articles demonstrate how four institutions have taken up the new challenge
to foresee the future modes of service-learning during and in the post-pandemic era. The
most important takeaway is that educators should make service-learning as flexible aspossible. Also, they should keep in mind that service-learning is centered around whole
person development and has the goal of providing engagement with local and global
issues. For service-learning, educators need to focus on engagement and not look at achallenge as a mere technical issue or temporary countermeasure. It is important to note3

that online service-learning can be offered as indirect service, research-based, or
advocacy-based service projects. This format allows service-learning courses to becomecontactless, remote, or virtual engagements. However, it is a challenge to figure out how
to reach out to the most disadvantaged populations. The key concerns include establishing
networking, proper monitoring systems, and offering online access assistance to eachparticular community. It is imperative to note, regarding service activities, that online
service-learning should not exclude certain groups of people. For students, it shouldattempt to create a willing attitude. They should be encouraged to listen to and learn fromplural communities and respect their vitality and rich cultures that are filled withknowledge and wisdom. Since quality service-learning is human-centric, interactive, andbased on mutual learning, we should explore a new pedagogy that allows for restricted
physical contact with people.
There is another consideration in the area of international collaboration in
conducting either community or international service-learning. We have realized, throughonline service-learning, that we maintain a narrow definition of a geographically bounded
community. Now, we realize that online service-learning has the possibility of bridging
plural epistemology and reality by engaging students from various parts of the world in
local and global issues. The pandemic period has taught us about the fragility anduncertainty of human life. As a result, we realize the importance of creativity, innovation,and empathy for one another at all levels. With partner institutions, we should explore amore innovative service-learning approach to realize an academic space for being,knowing, and doing combined for the common good.

4

2. The Citizen Professional:
Engaging the Social and Holding Complexity in Challenging Times
Janice McMillan1, Reneé Smit2, Uzair Ben Ebrahim3, Ruth Brain4,
Shannon Cupido5, and Pieter Levecque6
1
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town
3
Cape Town, South Africa
4Cape Town, South Africa
5Cape Town, South Africa
6
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town
Abstract
COVID-19 pandemic comes nearly five years after intense student protest
centred around racism, colonialism, high university fees, and student
housing, amongst others 1. These two events have put huge pressure on
higher education to relook its core purpose, its teaching and learning andthe kind of students it graduates. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on
the use of deliberate civic engagement in an engineering course at the
University of Cape Town (UCT) that was developed partly in response to
the calls of the students for broad-based change in 2015. We describe thecourse in 2019 and then in 2020, analysing the shifts we needed to makein the context of COVID-19, the challenges we faced, and the project that
ultimately emerged. While not without enormous challenges, we believethat through a consistent ‘pedagogy of care and intention’, we were able
to run a successful course in 2020. Intentional work around developing
relevant online learning materials and bringing on a strong and skillfulfacilitator were key to this success.
What really matters: getting your content online is not your priority; connectingwith your students is 2
Disciplines and professions define what counts as legitimate knowledge andacceptable practice by their members. The invisibility of this framing offers amajor challenge for teachers in working with students, as staff are normallyenculturated into their discipline or profession and take it for granted (Boud &Walker 1998: 200).
1 See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/rhodes-must-fall-founder-racist-statues/
2 Quote from a colleague providing support for online learning at the University of Cape Town,
March-June 2020.

5

Citizen professionals develop unique styles grounded in local civic cultures.
…They also build skills of collaborative public work that help energize andactivate broad civic energies (Boyte 2008: 145).
Between 2015 and 2017 the University of Cape Town (UCT) was the scene ofintensestudent protests centred around racism, colonialism, high university fees, andstudent housing, amongst others. While these protests started at UCT, they were
ultimately part of much bigger, national (and ultimately global) student protests linked tothe hashtag #RhodesMustFall (#RMF) 3 which then merged into #FeesMustFall (#FMF).
Conversations between engineering staff and groups of engineering students inthat period highlighted that there was a clear lack of course offerings at UCT which
included content around social justice and how to link social justice not only to theirpersonal life, but also their future professional life. This absence is particularly significant
in a society with the extreme inequalities of South Africa, where future engineering
professionals should actively contribute to alleviating poverty. The purpose of this paper
is to reflect on the use of deliberate civic engagement in an engineering course at the
University of Cape Town (UCT) run as a pilot between July - November 2019 and thenagain in the second half of 2020 through the faculty of Engineering and the Built
Environment (EBE). The course is called ‘Citizen Professionals in Engineering and the
Built Environment’ (C/Prof) and contributes to the engineering curriculum as a
Humanities elective, open to engineering students at any level of study. It runs for a full
12-week semester, with 4 hours of classes each week.
2020 was an unprecedented year globally with the start of the COVID-19
pandemic, which now into 2021, seems to be ever more serious. Countries across theglobe have been challenged in ways unimaginable only 18 months ago, and the higher
education sector has not been untouched. In fact, for many, the changes wrought by the
COVD-19 context have changed higher education forever. New ways of learning became thefocus of many efforts around the world as campuses moved their teaching and learning online.
The C/Prof course was not unaffected by this context. This paper describes the course in2019 and then in 2020, analysing the shifts we needed to make in the context of COVID-19, thechallenges we faced, and the project that ultimately emerged. While not without enormous
challenges, and needing to think on our feet at times, we believe that through a consistent‘pedagogy of care and intention’ (Noddings 2005; Barnett 2009), we have been able to run asuccessful course in 2020; it is our hope that our students understand what it might mean to be a
‘citizen professional’, particularly in our increasingly challenging (post-COVID) world.

The Citizen Professional Course: Conceptualization, Framing and Guiding
Principles
The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) requires engineering students
to undertake what they call ‘complementary studies’ courses, courses which“cover disciplines other than engineering sciences, natural sciences andmathematics, which are relevant to the practice of engineering and include
engineering economics, management, the impact of technology on society,effective communication, the humanities, social sciences and other areas that
support an understanding of the world in which engineering is practised”.
(Engineering Council of South Africa 2018).
3 See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/rhodes-must-fall-founder-racist-statues/

6

Contrary to criticisms voiced during the student protests of 2015 and 2016, many
courses that count as complementary studies do not engage in issues of social justice,
racism, and issues of privilege. Given our desire to provide students with the possibilityof connecting with the broader social world/context in which they will one day work, we
needed to think differently about both curriculum and pedagogy. For us the curriculum
was less about teaching content areas and more about helping students think about theworld, their professions and the relationship between these in new ways. In terms ofpedagogy, it was important for all of us from the outset to bring a relational, intentional
component into our teaching and engagement (Noddings 2005).
All of this is challenging but important in work aimed at shifting ideas ofprofessional identity and role and goes to the core of much professional education. The
C/Prof course thus aims to provide engineering and built environment students with newlenses to make sense of the broader social context in which they will apply their technicalskills as citizen professionals. Harry Boyte in particular, has argued eloquently about theimportance of the role of the ‘citizen professional’: 4
Citizen professionals develop unique styles grounded in local civic cultures.
They learn respect for the insights of those without formal credentials. They
recognize that they have much to learn from communities where populist valuesof cultural roots, community vitality, and equality are alive. They also build
skills of collaborative public work that help energize and activate broad civic
energies (Boyte 2008: 145).
Our course has aimed to develop a practice to enable the development of such a
professional identity and role. The course runs in two parts: the first part of the course
disrupts the narrow notions of engineering, development, and social change by
acknowledging multiple perspectives and the complexity of working in a society definedby unequal access to resources and opportunities. This is done by deep discussion andengagement and by the introduction of some key texts which serve to challenge
engineering mindsets.
In the second part of the course, we engage with key issues facing society today.
These issues change from year to year and comprise land and housing, food security, and waterand sanitation – and delve into the actions undertaken by groups and social movements mobilisingaround these issues here in South Africa and across the African continent. Building on thisfoundation, the second part of the course therefore focuses on equipping the students with tools
on how to lead difficult conversations around wicked problems, important both in their personal
and their professional lives. This culminates in students being required to design and moderate adeliberation event (discussed later in the chapter).

A note on locating our practice in the broader spectrum of courses that fall under
the label of ‘community or civic engagement’ - service-learning, community-engaged
learning, community-engaged research - as an invitation to engage with issues in civilsociety. In other words, this is not a course focused on service on even community
engagement per se; rather, it aims to position engineering students – as emerging
professionals – with new lenses to contribute to society as civic-minded professionals.
The rest of this section discusses the guiding concepts, principles approaches
shaping the course.

4 See https://augsburg.academia.edu/HarryBoyte

7

Overarching Framing: Engaging the Social and Holding Complexity…engineering epistemologies assume an apolitical and neutral stance that muchof engineering’s history does not meaningfully impact present day
practices…[and] that bias-free knowledge is possible by focusing on practices
that promote ‘social cohesion’ and ‘efficient, and interdependent functionality’(Banks & Lachney, 2017:4)
We use the phrase ‘engaging the social’ as a metaphor for the broader context
outside the university which includes amongst other concerns, the social, political andeconomic issues confronting society and with which professionals need to engage 5 .
Framing the course in this way shifts the idea of the technical professional as it situates
the student as an emerging citizen professional in this broader context while on our course.
In thinking about professional education, one of the challenges is to shift the often hidden
and implicit assumptions behind what counts as professional knowledge and competence:
Everything we do is framed and situated. The framing rarely occurs through our own
volition but is part of the world we experience as given. …[O]f particular significancein professional education is the framing imposed by particular disciplinary andprofessional contexts within which teachers and students operate (Boud & Walker
1998:200).

Linking to this to the work on our course meant that we needed to provide alearning context where students could be supported to develop and take on new lenses inthis new role. The lenses we wanted them to develop are ones that could help them engage
the broader social context in which they would one day work as professionals. Given thechallenges and range of issues they will confront, they also need to be able to ‘holdcomplexity’ i.e. grapple with different, and often competing, paradigms. We are asking
them to hold complexity of a particular kind - not the technical complexity of anengineering context, but social complexity: complexity of the social world. The social
problems they will encounter do not simply require technical know-how; they require an
ability to engage with a broader social context including different social actors and issues
such as poverty and inequality, food security, gender inequality, and climate change.
A series of questions emerges from this kind of framing including: what are theways in which we need to shape the curriculum and pedagogy to enable this new kind of learningand engagement of engaging the social and holding complexity? How can we build the new lenses
needed for this new kind of engagement? The rest of this section outlines the key components of
our approach.

A Pedagogy of Care and Intention. As social justice educators, we are keenly awareof the challenges of asking students to shift lenses especially in the context of professional
education such as engineering, where students are encouraged to be certain and unambiguous in
their thinking. We are also aware of the power (im)balances embedded in educational contexts.
We were therefore intentional in the curriculum design, but also in the ways we worked withstudents in class. We were motivated to think about our teaching practice as caring, relational
work.
Noddings’ (1984; 2005) work reflects that approach we have taken in our work.

5 We also bring an intentional social into our classroom space through a pedagogy of care (see2.1.1) which values interpersonal communication and learning amongst the students which wasimportant in different ways across both years of the course. However, it is important to help
students think about the context outside the university which very few courses – engineeringand otherwise – focus on.

8

Noddings (2005) makes the important point that a pedagogy of care is, by its nature, a
relational pedagogy. Two key indicators of this care in educational relationships are
receptiveness and responsiveness: to be receptive is to be open to listening to others;
responsiveness indicates a willingness and openness to change, to meeting students’needs often in concrete ways. Importantly for our planning, Noddings’ argues that caring
relationships are the foundation for pedagogical activity, and this understanding shifts thelenses of teaching:
The relational sense of caring forces us to look at the relation. It cannot beenough to hear the teacher’s claim to care…when we adopt the relational senseof caring, we cannot look only at the teacher (Noddings 2005: np; emphasis
added)
Noddings doesn’t naively believe that caring relationships will accomplish
everything that needs doing in education. However, she makes a key point linking caring
to educator competence: competence is a dimension of caring or rather ‘caring implies
competence… teachers in caring relations are continually pressed to gain greater
competence’ (Noddings 2005: np). In our work, we have used the language ofintentionality in place of competence but the imperative to improve and think about
practice is the same.
New Ways of ‘Being’ as Professionals.
when the construction and subsequent maintenance of engineering projects posea threat – either direct and immediate or gradual and compounding – toindividuals or groups …if engineers were taught to be aware of their potential
role in perpetuating violence and given opportunities to ethically reflect on
cases of engineering violence 6 they would be in a much better position to findalternative, non-violent solutions to design problems (Banks & Lachney,
2017:5).
A seminal piece of research and theorization with implications for educational
practice that has emerged over the past two decades, is the work of Barnett (2004; 2009;
Barnett & Coate 2005). Given the huge shifts in the global context over the past coupleof decades to what Barnett has called the age of ‘super complexity’, Barnett is interested
in how universities are preparing students for this world. To answer this question,
Barnett’s research focused on understanding the relationship between knowledge(knowing), skills (doing) and values (being) across a range of professional and formative
degree programmes in the UK by interviewing lecturers and students across a range of
disciplines. While the findings of the research showed that elements of knowing, doing
and being were evident in all programme examples, they were present in varying
relationships to each other (Barnett & Coate, 2005). In addition, in all cases, being was
the least visible in the discourses of both lecturers and students. However, given thechallenges of contemporary times, Barnett argues that it is the domain of being that is thesignificant area for curriculum and pedagogy:
A world of uncertainty poses challenges not just of knowing and of right action
but also, more fundamentally, on us as beings in the world.... Curricula in
6 The use of the term ‘violence’ by the authors is multi-layered: it is linked to the history ofengineering and its close association with warfare, but also linked to the ‘violence of social
structures and institutions’ (pg. 2).

9higher education therefore, have this challenge in front of them: how mighthuman being as such be developed so that it is adequate to a changing anduncertain world? (Barnett & Coate, 2005, p.108; emphasis added).
Importantly, ‘being’ is not outside of either knowing or doing but puts pressure on
both: centering ‘being’ implies developing pedagogical spaces and practices that, through(new, intentional) ways of knowing and doing, promote students’ being. What does thismean for our work in developing citizen professionals? For us, knowing needs to focus
on students understanding complex social problems, and doing needs to facilitateprocesses for engaging with these problems as citizen professionals. Asking students toshift from complex technical to complex social problems might thus result in substantial
amounts of ‘unlearning’ of ideas about how things ought to be in relation to the profession
and related knowledge (Boud & Walker 1998) and this where the potential for a changed
being occurs.
This is where care and intention are so important in this work so that students feelsafe to engage on other aspects of themselves, especially in the context of university
learning where power relations so often render students silent and disempowered. This is
supported by Christie (2005: 246) who argues that
…we need to strive to build an ethics of care in our educational institutions, sothat alongside the intellectual development of our students, we value andnurture a concern for what it is to be a human being.
Tackling ‘Wicked’ Problems Through Facilitating Deliberation. We talked
above about the need to get students to engage with the social and try to understand thebroader context within which they will work as professionals. For this, we drew on theliterature on ‘wicked problems’ (Carcasson 2013; Ramaley, 2014; Eatman et al 2018). In
particular, our focus was on getting students to engage with wicked social problems
which are not resolved by technical solutions: we wanted students – as citizen
professionals - to think about the people, the communities that they would need to engage
with in working with such problems. In arguing for the importance of this practice inhigher education teaching and learning, Carcasson (2013: 9) makes the point that students
need to grapple with problems that ‘involve competing underlying values and paradoxes
that require either tough choices between opposing goods or innovative ideas that cantranscend the inherent tensions’.
In thinking about how we could help our students to make sense of such problems,
we were drawn to the work on deliberation in higher education, increasingly being viewed
as an important process to engage students working through such problems (Carcasson,
2013; Carcasson & Sprain, 2012; Carcasson & Sprain 2015; Longo & Shaffer, 2019).
Moderating a deliberation process, we believe, can provide students with important skills
and mindsets useful in both their personal (citizen) and their professional (citizen
professional) contexts. Wicked problems are thus at the core of the deliberation processes
we require students to facilitate (2019) and design in detail (2020).
As a course outcome, the course requires students to plan, design, and facilitate adeliberation working in deliberation groups of 3-4. We drew on the approach used by the
Kettering Foundation of bringing citizens together for the purposes of deliberation on
critical social problems. Using the method of framing, naming and taming these issues,
students needed to bring a group together and deliberate on a contentious issue (see 3.2
for how this worked in 2019). Following authors such as Longo and Shaffer (2019), and10

in the South African context Waghid (2006), deliberation is increasingly being seen as a
useful practice for professionals to get exposure to deliberation…as a form of ‘intelligent action’ which encourages teachers and students toreflect upon problems, stimulates them to acquire new ways of solving problems,and engenders possibilities through which problems could be examined(Waghid 2006: 315).
2019: Engaging the (Visible) Social: Face-to-Face Learning and Engagement
The course, with 23 students in this pilot year, took place via what we calledcampus-based classes as well as off-campus classes (OCCs). Classes ran once a week for
a 4-hour block with readings in between, key in developing the classroom space for thekind of learning we wished to facilitate. Classes were interactive and dialogic rather thancontent-driven.
Knowing Differently: New Lenses Through Texts and PlaceAs discussed earlier, the focus of the course was to enable engineering students toconsider the world beyond their technical education in what we called ‘engaging thesocial’. In order to allow this to happen, we needed students to develop a more sociallyaware lens with which to look at the world. This was done by exposing them to various
key texts and concepts in extensive in classroom discussions on Monday afternoons.
These concepts included notions of community (Rohleder et al, 2008); problems of‘single stories’ and their link to the development of stereotyping (Adichie 2009;
Ndzendze, 2012); understanding perspectives (Stalker 1996); and asset-based community
development (Mathews, 2013). A key text that proved challenging but ultimatelytransformative for most, if not all, students and represented the overarching goal of the C/Prof
course, is a piece by Banks and Lachney (2017) titled ‘Engineered violence: confronting the
problems of neutrality and violence in engineering’. Linked to the quote upfront in the chapter by
Boud and Walker (1998), this piece served to help shifting the engineering framing most students
bring with them into the course 7.

Furthermore, a specific ‘social’ aspect of the course was explored in the two OCCs
namely the inner city of Cape Town: a visit to the District Six museum 8, site of violent
forced removals under Apartheid, and a city walk which gave students a chance to think
about space, place and history. By visiting key historical and present-day sites, the visits
asked students to consider issues such as how citizen-friendly the city is e.g. how easy isaccess for differently abled citizens? How do statues represent the history of the city(prominence, position, absence)? How does the city’s physical layout represent Apartheid
history, all of which they experienced by being physically present in the city itself 9.
7 Most students are 3rd or 4th year students in a 4-or 5-year degree therefore engineering

identity and knowledge is already relatively well-developed.
8 District Six Museum is a museum in the former inner-city residential area and, District Six,
in Cape Town, South Africa in an old Methodist church. The District Six Foundation was founded
in 1989 and the museum in 1994, as a memorial to the forced movement of 60,000 inhabitants ofvarious races in District Six during Apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. See
https://www.districtsix.co.za/
9 While not used in this paper, we have been influenced by some of the work on place-basedlearning in particular Gruenewald’s work on ‘a critical pedagogy of place’. This is work wewant to draw on more going forward.

11

Doing in Context: Facilitating Deliberations
In the second half of the course, students were required to plan, design, andfacilitate a deliberation working in deliberation groups of 3-4. The purpose of including
a deliberation was two-fold: to offer students the experience of developing facilitationand moderation skills thereby connecting theory and practice; to get them to reflect onwhat it means to be a professional who thinks about citizen engagement as a core part oftheir professional identity and role (Boyte, 2008).
For the deliberation topics, we developed themes from some of the complex social
issues that students were exposed to on the OCCs (transport, memorialisation,
gentrification and social housing). We drew on the materials from the Kettering
Foundation 10 to help students in the deliberation process. As per the Kettering Foundation
deliberation process, each group was given a broad theme they had to develop as a topic
to deliberate. In selecting themes, we avoided technical or educational problems –anything that could be solved quickly by experts or by creating awareness. Themes
needed to trouble the very training that the engineering students are steeped in – framing
problems to find technical solutions. Using the Kettering methods – framing, naming,
taming – students had to develop issues guides to support the deliberation process (seethe work of the National Issues Forum for more on this).
Students thus had to frame their topic so that there was no clear ‘right’ answer(typical of a wicked problem) and develop three options that required participants toweigh up the trade-offs and benefits of each. Students had to conduct background researchon their problem, thinking strategically about how to present facts and reading sources
for biases and different opinions on each option (through collecting public opinion where
possible). In the process of framing their issues, the students had to identify the underlying
values behind different views and opinions. Once they had framed their issue, students
had to describe the three solution options that they had devised. They then had to write
the Issue Guide – an overview of the three options of action in response to their topic.
The pre-deliberation event work of framing the issue was key in learning about
how to learn to value difference. Firstly, the framing process taught the students how tomove beyond surface-level stances on hot topics. Secondly, students had to identify
values as a means of understanding different opinions.
The latter is an exceptionally powerful tool in the current political moment. It has
been widely documented how social media has contributed to polarizing debates andincrease extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. The ability to see difference
as a different prioritization of values, rather than as an alien ‘other’ beyond
comprehension, is powerful. The deliberation process gave students the tools to think
about how to engage with difference in a deeply divided South African society, whether
it is in their professional lives through participatory planning or in dinner table debates intheir (citizen) personal lives. This ‘bridge-building’ form of citizenship is linked to the
Kettering Foundation’s focus on consensus-building, but extends beyond it.
Engaging ‘Being’ Through Knowing and Doing
From a teaching perspective, the Citizen Professional course in 2019 was uniqueas the small class size (23 students) and the intensity (4-hour sessions) and personal nature
10 https://www.kettering.org/

12

of the content meant that both teachers and students got to know each other. Whether it
was walking through the city, bringing food to share in classes or contributing openly toconversation around personal experiences of social injustice, many of the students
commented that this was the first course in their degree that engaged their being element,
rather than just their knowing or doing (Barnett, 2009). As facilitators, given ourcommitment to social justice and relational pedagogy, we greatly enjoyed forming
relationships with students and witnessing their personal growth.
Student evaluations of the course were positive overall. In most cases, final essays
reflected a deep engagement with not only the texts in the course, but with themselves,
other students and their emergent professional identity.
2020: COVID-19: Engaging the (Invisible) Social: Online Learning andEngagement
The disappearance of the linear time and space of the timetable on the campus
introduced the real social time and space of … daily lives 11

UCT is an institution with students from a range of backgrounds that cut acrossrace, class and ethnicity in complex ways. While a highly ranked university in South
Africa (and Africa), not all students come from wealthy backgrounds. At the beginningof what was termed ‘lockdown’ in South Africa, a survey was conducted of students’
access to technology, data, bandwidth as well as computers. There was an extraordinarily
high return rate of over 95% from undergraduate students which provided the institution
with good understanding of student needs and how it should respond. The approach
adopted was called ‘emergency remote teaching’ (ERT) to indicate a less-than-ideal
context for learning as many students’ home environments are not ideally conducive tolearning. Based on the findings of the survey, vulnerable students were identified andoffered data, laptops and printed course materials where needed. In addition, a range ofofferings and online support were made available through the Centre for Innovation in
Learning and Teaching (CILT).
During one of the online support webinars for staff, a set of principles wereidentified to guide staff that reflected core aspects of UCT’s approach to support during
this ERT period:o Develop a pedagogy of careo Accept mistakes with grace and humilityo Wherever possible, be flexible and inclusive in how
o Simplicity is key in terms of technology and mode of engagement (i.e. low
tech)
These principles guided us in thinking about what and how to change in the course for
2020.
Engaging the Social in 2020: Overview
It is not about your course or your institution; it is about your students 12
In 2020, 30 students registered for the course. Although we were working in the
11 Deputy Vice Chancellor A/Prof Lis Lange, opening keynote UCT teaching and learning

conference July 2020.
12 Quote from a colleague providing support for online learning the University of Cape Town,
March-June 2020.

13

context of ERT, we still had the same goals of shifting mindsets by engaging ‘the social’so that these engineering students could be citizen professionals. However, in 2020, thesocial we exposed students to in 2019, became ‘invisible’ (both in terms of classroom
discussions, off-campus trips and deliberation events). This had implications for
curriculum and pedagogy. We provide an overview of the implications below, followed
by detail of our new practice that emerged.
It was not possible to run the OCCs, and we were not in class with students, bothelements of which brought in a strong degree of the social in 2019. Instead, we needed to
be intentional in new ways to provide a relational learning context. We therefore brought
in a new team (Shannon and Izzy) who had particular skills and strengths in curating
course materials and facilitating in online spaces. They also worked together previously
in these roles which brought an added dimension of the social. We also kept a colleague
on board (Ruth) who had been involved in the assessment in 2019 for continuity. Through thesechanges, we were therefore able to prioritise materials development and facilitation andunderstand how these two dimensions needed to work together.

Given the reality in South Africa that not all students have good access totechnology, data or bandwidth, the online space was largely asynchronised; however,built into this was a weekly 4-hour synchronised slot. Forum posts (a low-tech form ofsynchronised engagement) were moderated by Izzy which enabled students to grapple
with critical ideas and the views of others. This replaced the 2019 face-to-face classdiscussions.
Instead of the 2019 OCCs which brought students directly into contact with thebigger social context outside of the university, we developed rich case studies of criticalsocial issues in an attempt to make the social ‘visible’, and thereby enabling students toengage with a larger context Assessment was also altered: students had to complete more
frequent, shorter pieces. The assessment tasks were structured differently, requiring
students to draw on elements from their own social (home) contexts. Finally, instead ofrequiring students to facilitate deliberations as a course learning outcome, we asked them
to focus on the design of the deliberation process.
‘Knowing’ in (a Virtual) Context: Rethinking Materials Development.
Critical in the COVID-19 context, we needed to imagine how materials could facilitate
an understanding of the social in place of the OCCs. How could we still give students a
sense of social, economic and civic life and through this, enable them to think about theiridentity as citizen professionals?
As important focus became mediating or ‘scaffolding’ learning materials incontexts where face-to-face classroom interaction was not possible. Bringing newmaterials into the course that asked questions of the social in new ways was critical.
Included here were texts linking issues of epistemology with identity and positionality(Takacs 2003); linking technology to specific ideas of bias/non-neutrality (Delano 2018);
as well as a seminal text on intersectionality (Crenshaw 2016). All of these contributed
to students thinking more broadly - socially - about critical concepts and issues. This waspart of the intentional practice we all have a deep commitment to.
The choice of texts – a mixture of popular and academic texts - was also deliberate.
Although academic writing (journal articles and book chapters) holds great value in auniversity context, the narrow, specific audience they address was a limitation: we foundit more fruitful to expose the engineering students in our course to these unfamiliar
14sociological concepts derived from the humanities via popular texts. The more popular
texts offered accessible accounts of how the concepts manifest in everyday life while also
avoiding the jargon, references, and disciplinary conventions that are a staple of formal
academic writing, and not immediately useful to our students. An example here are theresources on one of the key themes discussed in the class - food (in)security. We drew onboth formal academic papers, newspaper articles, and personal narratives. Students werethus invited to think about the issue from a diverse range of perspectives and through this,on their own, find connections between supposedly disparate practices and events.
As discussed above, we were not able to offer students any OCCs. We therefore
needed to think about how to bring the (invisible) social of the everyday into the course.
A key approach to developing materials to bring social issues into the class, was thenotion of ‘constellation thinking’ (Cole, 2012). In our work, this manifested as an effort
to get students to make connections between events, histories, and lived practices that on
their surface appeared to be dissimilar or disconnected. Such an approach zoomed in on
individual struggle while also emphasizing broad structural forces. It therefore sought toforestall notions of sentimentality that often accompany accounts of personal strife andagency, while at the same time preventing feelings of hopelessness that emerge whenpowerful structural forces are discussed in the abstract as being pervasive and difficult tocontest. To facilitate this aspect of the learning, Shannon developed materials focused on
three key social issues: land and development; food security; water and sanitation.
Deliberation: New Ways of ‘Doing’ Through Educational Design. Materials
development was also important for the deliberation task. The 2019 course drewdeliberation themes from issues that students had experienced first-hand in the OCCs in
the city. This was not possible in 2020 with no OCCs. We also could not require students
to moderate a physical deliberation event in the COVID lockdown context. Attention thus
shifted to the design of a deliberation event in small groups. We drew on the work of Jane
Vella (1994), which emerges out of adult and popular education. Vella’s learning design
approach focuses on the ‘who’, ‘why’ and ‘so that’ of learning events, disrupting more
traditional learning design where ‘what’ and ‘how’ drives the approach. This approach
was important because it acknowledged upfront the community or stakeholders for whom
the students needed to design their deliberation event. 13 This critical shift reflects Boyte’s(2008) notion that citizen professionals do not have expertise that they bring to be ‘on top’of their stakeholders, but rather ‘on tap’: the initial impetus of engagement is the people
and their needs/interests in context, not technical expertise.
As before in 2019, students still needed to produce Issue Guides, and given there
were no OCCs from which to draw deliberation topics, Shannon crafted three scenarios
featuring forms of social contestation. While clearly works of creative writing, thescenarios addressed a range of real-world issues pertinent to our local context, including
debates around the allocation of resources, gentrification, labour rights, and the legacy ofcolonialism and Apartheid. To stay true to our goal of having students engage with andhold complexity, the forms of contestation in the scenarios were set up as “wicked
problems”, that is to say, problems that are difficult to solve due to deep histories, adifficulty to grasp, contradictory stakeholder positions, and/or complex
interdependencies.
13 See more about Vella’s work here - https://www.globallearningpartners.com/founder/

15

Facilitation: Enabling ‘Being’ in Virtual Spaces. As we have argued, opening
up spaces for new types of being is important. However, as disciplinary knowing is sooften hard to shift in this context, the role of pedagogy was critical in this regard, evenmore so in an online/virtual context. The role of facilitation in 2020 can therefore not be
overestimated. It was the central spine of the course and the intentional work done by thecourse facilitator was critical in keeping the students engaging in dialogue online,
mirroring where possible what happened in the face-to-face classes in 2019. Adding to
the success of the facilitation, and therefore student learning and engagement, was theclose co-operation between the materials developer and course facilitator. While this is
the standard outcome in courses where one person serves as both the curriculum designer
and the in-classroom educator, in our work here we had to be intentional about analignment between the materials and facilitation.
There was thus an emphasis on the importance of dialogue and negotiation
between the facilitator and materials developer, thinking through how the theory andlearning would connect with and complement the students’ learning process theyexperienced through the facilitation activities. These discussions took place on a weekly
basis and played an important role in the course design process as they allowed thefacilitator and materials developer to embody what that learning process might be for the
students and to troubleshoot the experience before the session went live.
Facilitating social justice learning in an online space requires careful negotiationof the facilitator’s identity and positionality to build rapport and trust with students, evenfor a seasoned facilitator. As rapport and trust are important components of humanizing
the learning experience for all, this meant that the facilitator’s identity should not be seen
as a threat. This awareness on the part of the facilitator helped students on our course
develop agency and construct a learner identity for themselves in the online course andreveal these on their own terms.
Re-Thinking Assessment: Rendering New Forms of ‘Being’ Visible. Our reimagined practice to engage with being extended to our assignments. In place of longer
essays students completed in the previous year, 2020 students were asked to submit shortpieces of writing on a weekly basis. These ‘self-study activities’ required students toanalyse and reflect on the course materials either alone or in relation to their own lives
and personal experiences. This was another way to bring ‘the social’ into the class. For
example, the self-study activity in the food (in)security week asked students to draw a‘food map’ i.e. a geographic representation of where and how they were able to accessfood in their communities. They were then asked to use their own food map and theweek’s texts to think about the politics and economics of food accessibility, food deserts,
and the kinds of changes required both on the national and local level to ensure that all
citizens and non-citizens have access to fresh, healthy food. These small tasks reflect anapproach to assessment which both foregrounds a scaffolding approach but also
continuous assessment, a useful strategy more broadly but particularly so during a remotelearning context.

16

Conclusion: Holding Complexity and Engaging the (New) Social
We will not be able to return to a pre-COVID reality. Neither should we. 14
UCT is proposing to call ERT work for 2021 physically distanced learning (PDL)
as a way of signalling a longer-term engagement in digitally mediated teaching andlearning. Students and staff will not be back on campus for at least the first half of 2021
unless they specifically need to use university resources such as laboratories inengineering, science and health sciences. As in late 2020, exceptions will be made forstudents considered vulnerable (in terms of their home environments) who will be invitedback into the residences so as to utilize the university network and to have secure lodging.
Reflecting on our experiences with this course, the challenges for continuing witha relational and intentional curriculum that strives to support students’ engagement as
citizen professionals are great; however, arguably ever more important in this foreverchanged context. COVID-19 thus presents us with real opportunities to do things
differently:
We harness our new awareness of the different spaces and times that we and ourstudents inhabit…We harness the power of technology to challenge the status quo
ethically and politically in a decolonial trajectory. 15
Our work which is reflected in this course is part of a larger project we are allcommitted to, namely, to prepare citizen/civic-minded professionals across faculties anddisciplines. Drawing on our work in engineering, this is critical as engineers (and otherprofessionals) are needed to play a role in society that demonstrates more than technicalknow-how. The challenge for educators, while not simple, is possible:…engineering educators can leverage the understanding of human safety, property, andviolence by those in environmental and racial justice movements to help engineering
students better understand their role as political actors (Banks & Lachney, 2017: 2)
Going forward, we also want to link our work to other relevant projects on campus.
UCT has recently adopted a new Vision for the university, and one of the key pillars of
Vision 2030 is to provide a socially engaged learning experience for all students. We
believe our work can contribute to this and we are thus keen to scope out a bigger
engaging the social project to reflect this new commitment. Doing so will not be without
challenges - we will need to encourage colleagues to work in ways that might requirethem…to step back from preconceived ideas of academic work and, where appropriate,acknowledge … complicity in the decisions that shape the learning of our students…
[I]t requires a change from within … [and] challenging the structures in which
decisions are made that reinforce the education of technically excellent but socially andpolitically dislocated student-citizens (McMillan 2016: 166).

14 Deputy Vice Chancellor A/Prof Lis Lange, opening keynote UCT teaching and learning

conference July 2020.
15 As above.

17

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Barnett, R. (2009). Knowing and becoming in the higher education curriculum. Studies
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Boud, D. & Walker. D (1990). Making the most of experience. Studies in Continuing
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Boyte, H. (2008). The Citizen Solution: How You Can Make a Difference. Minnesota
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Carcasson, M. & Sprain, L. (2015) Beyond Problem Solving: Reconceptualizing theWork of Public Deliberation as Deliberative Inquiry, Communication Theory,
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Christie, P. (2005) Towards an ethic of engagement in education in global times.
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Cole, T. (2012) The white saviour industrial complex. Available athttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-saviorindustrial-complex/254843/?single_page=true
Delano, M. (2018). Engineering is not neutral. Available at:https://engineeringinclusively.com/2018/06/12/technology-is-not-neutral/
Eatman, T., Ivory, G., Saltmarsh, J., Middleton, M., Wittman, A. & Dolgon, C. (2018).
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Engineering Council of South Africa. (2018). Background to Accreditation ofEngineering Education Programmes E-01-P Revision 3: ECSA
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3. Reframing Service-Learning to Cultivate Social Innovators:
A Case Study of Lingnan University in Hong Kong
Chong Xiao 1
Centre for Holistic Teaching and Learning, Hong Kong Baptist University
Abstract
As one of the high-impact practices of undergraduate education, ServiceLearning (also known as community-based experiential learning) has
been prevalently practiced by universities and colleges around the world(Kuh, 2008). Extant literature has studied the integration of this pedagogy
into different disciplines and summarized a series of principles in ensuring
its effectiveness. However, the worldwide pandemic outbreak proposed
significant challenges to the experience accumulated during the past halfcentury. This article introduces a Service-Learning model, which isreframed to enable students from liberal arts context to be innovators
aware of the local and global social challenges and, more importantly,
competent to make changes through social innovation. Since 2018, theOffice of Service-Learning at Lingnan University has been working on
this model and piloted it in a Service-Learning course in 2019/20 and2020/21 academic years. A case study of this particular course under
COVID-19 will be elaborated on to demonstrate this model's effectivenessand adaptability in student cultivation and social transformation.
The Changing Innovation Paradigm as the Social BackgroundIn various business, political, and scientific bodies, the term “innovation” has beenranked high on their agendas. With the dynamics in human social development, the forms,
scope, procedure, and outcomes of innovation are changing accordingly. In the industrial
economies era, the notion of innovation was focused predominantly on economic andtechnological development and represented those inventions taking the form of material
artifacts (Harrisson, 2012). Innovation policies and discourses are commonly
underpinned by a belief in the central role of science and technologies (Howaldt,
Domanski, & Kaletka, 2016). However, the skepticism on the over-reliance ontechnological innovation-driven economic development is not rare. As a countermeasure,the concept of sustainability was promoted internationally. From the report of Our
Common Future (UN & WCED, 1987), which clearly defined sustainable development
for the first time, to the Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015) proposed by theUnited Nations in 2015, sustainability has been penetrated the global discourse of human
1 Chong Xiao is formerly at Office of Service-Learning, Lingnan University

20

progress and societal development. This also results in the social relevance being
increasingly valued in the global innovation community.
Unlike technology-oriented innovation, a new paradigm was developed, which
adopts a sociologically enlightened understanding of innovation. Howaldt, Domanski,
and Kaletka (2016) define social innovation as:
a new combination and/or configuration of social practices in certain areas ofaction or social contexts prompted by certain actors (constellations) in an
intentionally targeted manner with the goal of better satisfying or answeringneeds and problems than is possible based on established practices.
According to this definition, the new paradigm is characteristic of its collective, inclusive,
and transformative nature. Social innovation usually takes place in a collective unit,
members of which “learn, invent, and layout new rules” in this “process of collective
creation” (Crozier & Friedberg, 1993, p. 19). It breaks the professional barrier ofinnovation and opens it up to the society which was exclusively practiced by academic
elites or research institutions (Rosted, Kjeldsen, Bisgaard, & Napier, 2009). Citizens andcustomers, who were previously perceived as recipients, are more frequently involved in
the invention for problem-solving. When assessing the success of particular innovations,in addition to the novelty in the artifact invention, to what extent it can be institutionalized
or make routine should also be evaluated. In this sense, social innovation is notnecessarily in the medium of technical artifacts. Renovations in the policy, rites, customs,
system, or operation are possible forms. The preparedness of the society, including thesocial values, ideologies, institutions, and/or power imbalances, play a significant role indetermining the extent of particular inventions being “socially desirable” in an extensive
and normative sense (Howaldt et al., 2016, p. 27).
Socializing Students Into Liberally Educated Innovators
Changes in the innovation paradigm, which largely echo the global discourse ofhuman progress towards sustainability, also shape teaching and learning transformation
at the tertiary level. Since the 18th Century, some significant innovations in two Industrial
Revolutions catalyzed an increasing request for scientific training that connects abstract
theory with useful arts and practical education for industrial economics. This resulted in
the expansion of comprehensive research universities and the flourishing of technicalinstitutions. In contrast, liberal arts colleges switched their emphasis from humanities tophysical sciences and achieved little growth (Atkinson, 1873). Until the late 20th Century,
liberal arts education was reinvigorated as a counteraction to science and technology's
dominance and moral emptiness and the frustrating large-scale climate of higher
education (Boucher, 1935).
With the trends observed across the world in the 20th Century, contemporary
liberal arts education provides an adequate and productive environment to socialize
collegiate students into aware and competent social innovators in virtue of its fourcharacteristics, namely broad disciplinary foundation, humanism values, connection tocommunities and self-awareness originated from the collective discourse. Specifically,
liberal arts education encourages students to actively involve in civic efforts not limited
to the political but crossing economic, social, cultural, and environmental areas. Many
global challenges we are suffering are underdefined or ill-defined because of therein
ambiguities and complexities. The ability and inclination to synthesize and apply
knowledge transcending subject divisions become an essential civic competence (Wraga,21

1993). Besides, with a special emphasis on international exposure, local engagement, andthe interdependence among global, national, and local communities, liberal arts education
facilitates students to have a better understanding of their interests and goals, enjoy morechoices in locating their loyalty, and gain a more comprehensive picture of their local
community (Lagos, 2002). Students start to empathize with the social contexts that they
may not be directly involved, consider the universalities of human experiences, and joincollaboratively global problem-solving (UNESCO, 2014).
Service-Learning as a Pedagogy of Social Innovation
Despite liberal arts education’s capability in equipping students with the criticalqualities of socially enlightened and academically competent innovators, theintangibleness of social innovation such as “incompatibility with planning,” “limited
manageability,” “non-linear trajectories,” and “a high degree of context and interaction
contingency” proposed big challenges to educators in terms of the curriculum, instruction,
and assessment design and implementation (Howaldt et al., 2016, p. 24). The
intangibleness requires social innovation pedagogy to be sensitive to social dynamics,
flexible in procedural arrangements, inclusive of cross-sectoral interplays, anddemocratic permitting students’ reflection and initiatives.
Among a variety of pedagogies, this article spotlights Service-Learning, which
has been proven to enhance students’ civic responsibilities, career awareness,interpersonal skills, and cultural tolerance (Hebert & Hauf, 2015; Peters, Mchugh, &Sendall, 2006; Toncar, 2006). All these competencies are vital for students to grow into
a social innovator. It has been observed some trailblazers integrating the components ofService-Learning and social innovation in higher education. For example, Koç
University’s (Istanbul, Turkey) international program of Service-Learning & Social
Innovation in Vietnam provided technical assistance in local non-profit management andsome income-generating projects by matching students’ interests and skills with concretebusiness problems (Global Engagement Institute, 2018). Another example is the SPARK
Community-based Social Innovation Challenge organized by Grinnell College (Iowa,
USA). In the half-year program, students collaborated with peers and created solutions tothe challenges identified by the local organizations. In Canada, the component ofcommunity Service-Learning can also be observed in some acknowledged social
innovation education programs, such as Mount Royal University’s Humanly, which
specifically works on making the information clearer and accessible to the general public,
and a citywide innovation campaign Vivacity in Calgary, which annually launches design
challenge and calls for post-secondary students’ endeavors of solution creation. These
programs verified that Service-Learning and social innovation could be married within
the higher education context because of their shared goals in advancing social betterment,
the common mechanism of experiential learning, and heavy dependence on the collective
efforts.
However, insufficiencies can still be identified in extant programs. Some,
especially those non-credit-bearing ones and particularly emphasizing social innovation,
simply use Service-Learning as the synonyms of fieldwork in the community orcommunity-based projects. As a pedagogy, Service-Learning's roles in establishing thesocial innovation curriculum and instructional strategies within and beyond the classroom
are not thoroughly considered. Focusing on the impacts on the concerned community,
instruments in evaluating students’ academic learning and personal growth have not been
22

well-developed, corresponding to social innovation's nature and features. At the sametime, most Service-Learning programs perceive social innovation as an approach tonavigating community solutions. Regarding the historical background and social
structure of the concerned communities, no systematic methodologies have been taught
to guide the community needs assessment and streamline the innovation ideas' execution.
The intangibleness of social innovation, including the first-hand feelings and constraintsof concerned social groups, the historical and social reasons as the structural explanation
for the challenges, and the uncertainties in the solution implementation, have not been
well addressed in a way serving the innovative solution development. This is actually the
crucial point to the transformative power of social innovation. Last but not least, themismatched time between the continuous process of social innovation and the semester
period of course arrangements is overlooked, which inevitably compromises either
students’ learning effectiveness or community gains. These insufficiencies compel
educators and practitioners of Service-Learning and social innovation at the tertiary levelto conceptualize the integration of two educational initiatives better and guide more
substantial practices.
A Model of Transformative Service-Learning
As a response to the insufficiencies mentioned above, a Service-Learning modelwith the aim to give full play to the transformative power of social innovation was
proposed by Lingnan University. As the first higher education institution in Hong Kong
adopting Service-Learning as an indispensable part of its liberal arts education, Lingnan
University had provided courses and programs with Service-Learning components toundergraduate students since 2004, when the programs were mostly in the form of direct
service. In 2016, Service-Learning was institutionalized as a graduation requirement,
which means every undergraduate student at Lingnan must take at least one ServiceLearning course by graduation. On the one hand, the Office of Service-Learning, as theunit in charge, keeps exploring diverse projects impactful for the communities; on theother hand, it works on strengthening the academic rigor of relevant courses and programs.
In 2017, social innovation was introduced, which demonstrates four changes in themethodology of problem-solving, the rationale behind community needs assessment,
approach to solution development, and strategies in impact sustaining.
Design Thinking as the Methodological Foundation
Design Thinking (DT), a five-step human-centered problem-solving method(Dam & Siang, 2020), was introduced as the leading methodology. The Empathy stage ofDT emphasizes gaining an empathic understanding of the social challenge, which adjusts
the over-narrowed perception of social innovation as a practice mainly addressing thesolution's concern. During the Define stage, the information from the empathy phase isanalyzed and synthesized to figure out the concerned subgroup and the deeply-rooted
structural reasons for the social challenges. This makes the problem-solving more focused.
When progress to the stage of Ideate, with the solid knowledge of the social issues andthe structural reasons, new solution ideas are generated through various techniques
facilitating “thinking outside the box.” With choosing the most feasible one, several
Prototypes, which refers to the inexpensive, scaled-down versions of (certain features of)the solution, are developed to visualize the innovative idea. For the Testing purpose,designers present the prototype to the concerned subgroup, collect their feelings,
23

behaviors, and thoughts, and redefine the application condition, the solution design,
and/or the social challenges.
The five steps of DT lay the necessary steps comprising the entire ServiceLearning process with a major purpose to make positive social changes. Accordingly, acomplete journey includes structured experiencing, challenge and reasons identifying,alternatives proposing, solution developing, and applying and scaling-up (Figure 1).
Referring to Kaye’s Service-Learning model (2004), DT’s empathy and define two steps
mainly address the Investigation concern. Ideate and prototype steps correspond to the
Preparation stage. And the testing phase is more similar to the Action step of Kaye’smodel. Besides, DT permits the iteratively back and forth among different stages, which
is ideally close to the real-life problem-solving process and capable of dealing with the
ambiguities and uncertainties in execution.
Figure 1
Model of Transformative Service-Learning

Source: developed based on DT, by the Office of Service-Learning at Lingnan University

Undergraduate Research Ensuring the Academic Rigor
The components of undergraduate research were introduced to guide students’social innovation in terms of the structured experiencing, challenge and reasons defining,and solution prototype testing. It ensures students’ profound understanding of theconcepts and theories and effective application of the knowledge to address social issues.
Rather than spontaneous experiencing, in Lingnan’s Service-Learning, empathizing with
community people and defining their challenge is structured as empirical social researchthat informs the evidence-based community needs assessment. Starting with a broad topic,
students explore the extant literature about the phenomenon concerned to identify what
relevant concepts, theories, and practices have been studied and could be referred to. Witha sound theoretical framework, students develop the research questions they would liketo figure out during the fieldwork. When designing the methodology, students choose the24most data-rich informants and data collection means (e.g., observation, interview, or
opinion survey). Empirical data from the fieldwork are used to verify students’assumptions and/or clear the stereotypes, guide further information exploration, andconclude the deeply-rooted structure reasons, which help define the problematic
phenomenon and create opportunities for their social innovation. For courses offered byfaculties, local communities in Hong Kong are chosen as the concerned communities that
may not be familiar to all students. For the overseas programmes organized by the Officeof Service-Learning, namely Joint Humanitarian Entrepreneurship Academy, students
traveled to foreign countries (e.g., Uganda, Cambodia, Nepal, and Kazakhstan) for theirfield trip. This stage of issue identification takes typically one-third of the course orprogramme period.
Students go through similar empirical fieldwork guided by the conceptual
framework when testing their prototypes. They identify the appropriate informants, who
are the potential beneficiaries from the concerned community, collect their feedback on
the solution, and decide the methods to collect the feedback in the forms of verbal
language, behaviors, and/or emotional expression. Evidence-based prototype testing is
conducted to determine whether the solution works as expected and the community’ssocial readiness in adopting the new operation. In addition to the design andimplementation of empirical studies, students also learn how to disseminate their findings
through verbal presentations or other forms such as infographics or animation (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Sample Infographics of the Rainwater Harvesting Systems in Rooftop Farming

Source: student assignment from the summer term of 2019/20 academic year

Inter-Regional, Disciplinary, and Cultural Exchange for Social Changes
Several forms of division exist in conventional problem-solving, which constrains
the eventual social changes driven by innovation. Based on the broad liberal arts
education at Lingnan University, the components of global learning, team teaching, and25

co-creation were implemented within and beyond the Service-Learning classroom tobreak the boundaries between regions, disciplines, and culture. Geographically, students
are required to consider whether the challenge they concern has a similar structure andmechanism in other societies and to what extent the solutions they propose can be appliedin an international context. This demonstrates a typical globalized approach to social
innovation, which is realized through either overseas field trips or remote connections
with foreign universities or organizations.
Professionally, students with different academic backgrounds are exposed todiverse perspectives on the phenomenon concerned. Academics and professionals fromdistinct fields deliver lectures on interdisciplinary topics and practices (e.g., discourse andprogress of SDGs). STEM workshops (e.g., 3D modeling, Arduino, laser cutting,electronic circuits, and mobile app/website design) are offered to make students aware ofavailable tools and boost their confidence in cooperating with engineers or technicians.
This has particular significance for students from Lingnan University whose
undergraduate education is historically featured with humanities, social sciences, andbusiness studies. By breaking the disciplinary boundaries, collaborative work ofhumanitarian technology and/or institutional renovation solve long-lasting social
challenges (e.g., poor air quality of subdivided flats 2 and the language barrier for ethnic
minority housewives in Hong Kong) more easily.
Culturally, to adjust the frequently observed savior mentality of service providers,
Lingnan’s Service-Learning constructs an equal power relationship between local
communities and students through co-creation. On the one hand, students play full use of
their academic knowledge and analytical skills to identify the deeply-rooted structural
reasons for the social challenge at the stages of community needs assessment. On theother hand, community people contribute their street knowledge and experience, which
may not be rational but closer to reality, giving students constructive feedback to optimize
the design at the stage of prototype testing. Students frequently describe their relationshipwith community people as “hand-in-hand” or “life mentorship.”
Inclusive Entrepreneurship for Sustainable and Transformative Effects
Entrepreneurship is crucial for scaling up and sustaining innovation, which refers
to a philosophy of human existence, attitudes in navigating uncertainties, a leadershipmindset, and problem-solving skillsets (Cogliser & Brigham, 2004; Kuratko, 2009). It is
not unusual to teach entrepreneurship through Service-Learning because of both practices’contribution to solving social problems (Brock & Steiner, 2009; Dees, 2007; Mueller &Brahm, 2015). Nowadays, entrepreneurship’s inclusive nature is increasingly valued,
which challenges the idea that it is the prerogative of business school graduates (Gibb,
2003). As a personal quality, entrepreneurship enables non-business students to engage
their personal identity with social discourse, influence the wider social community
through economic leverages, and achieve success in the globalized knowledge economy(Godwyn, 2009).
To address the mismatching between the semester period and social innovation asa continuous process, Lingnan’s Service-Learning model is extended with an
2 Subdivided flats are a ubiquitous type of rental housing found in Hong Kong. They are flats

divided into two or more separate units to house more people. The median living area perperson of a subdivided flat was found to be 30-40 square feet.

26

entrepreneurial examination of students’ community problem-solving. Students are
required to make sense of their problem-solving experience and explain the outputs of
their projects. With the systematic transformation as the eventual goal, students must
analyze the diverse interests and capabilities of involved actors to figure out the potential
opportunities and challenges in institutionalizing the changes. Training in storytelling,
pitch, and other non-verbal expressions (e.g., infographics design and video making)helps students master the considerations in preparing a conversation with audiences fromdistinct backgrounds and with different concerns. Beyond the course period, students areencouraged to identify possible economic and social capital to transfer their project
outputs into real-life products or start-ups. By virtue of the Lingnan Entrepreneurship
Initiatives, funding and competition opportunities are open to all students no matter froma business background or not.
Since 2018, this transformative Service-Learning model has been piloted to ensure
its effectiveness in enhancing students’ competencies in seven domains (i.e., subjectrelated knowledge, communication skills, organizational skills, social competence,
problem-solving skills, research skills, and civic orientation). The next section will
explain its adaptability to different teaching and learning environments by taking thepractices under COVID-19 as the instance.
Practices Under the Worldwide Outbreak of Pandemic
The worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 has caused tremendous challenges tohigher education; Service-Learning practitioners are not exempt. Lingnan University has
been actively exploring the possible ways to provide Service-Learning opportunities,
based on the model mentioned above, and summarizing the experiences and lessons inensuring the efficacy. Here, practices in the spring and summer terms of 2019/20
academic year will be elaborated on to demonstrate the flexibilities and adaptability ofthis five-step model, including the phases of structured experiencing, challenge andreasons defining, alternatives proposing, solution development, and applying and scalingup (Figure 1).
The sample course is a three-credit free elective one offered by the Office ofService-Learning and opened to all undergraduate students regardless of their cohorts andmajors. Normally, the class size is under 25. During the 13-14 weeks (two-hour lecture
plus a one-hour tutorial for each), students work on the topic of urban farming, which is
closely related to their daily life, but most of them do not have much first-hand experience.
Besides, this topic permits discussion within both local and global scopes. In the
beginning, the basic concepts of Service-Learning, its principles, differentiation withvolunteerism and internship activities, and the way Lingnan University frames it as asocial innovation process are introduced to make sure students were on the same page.
Regarding the assessments, in addition to their Attendance and Engagement (20%),
student’s learning outcomes were evaluated through a continuous entry in individual
Reflective Journals (10%), group Pre-fieldwork Research Infographics (20%), group
Project Proposal Presentation (10%), group Report-back Demonstration (20%), andindividual Reflective Essay (20%).
Structured Experiencing
Students kicked out their Service-Learning journey with a phenomenon related tourban farming that they were interested in. With quick online searching, students chose27

very distinct phenomena such as youth participation in agriculture, food education for thegeneral public, rooftop farming as an alternative, etc. For a comprehensive andconceptualized understanding of the phenomena, students conducted the first-round
literature review under the course instructor’s guidance. In lectures, the concept ofsustainability and the international discourse of sustainable development was introduced
as the theoretical foundation. During tutorials, how to turn a real-life topic into an
academic question and study it with existing literature and empirical data were explained.
The phenomena identified at the beginning of the course were further refined into
theoretical concepts such as human capital, information dissemination, resilience
workforce, and technology affordance, which related to either the economic,
environmental, or social dimension of the United Nations’ notion of sustainability. Boththe lecturers and tutorials were conducted on Zoom.
Figure 3
Sample Assignment of Pre-fieldwork Research Infographics

Source: student assignment from the summer term of 2019/20 academic year

In addition to studying the concepts, comparative research methods wereintroduced to analyze the situation and practices in Hong Kong and other countries orregions. As the output, a gap that students’ project could fit in was expected. To ensure
the quality of their research and nurture their skills in findings dissemination, a Prefieldwork Research Infographic was designed as the first group assignment in this course.
28

According to students’ submissions, comparisons were conducted between Hong Kongand mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, or Japan regarding the similarities anddifferences in specific types of urban farming. An example is shown in figure 3.
To facilitate students’ remote communication and better guide their virtual
fieldwork, a tool called SOAP note was introduced, which is an acronym for subjective,
objective, assessment, and plan (Table 1). SOAP originated from the problem-oriented
medical record developed by Lawrence Weed (Jaroudi & Payne, 2019). The items andconnotations were adopted, with adjustments that make it more applicable to community
needs assessment. The practice started with marking down students’ perceptions related
to urban farming in the item of S(ubjective). For example, students thought that “farmers
have limited knowledge on the usage of organic pesticides and fertilizers,” “nogovernment support on the local farming industry,” and “the citizens have no idea about
Table 1
SOAP Note for Community Needs Assessment

Source: developed based on SOAP note originally designed by Lawrence Weed29

rooftop farming.” In this way, students’ assumptions and stereotypes were easy to identify
for verification in the fieldwork. Due to the social distancing, the onsite visit was replacedwith online sharing in the forms of the virtual tour, guest talk, and Q&A. Farmers fromthe traditional organic farm, rooftop farm, hydroponic farm, and those involved in the
consumption stage of urban agriculture industry were invited. Students recorded answers
from the guest speakers in the O(bjective) item of SOAP note.
Challenging and Reasons Identifying
After the virtual fieldwork, students used the A(ssessment) item of SOAP note to
analyze the information shared by the guest speakers, which was facilitated by two
sentence patterns. One is “we were surprised to notice …” which works to clear theirstereotypes or bias. Students realized that “farmers are quite knowledgeable in theorganic farming practices or available technologies”; “government does provide somefunding; however, the application process is quite troublesome.” The other sentence
pattern is “we wonder if this means…”, which pushes students to consider the structural
reasons for the problematic phenomena and plan further fieldwork and literature review.
Taking the group working on public awareness and participation as an instance, students
unexpectedly found that “young office workers actually joined some one-off farming
events, but did not become frequent practitioners.” This finding made them curious about“whether it means young office workers prefer other regular leisure activities.” Therefore,
they designed an online survey to investigate office workers’ daily routines and further
explore the possibility of using farming to build a resilient workforce.
As the output of the community needs assessment, students must develop a
workable design question leading their social innovation. They used the P(lan) item of
SOAP note as the guidance, which is phrased as “how might wehelp/support/encourage… to … so that …”. They clarified the subgroup of the urban
farming community as their concern, focused on one challenge this specific group face,and motivated to conduct further research to identify a feasible project question. Below
are two HMW statements developed by students as examples:“How might we help more young office workers in Hong Kong who are
suffering from stress to realize the benefits of indoor farming and practice it
so that they can become a resilient workforce?”“How might we encourage young elderly who are physically capable andpersonally interested in farming practices to learn how to initiate sustainable
farming as a leisure alternative so that they can enjoy a more fulfilling andrelaxing retirement life?”
This stage was perceived as “the most difficult” by students because it involved extensive
theoretical studies and data analysis. Based on the SOAP note, weekly consultations withthe course instructor were conducted to monitor students’ progress.
Alternative Proposing
With identifying the authentic community needs, students went through two steps
to propose alternatives, namely brainstorming and idea filtering. For the first step, aflipped classroom was practiced to facilitate students’ multi-disciplinary brainstorming,
where the quantity and diversity of solution ideas are the primary concern. To open theirhorizons, students must study a series of short videos of guest talks in advance, which
discuss the topic of urban farming from perspectives of sociology, politics, education,30

biology, literature, anthropology, and environmental engineering. During synchronous
virtual class, based on the HMW statement, students worked in groups to propose various
ideas regardless of the feasibilities. Technically, to enable remote brainstorming, a free
online platform, Miro, was adopted, which permits both synchronous and asynchronous
inputs of individual group members.
The second step of alternative proposing is idea filtering. Students put thosesimilar ideas together as clusters and screened out those hard-to-realized within thesemester. SWOT analysis was introduced to guide their reflection on the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats when developing the solution. This tool facilitates
students’ projects by playing full use of team members’ advantages and identifying thenecessary support. It has been widely used in the field of business and management. It
was part of the entrepreneurship training, in which students learned how to make rational
decisions, tap the internal potential, and explore the available resources.
As a mid-term diagnostic assessment, students delivered a Project Proposal
Presentation via Zoom. They reflected on the first half of their Service-Learning journey,
made sense of every step experienced, and planned for the upcoming six weeks of thecourse.
Solution Development
Solution development comprises two steps, namely a low-fidelity prototype
showing how the solution looks and a high-fidelity version demonstrating how it
functions in real-life settings. The course instructor introduced some useful prototyping
techniques, including sketches and diagrams, paper interfaces, storyboards, role-playing,physical models, and Wizard of Oz. Students chose the most appropriate means tovisualize their solution ideas. Observed practices included the drawing of different
interfaces of a Facebook promote homepage; a storyboard explaining how online gamers
could be transferred to offline farming participators; and playing the roles of host, guest
farmers, and audiences to demonstrate the rundown of a webinar.
For the high-fidelity prototype, the course instructor invited professional tutors
according to the support requested by students in their SWOT analysis. Experts in online
marketing, public campaign planning, indoor hydroponics, and mechanical engineeringclosely worked with students to develop the prototype in an apprenticeship style. Thiswas seldom in subject knowledge studies and reported by students as one of the mostsignificant elements in “boosting their confidence in innovation.”
For prototype testing, a stakeholder framework borrowed from policy studies wasintroduced to help figure out the target groups, end beneficiaries, decision-makers, andaffiliated third parties involved in a social innovation process. Accordingly, students
turned to different stakeholders to test out the dysfunctional aspects of the prototype. For
example, the group working on the Facebook homepage organized a one-day free farmtour, obeying the government policy of social distancing, and collected the participants’feedback on the event organization, homepage design, and future purchase intention.
Another group offered a two-hour webinar and evaluated its effectiveness in raisingpublic awareness of urban farming through a post-event online questionnaire.
Applying and Scaling-up
Since social innovation's eventual goal is making routine changes, students wererequired to consider the generalization of their solution. Most students collaborated with31

individual farms or organizations in prototyping their ideas. During the pandemic, acommon practice to share their prototypes with a broader farming community was todigitalize their project outputs (e.g., handbook for Facebook page building, policy
comparison infographics, recorded webinar, and documentaries, etc.) and make them
downable/accessible through social media platforms. For those working on mechanicaldevices, they also suggested the mechanism of a shared economy to make their design
more affordable and storable. Regarding the academic aspects of Service-Learning,
students developed their entire project into a blog and shared it with the public. In thespring semester of 2020, students and educators from ICU were invited to give feedback
to Lingnan students’ project blogs and exchanged respective understandings of urban
farming and the approaches to Service-Learning in the report-back demonstration. Hong
Kong students adopted SDGs as a common language to explore the feasibilities of theirproblem-solving with contextualized in Japanese society.
Student’s social innovation practices have never terminated with the course ends.
Several students from the sample course brought their project ideas and prototypes tovarious entrepreneurial competitions, including Hong Kong Techathon 2020, Virtual
Hackathon COVID-19, Sustainability Hackathon 2020, etc. This move is voluntary but
reported as making students “believe in the power of entrepreneurship in social
innovation.” This is also the way we address the mismatching course period and social
innovation as a continuous process.
Service-Learning in the Post-COVID Era
The only thing that could be predicted is the unpredictability of the post-COVID
world. Any challenges, natural and man-made disasters, taking place in human society
could be perceived as up-to-date interruptions and request prompt responses. In this sense,
conceptualizing Service-Learning as a social innovation process makes this pedagogy
flexible and vigorous in dealing with dynamic and complex social changes. The
effectiveness of Service-Learning was previously constrained by some conventional
principles and practices, such as service content pre-determined by instructors, strict
divisions between four categories (direct, indirect, research-based, and advocacy),
limiting the academic studies within one discipline, superficial/temporary alleviation to
problematic phenomena, and aligning the service period within the semester. Social
innovation adjusts these insufficiencies by emphasizing both issue identification andsolution development. Significant autonomy was granted to students' choice of concerned
challenges and the solutions that permitted blurring the boundaries of different subtypes
and fields. The band-aids-like effects are addressed by transforming a particular subsystem's structure and mechanism and realizing the eventual routine change.
COVID-19 is something new to human society; however, IT-based teaching andlearning are not. During the past decades, IT was perceived as the ice on the cake for faceto-face instruction until the worldwide pandemic outbreak, which compels the educatorsof Service-Learning to either terminate or do it entirely online. In the two semesters
discussed here, the author observed that educators and students perceived the influenceof social-distancing on Service-Learning quite differently. Educators mostly thought of
the face-to-face contact suspension as an obstacle for fieldwork, which breaks thetheoretical cycle of experiential learning. Students often understood it as a restriction on
implementation and naturally considered solutions that could be realized virtually.
Instead of struggling with the IT application and its incompatibility with traditional
32

Service-Learning settings, as education researchers, what we could and should do is tokeep refining the pedagogy and giving full play to involving actors. The notions ofcommunity and field should be re-examined contextualizing in a digital era, which beganlong before the outbreak of COVID-19. The paradox between periodic semester andcontinuous social challenge-addressing should be aware and addressed, which is criticalto the reciprocity between students and communities. No matter what variations ofService-Learning are adopted, the fundamental emphasis on balanced academic studies
and social service should be insisted, in which an outcome-based approach steers the
instruction and assessment design. As the guiders and facilitators of Service-Learning,
we should be opened to the dynamic ambiguities of social phenomena in the first place,
believe in the social sensitivity and creativity of students, and permits trials and errors tocatalyze students' growth and community empowerment.

33

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4. Service-Learning Under the ‘New Normals’ and Beyond
Justin R Nayagam , Malini R , and Akhila Narayanan
Department of Botany, Union Christian College
Department of Psychology, Union Christian College
Department of English, Union Christian College
1

2

3

1

2

3

Abstract
The present paper premises itself on the understanding that we are living
at a time when human societies are faced with multiple ‘new normals’,brought about by a variety of disruptive forces, both natural and manmade. When such disruptions compel us to change our behavior over ashort-term or a long-term period, it constitutes a ‘new normal.’ Bearing
this in mind, the paper proposes that any rethinking on the new pedagogy
for SL under the ‘new normal’ should have a basis in flexibility thanadaptability to the new learning contexts, i.e., an approach geared
towards blending offline and online modes instead choosing one over theother. The paper corroborates this perspective based on the experience ofconducting the International Student Exchange Service-Learning (ISESL)
at UCC during the years 2018 and 2019 when the state of Kerala was hit
by unprecedented floods causing massive disruptions to normal modes offunctioning and installed, albeit temporarily, a ‘new normal.’Service-Learning (SL) as envisaged by Sigmon (1979) involves ‘reciprocal
learning’ where those who receive as well as those who provide service are mutually
benefitted from the experience. It is undoubtedly a pedagogical strategy which istransformative and attends to the wholesome development of students and faculty
involved in it (Kahne&Westheimer, 1996; Kiely, 2005). The theme of the presentmonograph seeks to reconfigure the concept of SL in the context of the ‘new normal’ andexplores the potential new pastures available to the SL educators as the old pastures
become remote.
Though the ‘new normal’ here is a direct reference to COVID-19 pandemic, theauthors of the paper would like to see it in a much broader ambit. It is an expression thathas to be understood under specific contexts, delineating the characteristics of the distinct
situations that constitute the ‘new normal ’. The paper premises itself on theunderstanding that we are living at a time when human societies are faced with multiple‘new normals’ depending on where we are, brought about by a variety of disruptive forces,
both natural and man-made. When such disruptions intrude into all walks of life,
compelling us to change our behaviour over a short-term or a long-term period, it
constitutes a ‘new normal. ’ Though the present ‘new normal’ is defined in relation to the
COVID-19 pandemic that has had global impact, extreme weather events like floods,
36

cyclones, and earthquakes that affect a large geographical region and its population canalso constitute a ‘new normal’ within that region. In most of such cases, the immediate
consequences are curtailment of face to face communication and obstruction of
established order of civic life.
Service-Learning Pastures and the Turbulent Climate
The adverse impact of global warming and climate change have been unfolding
across the world for some time now in the form of extreme weather events and disease
outbreaks (Patz, et al., 2000). India also has been at the receiving end of this for sometime now and erratic weather patterns have been a regular phenomenon in different partsof the country (Sarkar, Dasgupta, &Sensarma, 2019). Kerala, ensconced in the southern
tip of the country flanked by the Western Ghats on one side and coastal line on the other,experienced her geographic vulnerability in the face of 2018 and 2019 floods. It not only
shook the state out of its stupor but has convinced the populace of the need to rise up to
this ‘new normal’ where extreme weather events and outbreaks are not ‘once in a life
time’ occurrence but could visit us more frequently. As far as the Service-Learning Centre(SLC) at Union Christian College (UCC), Aluva was concerned, this meant seeking
alternatives to keep the SL afloat even in the face of such disasters that temporarily derail
the usual modes of engagement in SL. As faculty and researchers involved in the field of
SL that is rooted in community engagement, such scenarios pose a very serious question- how can or should we conduct SL under these ‘new normals’ from the present and future
perspective? One obvious solution to this, now followed almost globally has been thecontext-switching from offline to online mode of learning and engaging with virtual
communities (Stefaniak, 2020). But making such a transition raises serious concerns
about its effectiveness and its ability to fulfil the principle goals of SL, which is to engage
a student's total being with the target community. SL has been envisaged to enhance
students’ intellectual development, basic skill acquisition, ethical and social
responsibility, along with personal growth which constitutes the total being of a student(Witmer & Anderson, 1994). As to how far online modes can fulfil this fundamental goalis still up for debate. Moreover, the feasibility of such transitions is called into question
when one takes into account the ‘digital divide’ and lack of digital literacy among a fair
percentage of the population in countries like India. Bearing in mind the above concerns,
the authors of the paper propose that any rethinking on the new pedagogy for SL underthe ‘new normal’ should have a basis in more flexibility than adaptability to the newlearning contexts, i.e., an approach that is geared towards blending offline and online
modes instead choosing one over the other.
The paper corroborates this perspective based on the experience of conducting theInternational Student Exchange Service-Learning (ISESL) at UCC during the years 2018and 2019 when the state of Kerala and the region around the college was severely hit byunprecedented floods that caused massive disruptions to normal modes of functioning
and installed, albeit temporarily, a ‘new normal. ’ During both years the floods hit aroundthe same time, between early and mid-August, while the ISESL students were on campus,
posing severe challenges to meeting the principle goals of SL. However the lessons
imbibed from the experience of 2018 by the faculty at SLC, UCC to a great extent helped
withstand a similar situation in the following year. The catastrophe not only nudged us toadopt online platforms but it also urged the faculty to seek new pastures for SL that washitherto unexplored.
37

Despite the obvious differences between a pandemic and a calamity like flood,
there were shared bases to the challenges faced under both the scenarios. One was thebreakdown of regular face to face communication and the other was impediments to direct
engagement with the community. A close analysis of events during both the years would
help to put things in perspective.
Service-Learning Amidst 2018 Flood
One of the major SL events at UCC is the ISESL held every year since 2012. In
2018, like in the previous years, this was scheduled from 23 July to 20 August (the dates
in previous years do vary). In educational institutions across Kerala, this is mid-semester
when classes and academic activities run full-swing and campuses come alive. Thisaffords international students of SL, who visit us, a good opportunity to observe andparticipate in the teaching-learning processes in schools.
It is also worth noting at this point that this is also the season of south-west
monsoon in Kerala when the state receives its yearly precipitation. This seasonalmonsoon that arrives by early June is a welcome relief from the hot summers of thepreceding months and it lasts for months together (Nayagam, Janardanan & Mohan, 2008).
Some of the primary SL sites in 2018 included primary schools and school for
exceptional children (The School for the Blind), along with other sites of historicalsignificance and places of religious worship. Most of these SL sites are located at an
average distance of 5-25 kilo meters from UCC. ISESL students on alternate days visitedthese sites three or four times in the company of one or two resource persons along withstudent volunteers from UCC, and organized an array of activities for the school children.
The timely-spaced visits enabled the ISESL students not only to establish strong bondwith the student community but also to improvise and explore new activities with thembased on previous day’s experience. Alongside the SL site visits, the international student
participants visited the various departments of UCC, interacted with resident students andengaged in discussions and organizing activities with the college-student community. The
activities were rolled out as per schedule, and on a weekly basis students madepresentations and gave reports on their SL experience and shared their reflections withthe resource persons.
This smooth conduct of the SL activities hit a major roadblock when weather
events between 14 and 19 of August, took an adverse turn. The severe spell of rainfall
in the intervening days resulted in disastrous flooding in Kerala (Mishra & Shah, 2018;
Vishnu, Sajinkumar, Oommen et al., 2019). The dams reached its Full Reservoir Level(FRL) in a matter of days and 44 rivers across Kerala breached the banks. The situation
was further aggravated by the opening of 35 dams (out of 54 dams) for the first time inthe state’s history that resulted in massive flooding. The ground situation was so grimthat to many it was akin to the Biblical flood. Among the worst affected locations were
Aluva and Paravur (10.109675°N 76.349638°E to 10.1446° N, 76.2273° E), flanked on
both sides of UCC. The river Periyar that passes through both the regions breached its
banks and submerged vast stretches of land in and around it. Our college located at ahigher elevation became a relief point to where thousands approached from both sides
during the peak days of the flood. In a matter of two days, the number of people in the
UCC relief camp shot up from 800 to 13000, and it became one of the largest relief camps
in the entire state of Kerala. The flood affected one-sixth of the population in Kerala andit was declared Level 3 calamity or ‘calamity of a severe nature’. Several studies have
th

th

38

come out thereafter on the catastrophic event and a few among them have cited global
warming and climate change as one of the reasons for extreme weather phenomenon(Hirabayashi, Mahendran, Koirala, et al., 2013). This argument gained further traction
among scientists when a similar scenario repeated in 2019 and came to be referred to in
the public discourse as ‘new normal’.
For the SLC at UCC, the event posed several challenges to the conduct of ISESL
activities during the said period. Many scheduled activities during the last week of the
ISESL had to be cancelled due to lack of access to SL sites and breakdown ofcommunication channels. The Government of Kerala declared holiday for schools andhigher educational institutions during the week. Disruption of power supply in and aroundthe region brought with it its own set of anxieties for the public with drainage of mobile
phone battery and inability to get in touch with near and dear ones who were stranded inbuildings and houses and needed urgent rescue. One of the resource persons of SLC got
stranded for almost two days in her house before she was rescued by the disaster relief
team. Among the heavily damaged infrastructure in the flood was Cochin International
Airport (CIA), located close to river Periyar. The airport was closed indefinitely in theimmediate days before and during the flood which led to the postponement of return
journey of ISESL students.
In the immediate days after the flood much of the post-disaster activity wasconcentrated on the relief camps. Food, clothing, basic amenities like bedding, blankets,
floor mats etc., flowed into the campus and the teachers, student volunteers from nearby
and district authorities together engaged in widespread relief effort. The ISESL students
got an opportunity to visit and observe the activities of the relief camp. During the daysof the peak rain the ISESL students had to stay in the hostels and couldn’t venture out.
Regular communication with the Programme Co-ordinators kept them updated on what
was happening on the ground and their days were spent engaging in activities like
preparing meals, composing music and singing with the native students in the hostel. As
the CIA was severely affected in the flood, the SLC committee decided to opt for an
airport in the neighbouring district for the return journey of the ISESL students. It took
almost one full month for the situation to turn normal and transportation to be restored
across the state. The last few days were spent mostly in sharing and listening toexperiences of the students and resource persons during the peak days of the flood. From
the reflective essays that the ISESL students wrote later, it was gathered that the firsthand exposure to a different social community, living through challenging times, gavethem lifetime lessons on how communities struggle, cope and survive in (ab)normal
circumstances.
Exploration of New SL Pastures
There were several valuable lessons that the 2018 floods brought home to SLC at
UCC which formed the basis of preparation for the following year. The proactive
measures taken based on the experience of 2018, helped the SLC faculty to meet thechallenges better in 2019 when a similar situation arose. But before laying out the
mitigative measures, it is necessary to delineate the specific challenges that wereidentified by the SLC at UCC. In the current context of COVID-19 pandemic, some ofthese challenges resurface though both the ‘new normals’ are brought about by different
set of factors.
39One of the major challenges faced when the 2018 floods hit was curtailment of
movement both for the students and the SL resource persons. Since our college was oneof the epicentres of the calamity, the institution and its premises were inaccessible to SL
resource persons during the peak days of the flood as most of faculty stayed at a distancefar from the campus and the programme co-ordinator who stayed close by got stranded
in her house due to the rising water levels. This meant that the only way the faculty could
interact with the ISESL students was via phones. It was impossible to reach even thenearest SL sites and engage in field activities during the time of the flood as all nonessential movements were restricted.
To tide over a similar situation in 2019, where face to face meeting andpresentation would be made non-conducive, it was decided that reporting of day to day
activities be conducted in virtual platforms. Thus right at the beginning of the programme,a Whatsapp group was started including the resource persons and students. The students
were asked to submit their reflections of each day’s activities by late evening by
Whatsapp or Email. Reflection is an integral part of SL. Since meeting everyday to holda feedback session was not conducive, it was decided that the students could post a daily
report of the day’s activities in the official WhatsApp group. The students regularly wrote
their reflections on each of the sites they visited, their experiences, learning andreflections. More often than not, such reporting evolved into a discussion with eachparticipant commenting and responding to the views shared by others and resource
persons could make timely interventions and put things in perspective. Researchers of thepast have identified the benefits of incorporating technology in SL projects as a means toenhance civic engagement. Reflection and online group discussions, studies reveal, havemore pronounced effect than mere individual reflection papers among students engaged
in international SL (Smit &Tremethick, 2017).
Added to this, the platform also afforded them the space to express theirrequirements and queries that could promptly be looked into by the co-ordinators. The
adoption of digital tool turned out to be an effective strategy, as the ease ofcommunication not only helped us overcome the communication barrier when the floods
re-occured in 2019 but also generated more interactions among the participants andresource persons during the course of the programme establishing a more intimate bond
between both the parties.
Psychological well being of the international students was of utmost concern to
the SL faculty at UCC given that next to the local population they would feel mostvulnerable under adverse events like floods as they would be weighed down by concernsof their own. As a precautionary measure to tackle this, the SLC at UCC decided to set
aside a portion in the schedule for recreational activities. Students were given training in
Yoga at Triton Station. As the recreational centre was close to the college, students wereable to visit it during the time of flood. This also materialised as a cultural exchange event
as one of the participants shared his traditional form of martial art during a cultural
evening session. Along with yoga, students were also encouraged to engage in sports likebadminton which turned to be a stress buster during the peak days of the flood. The next
crucial challenge to meet was the lack of access to SL sites during the floods. Similar to2018, heavy downpour started from August 6th onwards. Many of the small water
reservoirs had reached full capacity and dam shutters were opened in between thecontinuing rainfall. By August 8 , people began to panic in many places close to river
Periyar and Government announced holiday for the educational institutions.
th40

Waterlogging in the runway and the premises of the CIA forced the authorities tosuspended flight services for 3 days. The condition continued almost for one week till
15th August and holidays were declared for schools and colleges for close to a week. This
meant that the SL activity scheduled at schools could not be conducted and alternative
options had to be explored. Learning from previous experience, the SL faculty wereprepared to explore and experiment with SL sites closer home and this turned out to be a
rewarding experience.
One such activity evolved was a biodiversity survey. UCC is home to a richbiodiversity, and during the peak days of the flood the only site safely accessible was thecampus itself. A study of campus flora and vegetation analysis was organized for the
ISESL students utilizing this resource in collaboration with the Botany Department of thecollege. A day-long activity, it involved visiting 43 acres land of UCC to study the tree
species biodiversity. The study included introduction to each species, the calculation ofdensity, frequency and abundance in the campus and its uses. The vegetation wascompared with those found in their campus and the students recollected the common
species seen in both the countries. Students were introduced to Ayurveda - an indigenous
system of medicine of Kerala and the medicinal value of the plants seen on campus. Theycollected plant samples and information from the internet and submitted a report. All
reports and herbarium specimens are open to farmers and the local community for
identification of indigenous medicinal and aromatic plants.
Another activity evolved was putting together a book. The ISESL students wereasked to prepare a document on their SL experiences in India during the last 20 days.
Though the unscheduled activity did evoke concerns on the part of ISESL students, on
proper explanation of ground reality they eagerly got down to work incorporating reports
generated over the last 20 days and organizing them under individual four chapters byeach of the participants. This was further edited and developed into a book document.
These SL ideas were evolved under a scenario in which being in the field andmeeting the target community of considerable size was non-conducive due to adverse
weather conditions. The alternative was to evolve SL that would mutually serve thestudents and target community without the two having to come in direct contact with theother. Thus the potential breach in SL activities like reporting, discussion and reflection
were halted by planned adoption of digital technology and field activity were sustainedby exploring newer pastures in the immediate environment and discovering new sites.
Experiences of 2018 and 2019 was a ‘new normal’ that compelled SL faculty to
reckon with similar scenarios in future. Since SL is based on campus-community
partnerships and direct interactions are the chief means of experiential learning,
disruptions by way of natural calamities can hinder the very essence of the activity. Hencea need to develop greater sense of preparedness in anticipation of adverse events may beconsidered as a core skill to be imbibed by SL educators.
SL Under the ‘New Normal’: A Community Perspective
Several studies that have emerged in the wake of recent pandemic have focusedon exploring the possibilities of conducting SL in an online mode (Mejia, 2020; Tian, &Noel Jr, 2020). These investigations have mostly tried to identify the merits and demeritsof carrying over SL into a virtual platform under the ‘new normal. ’ Such an investigation
is often based on the assumption that the institutions that offer SL and their target
community are well-versed and well equipped with the modern technology like41

smartphones and laptops and have digital connectivity. Such an assumption is challenged
when we explore this issue in the context of countries like India where there exists a sharp
digital divide (United Nations, 2006; Singh, 2010). In the case of the state of Kerala,despite being the most literate state in India, digital literacy is poor (Ashitha, 2018) andaccess to ICT facilities is limited. According to the reports of the NSSO (2019), India has
a digital divide between urban (23.4%) and rural (4.4%) communities with around 11%
of households with computer facilities. Though the teledensity in India is found to be as
high as 78% (Bhatt, 2020), the availability of smartphones is only 32%. Kerala has amuch improved smartphone availability (65%) compared to the national average in the
recent years, however, access to internet facility and connectivity issues continue to be amajor problem (Gaurav, 2020). A study by Kumar and Kumara (2018) reveals that only
20.66 % rural students and 69.70% of urban students use computers for various academic
purposes and that electric power failure and lack of computer skills were identified as thechief problems in using computers. Though the use of digital resources for academic
purposes in India is as high as 70-80% among college students (Pratap & Singh, 2018),
the number is not that high in the case of the normal population. A recent study by
Pavithra (2019) reveals that only three hundred million of India’s 1.25 billion people aredigitally connected.
Huge differences exist between the rural and urban population in terms ofelectronic literacy and this is a huge obstacle when any system based on ICT is
implemented. Most of the target community that the SLC at UCC focuses on are locatedin places where access to digital connectivity is a stumbling block. Added to this is the
low rate of digital literacy among the elderly population across community. This is areality that stands the risk of obfuscation when any discussion on the SL pedagogy underthe ‘new normal’ focuses exclusively on exploring the potential of SL in an online spaceand such investigations often tend to be from the perspective of the institution.
This digital divide was presciently recognized by the SLC at UCC. In 2019, thestudents on exchange program undertook a SL activity along with the Computer Science
Department at UCC to provide digital literacy for the elderly community next to the guest
house. During the session, SL students interacted with the elderly community and gavethem hands-on guidance in using modern gadgets like smartphones. The elderly
community is representative of one segment of the larger community that are yet toharness the full benefits of digital technology. Given such contextual realities, discussionof SL under ‘new normal’ should cater to a more balanced approach allowing for more
flexibility.
Shifting SL from an offline to the online mode should be in line with the target
communities that the institution proposes to serve. SL has to design its practices taking
into consideration the limitations posed by the situation not just on the institution but on
the community as well. SL can serve community online only to the extent that thecommunity is digitally literate to imbibe that service.
It is also the case that every new normal can throw up new causes to serve. For
instance, though digital literacy was an activity that the SLC undertook in 2019, its scope
has become more wide-ranging in the current scenario. One of the SL activities designed
by SL students at UCC is digitizing documents of the flood affected which points towards
the direction.

42

Tread to the ‘‘New Normal’’Any discussion of the ‘new normal’ cannot happen without specifying what
constitutes the ‘new normal. ’ The definition proposed by the authors of the paper statesthat any large scale event that disrupts normal modes of functioning over relatively long
period can entail a ‘new normal.’ The word ‘relatively’ is significant in the context of
SLC. Though flooding of 2018 and 2019 was comparatively less disruptive to COVID19 pandemic, it was a relatively long disruption in relation to SL Students Exchange
Programme at UCC. The impediments faced directed us to rethink our regular modes ofengaging in SL and explore blended use of online and offline modes. This is on par withthe earlier works in higher education (Graham, 2013; Norberg, Dziuban & Moskal, 2011).
Moreover to define ‘new normal’ strictly within the purview of pandemic would
be myopic given that pandemic is not a permanent scenario. However, it is indeed,plausible that in future such other ‘new normals’ can unfold due to varied reasons. To
mitigate such unprecedented scenarios it would be desirable to seek a blended pathway
for SL instead of privileging one mode over the other during the transition phase.
It is equally vital that, such definitions should always take into consideration thelocation from which the ‘new normal’ is defined. Though pandemic is a global
phenomenon that has entailed discussions of the ‘new normal’, the experience of this‘new normal’ is not homogenous. In the context of SLC at UCC- an institution in theState of Kerala that takes pride in 100 percent literacy, digital literacy is yet to reach thatmilestone. However, the stumbling block has enabled us to seek new pastures of SL on
the ground and adopt a blended approach of using online and offline modes for SL andflexibility on the part of faculty engaged in SL would enable exploration of newer avenues
conducive to better community engagement and enriched learning.
As we tread through this confining and dark phase of the pandemic, SL leaders and thetrained practitioners perform their roles in a fragmented and localised manner. However,the constricting circumstances imposed by the ‘new normals’ like natural calamities or
pandemics, do not halt our journey forward but enable us to frame innovative pathways
to achieve the SL goals. Mix of learning tools with real time responses may be an
innovative idea. A combo of components that includes pilot visits to community sites fordata collection, familiarizing digital devices and appointing educated monitors at each
community site for future access followed by reach out through social media groups.
Periodical webcasting with realtime reflection through social media, a thoughtful andsteady approach of SL researchers around the world can reveal new pastoral terrains ofexperiential teaching, learning and service. It is the versatile thinking of SL faculty andprogram coordinators that makes International Service-Learning Exchange program asuccess. Such informed experiments may evolve to form the ‘new normal’ for future SL
and take us to greater heights in community partnerships with enriched teaching-learningpedagogy.

43

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through E-Service-Learning Experiences in Real-World Contexts. TechTrends, 64(4),561-569. doi: 10.1007/s11528-020-00487-3
Tian, Q., & Noel Jr, T. (2020). SL in Catholic Higher Education and Alternative Approaches
Facing the COVID-19 Pandemic.COVID-19 and Catholic
Schools.13.https:/?digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ce_covid/13
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Vishnu, C. L., Sajinkumar, K. S., Oommen, T., Coffman, R. A., Thrivikramji, K.
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Whitmer, J. T., & Anderson, C. S. (1994). The Purpose and Goals of Service-Learning, How toestablish a high school service-learning program. VA: Association for Supervision andCurriculum Development, Ch. 2

45

5. Reflection on Online Service-Learning at ICU
Kenji Ishihara and Hitomi Yokote
Service-Learning Center, International Christian University
Abstract
During the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, International Christian
University(ICU), Tokyo, Japan, managed to carry out the ServiceLearning classes of General Education with 18 hours of practicum, which
was also done online, both Spring (April-June) and Autumn (Sept.-Nov.)
terms in 2020. ICU also offered the 30-day practicum course of domesticor Community Service-Learning (CSL) online and/or hybrid (partiallyface-to-face). Through a reflection with the literature, the instructors
learned from the experiences that a) blended modes of teaching andservice activity was the most useful, b) the boundary of Community
Service-Learning and International Service-Learning became blurry or
nonexistent in an online setup, and c) the concept of “community” haschanged online, that needs rethinking and redefining altogether. With
reflection and literature review concerning online service-learning,
lecturers explore ways to post COVID-19 with the program
In 2020, ICU, like other universities in the world, experienced the significant
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our educational programs. This monographattempts to describe what took place as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in ICU’s
service-learning courses in 2020 for spring (April-June) and autumn (Sept.-Nov.) terms,
with a reflection of the experiences by reviewing existing literature and thinking for future
implication. In this paper, we first explain ICU's service-learning program and how it was
impacted by the pandemic. We then focus on the literature on online service-learning
before the pandemic. In the last part, we reflect on how the existing models anddiscussions can be applied to our cases. One of the significant findings through ourreflection is that the blended mode of teaching and service activity was the most useful,making the border between international program and community program lesssignificant.
ICU’s Service-Learning Program
ICU was born as a new university for new Japan with donations from North
American and Japanese lay people after WWII. With Christianity as its pillar, it has a
mission to nurture a person who will contribute to world peace, and to nurture a heart toserve God and people. As a liberal arts university, ICU promotes critical thinking,interdisciplinary and integrated learning. Understanding of various cultural and46

theoretical perspectives, and social contribution with a sense of social justice and equity
are core values in its education (Takeda, 2003).
Service-learning embodies the founding spirit of ICU, as it has an intention to develop
new ways of thinking and behaving. Through reflection, by becoming conscious of theirown perspectives and positionality, students will obtain critical thinking, proactive
behaviors, and communication with profound understanding of diversity, reciprocity andtolerance. By finding the same goal with a community, engaging oneself with social
issues as his/her own, and integrating academic knowledge and experiential knowledge,
students find their own identity of global citizenship and meaning of social engagement.
ICU aims at preparing students through service-learning to become life-long learners whowill continue to think critically and to act for others and world peace.
Figure 1
Service-Learning in 3 Steps

Note: Reprinted from Service-Learning by International Christian University.
https://www.icu.ac.jp/en/academics/sl/index.html

ICU offers a year-long curriculum designed for students to integrate theexperience and to learn in the three steps; preparation, field study, and reflection. The
General Education (GE) course is a three-credit course taught in Japanese in the springterm and English in the autumn term. The course provides students with opportunities tolearn the essential process of service-learning, including the reflection cycle, journal
writing, reciprocal partnership with the local community, and positionality. In this course,
students experience the 18 hours of service activities on campus or at community
organizations. This course serves to prepare students participating in the practicum
courses, “Community Service-Learning” (CSL) and “International Service-Learning”(ISL).
The practicums are three-credit courses that require 30 days of voluntarycommunity service and other requirements such as writing papers. ICU offers ISL
programs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Service-Learning Center has built a
Service-Learning Asian Network (SLAN) with universities and public institutions in Asia
through a conference in 2002 (Murakami, 2009). Students participating in ISL programs
conduct service activities at overseas partner institutions, and engage in educational,
welfare-related, developmental, and many other activities.
CSL is a domestic service-learning program through which students engage in service
activities at local communities in Japan. Students can choose to join service activities at
ICU’s partner institutions or propose new service sites if they meet the requirements of47

the Service-Learning Center. This course is offered in the spring and autumn terms, andstudents can engage in service activities throughout the year.
ICU developed an inbound service-learning program called the Japan Summer
Service-Learning (JSSL) with the Center for Community Engagement of Middlebury
College, one of our US partner institutions. The program was started in 2016 to enhancereciprocity with the SLAN partner universities (Nishimura & Yokote, 2019). In 2019, 16
students participated: 6 students from SLAN partner universities (2 students each fromSilliman University, the Philippines, Union Christian College, India, and Assumption
University, Thailand), four from Middlebury College, and six from ICU. In a four-weekprogram, students serve together in the local communities both in the urban and rural
areas and deepen their understanding of Japanese society.
ICU also offers the course “Reflection on Service Experiences" in the autumn
term. This course is for students who participated in the practicum courses to reflect andshare their service activities with other students and teaching staff. This course
encourages students to position the questions obtained from experience academically andplan future activities.
The Impact of Pandemic on ICU
As a response to the COVID 19 pandemic, the ICU Senate decided to move allclasses in the spring term to online teaching on March 12, 2020, and close the campus
from April. In this transition, the leadership team of ICU including the president, vicepresidents, and deans responded swiftly and led the way for the entire ICU so that ICU
students can continue receiving a liberal arts education (The ICU, 2020). Center for
Teaching and Learning (CTL) and the IT department of ICU played a significant role inmaking the online course possible, including Service-Learning as the technology baseand support. The IT department provided technical support needed to hold class via Zoom
and provided equipment for students for remote learning. CTL held many workshops ofvarious kinds for online education for faculty and promoted the usage of one of Learning
Management Systems such as Moodle. The entire university all worked together for thesake of uninterrupted learning during an extraordinary time. In the autumn (Sept.-Nov.)
and winter (Dec.- Feb.) terms, the campus became open for ICU students and someclasses were taught in face-to-face and hybrid (online and face-to-face) modes, althoughmore than 70% of the courses were offered through online modes.
The pandemic had a significant impact on our service-learning courses as well.
ISL and CSL in the summer recess (July-Aug.) were canceled, and about 50 students who
decided to participate in the summer practicums were forced to reconsider theirregistration plans. Some students selected for ISL deferred their right for participation to
the next year, whereas students enrolled in the CSL shifted their registration to the autumn
term. Fortunately, the GE course in the spring and autumn terms, and CSL practicum inthe autumn term could be offered in online and hybrid modes.
Online Service-Learning as a New Approach to ICU
As a response to the pandemic, ICU adapted online service-learning (OSL) as a
new approach to our program. OSL, also called virtual service-learning, or electricservice-learning, refers to a learning program in which full or partial experiences of the
instruction, service, and reflection components are conducted online (Jacoby, 2014;
Waldner, McGorry, & Widener, 2012). Similarly there is something called “service
48

eLearning” which is defined as “an integrative pedagogy that engages learners throughtechnology in civic inquiry, service, reflection, and action” (Dailey-Hebert, Donnelli, &DiPadova, 2008, p.1). ICU adapted OSL for the urgent need to continue our educational
program during the pandemic. However, OSL itself is not a new learning method thatsuddenly emerged after the pandemic; rather, its benefits and issues have been
considerably discussed in the last decade (e.g., Waldner et al., 2012; Jacoby, 2014;
Stefaniak, 2020).
OSL has developed as a response to the growth of online educational programs.
OSL takes the combinational form between service-learning, online learning, anddistance learning, designed to overcome the issue that online learning faced (Waldner etal., 2012). For example, online learning courses often face a lack of interaction andclassroom engagement due to the absence of face-to-face communication (Gaytan &McEwen, 2007). OSL is expected to function as a tool to motivate and enhance thelearner’s engagement with a class activity if students can apply their knowledge into realworld experiences and work collaboratively with local partners (Waldner, McGorry, &Widener, 2010; Waldner et al., 2012).
According to the literature, especially before the pandemic, the most significant
benefit of OSL is the removal of geographical barriers. In online courses, students could
not participate in and receive benefits from onsite service-learning, because they live faraway from the service site or work full-time during the daytime (Waldner et al., 2012).
OSL, however, frees students from traveling to service sites and connects them tocommunity partners across the world to engage together in a project remotely (Waldner
et al., 2012; Tian and Noel, 2020). When the service component occurs online, theprogram becomes more accessible or even inclusive for students who have difficulty
conducting onsite service activities. For example, for students who live far away from aservice-site, and who work full-time besides attending a school (Strait & Sauer, 2004), an
OSL program helps them save time for visiting the place. Also, for those who require
special needs and/or physical disability, and/or who are introverted and prefer to avoid
social connections (Waldner et al., 2010), OSL can remove physical challenges.
On the other hand, one of the most critical issues and challenges of OSL is its
significant dependence on internet technology. The lack of physical communication canbe a risk to losing student’s motivation and some learning experiences. Malvey, Hamby,& Fottler (2006) note that OSL leads students to “miss out on the spontaneity andexcitement of events by not being physically onsite” (p.191). Walder et al. (2012)
reinforce that if students conduct their service online, they might “miss out on critical
networking, organizational dynamics, and other learning experiences available tostudents conducting their service physically on site” (p.126). Furthermore, OSL may
challenge students financially. For students who cannot afford to buy digital devices andget internet service, online programs may be too costly (Tian & Noel, 2020). On the
instructor’s side, instructors need to master the technology for the class contents andpedagogy for the effective transition to OSL. Dailey-Hebert et al. (2008) comment that if
service-learning practitioners cannot adapt to online methods and contents smoothly,
OSL may discourage them from keeping their service-learning endeavors. How the
COVID-19 pandemic has affected the motivation of both students and instructors is anarea of further research.

49

Types of Online Service-Learning
Waldner et al. (2012) categorize the nature of OSL into four types. According toTable 1, which Stefaniak (2020) redesigned, Type I refers to courses that offer online
instruction while the service activities are conducted at community sites. This type istypical for some overseas programs which provide preparation instruction online andhave a field trip onsite (Waldner et al., 2012). In Type II, course instruction is delivered
in a face-to-face manner with the online service component. Lazar & Preece (1999)
offered a computer class that aims to create an online community and find any social andtechnical issues. They commented that class with online service is challenging but can be
successful if offered in a well-designed structure. Type III is a hybrid course in which
both lectures and service are delivered both onsite and online. Killian (2004)
experimented with classes that combined onsite teaching and distance service-learning.
In his classes, students first attended classroom instruction and then worked remotely forservice-learning. During this period, the instructor provided online software for quiz anddiscussions. Then, students return to the class for the final presentation. In his
observation, this blended course provided creative ideas for pedagogical methods andpromoted students’ responsibility for service and learning (Killian, 2004). Type IV, also
called Extreme E-Service Learning consists of instruction and service experience
components wholly offered online. Waldner et al. (2010) examined the cases ofdeveloping a marketing plan and policy analysis conducted 100% online. They concluded
that extreme service-learning is more useful for deepening student engagement andfacilitating interaction than mere attendance in an online class.
Table 1
Types of Online Service-Learning.
Course Instruction Service-Learning Experience
Type I

OnlineOnsiteType II

OnsiteOnlineType III

BlendedBlendedType IV

OnlineOnlineNote: Adapted from A systems view of supporting the transfer of learning through E-servicelearning experiences in real-world contexts, by J. Stefaniak (2020), p.562.
In OSL, types and contents of service depend on whether it is online, on-site, or blended.
Kaye (2010) explains that service activity can be categorized into four types: direct service,indirect service, community-engaged research, and advocacy. Direct service involves face-to-faceactivities with service recipients through meeting their direct service needs and building in-person
relationships. Indirect service does not reach out to people in need but assists the community,group, or environment as a whole (Kaye, 2010). For example, cleaning up a park, creating an
educational programing, or managing social media do not directly concern people in need but
indirectly help the service recipient (Veyvodaa & Cleave, 2020). In the research-based service,
students find, gather, and report information in a community’s interest, and advocacy-based
service aims to raise awareness of or take action on a social issue by petition, performance, andpublic speaking (Kaye, 2010).

50

Tian & Noel (2020) argue it is more feasible during the pandemic to conduct indirect,
research-based, and advocacy-based service activities in online service-learning, using
technology, writing skills, and research know-how. However, there is limited knowledge on how
these existing models and discussions were utilized during the pandemic and how the types andcontents of service transformed in each combination between online, onsite, and blended modes(c.f. Gresh et al., 2020; Tian and Noel, 2020; Veyvodaa and Cleave, 2020). The next section
reflects our experiences in the courses offered in 2020 and guides the findings to a discussion inlight of Waldner et al.’s (2012) framework.

Reflection of Our Experience: The Importance of Blended Types

The GE course in the spring term adapted the type IV of Table 1; both the lectures andservice activities were delivered online. For the 18 hour services of our GE courses, students
helped fundraising and SNS promotion for local NGOs by creating websites, starting a new
Instagram account, and launching a crowdfunding project. Other students conducted anenvironmental awareness survey with a local environmental NGO.
On the other hand, from September 2020, ICU introduced hybrid modes of teachings,
which allow students to join class both online and onsite. This hybrid mode applied to the GE
course and CSL in the autumn term. In the first week of the GE class, instructors opened theclassroom for students who could gather and taught online in the rest of the term. For the 18 hours
activity, they used their language and IT skills to engage in distance service activities to support
developing countries, environmental NPOs, and on-campus organizations at ICU. Other students
in CSL engaged with onsite direct activities for two weeks during the autumn recess in November
and then conducted remote activities after returning to Tokyo for the rest of the SL activities. Thistransition from 100% online to hybrid enabled us to utilize some blended modes of service
activities; either whole online activities or activities that involve some onsite services.
As Tian & Noel (2020) argue, it is more feasible to conduct indirect, research-based, andadvocacy-based service activity in OSL during the pandemic. In replacement of the community
before, we found places or NPOs accepting students to engage in online activities such as researchand planning, creating online surveys, conducting online fundraising and PR activities (for SNS),or individual works such as translation or video editing of their materials. Those places or NPOs
who accept the indirect service activities are all equipped with connectivity and devices enabling
OSL. Many of them serve the needs of distant clients such as developing countries or the generalpublic, and their main work is fund raising, publicity, event planning, and advocacy for social
issues.

Removal of Geographical Barrier and Global Partnership

As another benefit of OSL, the removal of geographical barriers helped ICU students
engage together in remote projects with students and community partners in other countries.
When geographical constraints are removed, OSL might foster regional, national, or global
partnerships for service projects with a common goal (Malvey et al., 2006). In the case of ICU, it
should be highlighted through the existing global partnership with Middlebury College in theUSA. Middlebury College is a partner university of ICU and the co-host of JSSL. The COVID19 pandemic brought both ICU and Middlebury the impact of 1) the cancelation of JSSL 2020,2) transition of all the spring classes to online teaching and students needed to stay home, and 3)
the cancelation of the exchange study abroad programs between the colleges.
OSL, however, converted these issues to a new approach of global remote collaborations.
From April to June, ICU and Middlebury College School in Japan (MCSJ) linked “ServiceLearning” from ICU, which requires 18 hours of service, to “Community Engagement” from
Middlebury College School in Japan, which requires 24 hours of activity in the Japanese
language. The collaboration was possible because each course term was mostly the same andstudents in both Japan and the US needed to stay home.

51

Four students from MCSJ and six ICU students participated and split into two projectgroups. The students were assigned to work together for about six weeks to design and implement
projects for the inquiry, “What could we do for local communities in the time everyone has tostay home?” One group hosted a language exchange program that invited students from the US
and Japan to practice their Japanese and English. Another group interviewed local families in
Mitaka city and created a remote project for children in Mitaka because the local school was
closed due to the pandemic and children have nothing to do. With the help of a local community
partner, the students hosted the virtual tour event to 20 students by showing pictures andexplaining their home cities.
In the autumn CSL course, we had another collaborative project with Middlebury College
which translates primary source documents, such as videos, diaries, and oral history transcripts
related to Japanese American Internment in the US. This project was proposed by a student from
Middlebury College, who found that US history museums and organizations had a strong desire
to translate the materials in order to reach the Japanese-speaking community who otherwise
would not be able to understand the material. Six ICU students participated and worked remotelywith students and faculty at both Middlebury College and Middlebury Institute of International
Studies (MIIS) to translate the materials and create an online archive.
These online collaborations provided students with meaningful opportunities to serve
oversea communities without an actual visit. One of ICU student participants commented, “It wasmeaningful to provide the children with an opportunity to ‘have fun’ with the students, under thecircumstances that children struggle with many restrictions of their daily lives.” Also the
instructor from MCSJ commented, “Although the collaborative projects were challenging forstudents from MCSJ, it was good for them to practice Japanese and interact with kids in Japan
under the pandemic circumstances.” Simultaneously, the online collaboration raised a question;
how do we define "community" in service-learning and differentiate it from "international"
service-learning when we can remotely serve worldwide communities?

Difficulty to Reach People in Serious Needs

As the literature suggests, OSL can bring benefits to those who cannot visit service sites(Waldner et al., 2012). However, the reliance on online activity may not be inclusive for service
recipients since it cannot reach the people in serious needs under the pandemic. Gresh et al. (2020,p.2) note that “(t)he COVID-19 pandemic increases threats to the independence and well-beingof older community members, who already are facing challenges such as isolation, and foodinsecurity,” as the physical distancing hindered their participation in social activities with family
and friends, and community members. OSL has a risk of making such issues invisible touniversity students and instructors. As Tian and Noel (2020, p.187) argue, it is important for OSL“to spread the voice, bring the social issues to people’s attention, and demand action for social
justice, where everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities.”
Our program should carefully treat this issue when relying on OSL. In ordinary academic
terms, our service-learning courses send students to elderly homes, children’s facilities or schools,
centers for the handicapped, community parks. During the pandemic, however, we were not able
to provide service to those places to avoid the spread of COVID-19, and it was not an option toconnect online since most of them are not equipped with the technology needed. Once physicalor face-to-face interaction is lost, we altogether lose contact with such communities. Thus, there
is a need to consider how to keep relationships with such communities virtually and what type ofservice can be offered to reach those who are in direct needs.

Issues of Digital Communication

As another issue, our courses experienced that digital communication puzzled students
and community members. In our past programs, face-to-face interaction was the primarycommunication method. In OSL, however, remote communication was the only way for students

52

to talk with organization members. Students had to set meetings with people whom they have not
met in-person and conduct online activities from the beginning to the end. The difficulty incommunication was eminent, especially among organizations that accepted service-learning
students for the first time. Students and community members might have conducted more
effective activities if they were allowed to meet in-person.
Also, in cyberspace, team building or bonding could be a challenge. When we asked for
feedback from the host institutions after the online service is finished, there was a comment thatstudents did not seem to coordinate well among themselves while the host tends to see them as
one group. Internal communication among students had some issues since they meet and connect
for a short time online, and the bond is not as strong compared to the face to face situation where
they spend certain hours together.
Thus a suggestion was received that in the future for online service activity, hostinstitutions also give individual assignments as well. In order for students to learn from theexperience individually to fit online work, inquiry becomes ever more important. Based on theinquiry, students keep intrinsic motivation, engage in the activity deeper with more interest,
meaning, and a sense of purpose. Blended learning draws upon the Community of Inquiry for
information and Akyol, Garrison, Ozden, & Anderson (2009) found blended learning promotes
higher level inquiry.

A Challenge to Definition of Community

The pandemic challenged the definition of community. In our past programs, acommunity in many cases was something tangible in a physical sense as places or localities withpeople where students can visit, with clear or certain needs. In our OSL experiences, the sense of
local community differed among students because they took the course from various regions
inside and outside Japan. For students staying in their hometowns, a local community does notnecessarily mean ICU’s surrounding cities. Furthermore, since more than half of the students inthe spring course were first-year students who have visited Mitaka only a few times, such students
lacked the attachment of Mitaka and required imagination of what Mitaka is like. While the OSL
enabled students to serve remote communities, there is a need to discuss whether it is possible oreffective for students dispersed to various places to serve a community they are not familiar with
only through remote communication.

Discussion
To summarize our OSL experiences, we found the followings;
1. Types of service activities had to be changed in online and blended modes.
2. We needed to redefine “community” to serve for online activities.
3. Separation of CSL and ISL is becoming irrelevant online.
During the pandemic, ICU carried out blended service-learning; the mixture offace to face and online, or blended, course was introduced. In order to continue with 30
day practicum, ICU allowed a hybrid practicum for CSL partially online and partiallyface to face. The autumn GE course was taught mostly online while students could engage
in blended service.
Through the reflection, we argue Waldner et al.’s (2012) framework lacks several
more OSL patterns, especially when focusing on blended. Garrison and Vaughn (2008)
define blended learning as “the organic integration of thoughtfully selected andcomplementary face to face and online approaches and technologies”. This is one of themost convenient and utilized approaches as we offered service-learning courses. We
therefore present the reinforced model in Table 2, adding Type V to Type VIII to theexisting framework. This extended model embodies the importance of blended types ofcourse instruction and service, especially during the pandemic. For example, some53

students in our autumn GE course attended the class entirely online but conducted
blended service activities in their residential cities. This case demonstrates Type V;
instruction is given online, which blended service can be conducted. Type VI represents
classes which offer blended teaching with online activity. In the autumn course,
instructors and some of the students gathered in the classroom in the first week, while therest of the course was taught online. And some of the students engaged in full online
service activity. This experience supports the Type VI. Our class experiences indicatethat the blended types of course instruction and service activities could work effectively
for SL courses offered under the pandemic situation. This is because, during the
pandemic, online SL is an alternative method to continue the educational program, while
if the situation allows, students hope to participate in onsite activities.
Table 2
Extended Types of Online Service-Learning
Course Instruction Service-Learning Experience
Type I

OnlineOnsiteType II

OnsiteOnlineType III

BlendedBlendedType IV

OnlineOnlineType V

OnlineBlendedType VI

BlendedOnlineType VII

OnsiteBlendedType VIII

BlendedOnsiteNote: This is the model the authors added Type V ~ Type VIII to the framework in Table 1(Waldner et al., 2012; Stefaniak, 2020).

Type VII and Type VIII are prospective models to adapt onsite opportunities oncethe pandemic issue is eased. Type VII can be a case that the GE course is taught entirelyin the classroom, but some community partners ask students to work on partial online
tasks. Type VIII can be demonstrated if the blended class is offered, but students canengage in 100% onsite activity. The adaptation of OSL expanded the types of servicelearning even after the pandemic is over.
Our OSL was not just blended in terms of face to face and online, but also blended
with domestic and international projects as well, as seen in the case of the translation54

project with Middlebury College. OSL removed geographical barriers and helped ICU
students engage together in remote projects with students and community partners inother countries. Double doses of blended service-learning were formulated and carriedout unexpectedly and inadvertently. Thus, separation of CSL and ISL does not makesense anymore online.
Furthermore, OSL removed mental barriers to some extent. We experienced how
easy it is to connect to the outside world and work together online and also how cost andtime effective it is when we do not need to travel. With these findings and "mindboundary" or mental block eased, ICU’s service-learning was able to expand and reachout to a wider net of information through partnerships, and share each other’s strengths
online as seen in the case with Middlebury College.
In addition to the issue of service types, we noticed followings:
1. Creativity, flexibility and outside box thinking were essential for making servicelearning activity possible for online, to make it meaningful for all involved;
2. More individualistic, and critical approach with inquiry-based method seemed to haveworked better, compared to team based or traditional approach of service-learning; and3. The university’s readiness and facility for online technology was essential to make itpossible to conduct online classes in general including Service-Learning courses.
Regardless of the types of organization to serve, in making online service
activities possible, we all had to be creative and flexible, not just faculty and students, butalso community. All stakeholders had to work as partners and team for the service activity
to take place in cyberspace. Since the traditional way or physical face-to-face could not
be done, we all had to think outside the box in order to come up with a new way of doing
service. As a result, ideas such as virtual field trips for elementary school children camein. Also the 30 day- practicum of translation project with Middlebury College came into
place with such effort. They were mainly planned and carried out by students as an
outcome of collaboration with all involved.
Furthermore, the contributions of CTL and IT department behind the scenes were
phenomenal. Not all universities in Japan have an IT section nor a teaching and learning
center, and ICU is fortunate to have these two sections within our university. CTL and IT
department played a big role in making the online course possible including ServiceLearning as the technology base and support. CTL also provided support for students.
According to Stefaniak (2020, p.567), “(i)n order to ensure the transfer of learning,
instructors must contend with technological nuances unique to online instruction.”
Promoting technological systems is essential for clear communication between the
instructor, students, and community partners, and for the learners’ deep understanding of
the content (Stefaniak, 2020).
For future partnerships online, we can explore further on followings:
GlobalCourse Connection - we had a great experience of connection with Lingnan University in
Hong Kong online in service-learning class. Lingnan uses the Design Thinking model inservice-learning, and ICU students participated in their class when Lingnan students
researched urban farming of Japan online. Also ICU invited the lecturers from Lingnan
in our OSL Special Study class, too. We learned so much from each other by connecting
this way. ICU is part of Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA) in which Lingnan is alsopart of, and GLAA solicits participants for their Global Course Connection, too. We cancertainly look into this platform for connecting with more universities. And perhaps also
looking into Service-Learning Asia Network (SLAN) and universities linked with the55

United Board to explore the possibility of connection which share similar values basedon the Christianity. For connecting with other universities online, time difference could
be a hindrance in some cases. There may be a challenge to fit into the class hours forsynchronous class. In that regard, SLAN partner schools fit well being in the Asian
region since the time difference is relatively small.
COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) - The aim of COIL is to promoteinternational exchange among students and faculties of participating universities throughinternational and interactive education using online technologies (The ICU, 2020). ICU
is participating in COIL with other class, and there is opportunity for service-learning to
explore and engage in it.
Going Forward
Experiential learning online, or service-learning online may be oxymoron. It
contains seemingly contradicting and incompatible elements, in particular under
traditional service-learning set-up where face to face activities are carried out. DailyHerbert, et al. (2008) list four pedagogical values of service eLearning: Non-liner paths
to learning, Peer learning, Global connectedness, and Application. It indicates that thedomestic service-learning, or CSL in ICU’s term, could expand global elements online.
It would be an interesting topic to further study and research what defines CSL and ISL
by taking the opportunity under the pandemic.
Along with that, how we organize and approach service-learning courses could be
reviewed, by rethinking the course design, delivery, and the roles of students, faculty andcommunity altogether, utilizing available resources and technologies. OSL certainly has
an advantage of making SL more cost-effective and accessible to many students, while
community participation may have limitations in equitable access to online service. This
could bring about changes and needs of new development in service-learning pedagogy
for betterment of education, as the silver lining of the pandemic.
The pandemic situation poked and triggered many questions to underlying
fundamentals of our service-learning pedagogy today. But this could be the beginning oftransformation of our Service-Learning programs for the university for tomorrow.

56

References

Akyol, Z., Garrison, D. R., Ozden, M. Y., & Anderson, T. (2009). Online and Blended
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Greensfelder, A., Buckley, M., Cohen, Z., Coy, A., & Warren, N. (2020). Service
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58

6. Promoting Whole Person Education Through Service-Learning
in Pre and Post Pandemic Period
Mercy Pushpalatha
United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia
Abstract
Service-learning is a pedagogy that facilitates civil responsibility whilepursuing academic learning. Service-learning has been one of the coreprogram areas of the United Board. This article summarizes the United
Board's service-learning projects in its network institutions from 20142018. The outbreak of COVID-19 since March 2019 enforces new waysof offering service-learning. The protocols of COVID-19 close the doors
for university-community interaction. Hence, this article suggests thepossibilities for e service-learning for the present and post-pandemic days
like other academic learning. The article also covers e service-learning's
advantages, the steps for designing an e service learning course, and thecautions while evolving an e service-learning course. Since characterbuilding is our network institutions' mission, they can adopt e servicelearning for the present and post-pandemic period.
Service-learning has been used globally, as an effective pedagogy in higher
education institutions. It facilitates civic responsibility while pursuing academic learning,
and thereby the institutions achieve their mission of raising responsible citizens. Throughservice-learning, the institution addresses the real time problems/needs in the community,
by taking the students through structured reflection. Ultimately, the students learn tointegrate their disciplinary/interdisciplinary learning with the service in the community.
The service-learning experiences enhance students’ personal and professional skills
through community engagement.
Service-Learning in United Board
In 1922, the missionary boards governing the 13 colleges and universities in China
united themselves as Associated Board, which was later named as United Board for
Christian Higher Education in Asia (hereinafter written as United Board). Later its work
was expanded beyond China to North East Asia and South East Asia. In the 1960s, theUnited Board’s work was extended to India too (Wai Ching, 2017). When the UnitedStates adopted service-learning as pedagogy for experiential learning, United Board
started considering service–learning as one of its core program support. However, till
1999, no systematic advocacy for service-learning was launched by United Board. In the
1970s, Community outreach was identified as one of the most important areas of workfor United Board. During this period (1970s till 1999), United Board supported many59

projects of the Asian institutions that integrated the three dimensions of Higher
Education: teaching, research and community outreach. United Board has always definedcommunity work as “an integral part of a student’s education and not charity”. In United
Board, service-learning was seen not as a distraction to the learning process but asenrichment (P.T. Lauby, 1996).
United Board appointed a William Fenn Lecturer, 18Florence McCarthy to visit
the network institutions in Asia to cultivate proposals on service-learning for United
Boards’ funding support. As a result of this initial work, regional network of institutions
for service-learning began to shape in offering service-learning programs.
In 2002, the First Asian Conference on Service-Learning was held in International
Christian University (ICU), Tokyo with the support from United Board. The goal of theconference was to initiate and establish ties among institutions of Higher education,community agencies. Kano Yamamoto, Chair of the Organizing Committee and Chair of
ICU’s Division of International Studies marked the goal of the conference as“establishing ties among institutions of higher education and community agencies”
because he believed the effects of linking these institutions into networks of exchange
among students, faculty, administrators and community people should promise even more
powerful outcomes (Yamamoto, 2002). The significant outcome of this effort is theestablishment of Service-Learning Asia Network (SLAN), by the participating
institutions. This was also made possible by the support from United Board. Thisinitiative was followed by United Board in establishing a service-learning programcommittee to coordinate regular institutional exchanges, at the Tokyo conference. This
committee brought out the guidelines for service-learning program, later when they met
at the Hong Kong office of United Board (United Board for Christian Higher Educationin Asia). Over the years, many short and long term projects on service-learning were
supported by United Board as program grant. Figure 1 gives the number of network
institutions of United Board across Asia, who received the program grants for servicelearning and the grant amount received by these institutions in the recent past.
Since United Board has the mission of promoting Whole Person Education in thecampuses of its network institutions, the institutions utilised this grant to offer whole
person education by adopting service-learning as their pedagogy. In the current trend of
massification of Higher Education and the competitions existing among the institutions
for National/international ranking, translating whole person education in the academic
journey of the student or faculty in the college or university has become quite challenging
to the institutions. Hence, these grants (2015-2019) were used by the network institutions
to offer either service-learning courses/programs or train the faculty in designing servicelearning courses/programs, for promoting whole person education in the campuses.
Many of our network institutions either redesign their traditional courses or design
new courses where service-learning pedagogy is used for personal and professional
development leading to whole person development. The faculty took the students throughstructured reflection to ensure intellectual, ethical and spiritual development. A few
18 Florence McCarthy was trained as a sociologist and had taught at Cornell University andTeachers College, Columbia. She has been involved in international service-learning in the UnitedStates since 1989 and has had extensive experience in educational and social development issues
and programs. She is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Centre for Educational
Research at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.

60examples of our network institutions, where the grant from United Board has been used
for service-learning program, are given below:
Figure 1
UB: Service-Learning Project grants 2015-2016 to 2018-2019i) Miriam College, Philippines used the grant (United board Report, 2015) for
developing teaching-learning modules using the whole person approach-leading to aculture of safety and caring for others. The materials prepared equipped the students withresilient knowledge, necessary skills and attitudes. Since many parts of the Philippines
face frequent natural disasters, resilience is an essential life skill for the Philippians. The
course materials train the students to develop important characteristics of resilient persons
and they are prepared to face unforeseen situations. Similarly with the United Board grant,
Ateneo de Davao University, Davao City facilitated many universities in the Philippines
to design specific courses on community communication incorporating service-learningcomponent (United Board Report, 2015).
ii) The Philippines being one among the top 10 climate hot spots, Trinity Universityof Asia, was able to engage and strengthen the public-private partnership towards thehealth and people’s wellbeing for environmental sustainability in Riverine communities
with the United Board grant (United Board Report, 2015). Formal trainings were held forselected faculty and students to enhance the knowledge and skills in community
development work; these students offered community-based education to 50 selected
people from Riverine Communities. The community-based research showed that there
was considerable improvement in the knowledge, skill and attitude of the community
with respect to environmental issues such as air quality, waste disposal, hazardous
materials, natural disasters, etc. The 50 trained community partners have gained adequate
confidence to lead a pro-environment program in their community. The Community got
prepared to take up the responsibility for protecting and preserving the environment. The
students of the university also, developed bonding with the community, they have become
others’ centred and developed leadership skills by planning and organising the sessions
61

for the community; this experience helped them to realise to become grateful for the
blessing of life. The whole program has instilled the value of responsible citizenship andstewardship among the students.
iii) Seoul Women’s University, South Korea, developed a Service-Learning Programfor Gender and Sexuality Education Program (United Board Report, 2015). This program
was designed to identify the intangible factors associated with adolescents’gender/sexuality culture and to understand the complexity of situations such as sexual
violence and sexual trafficking. On interviewing 22 youngsters, the students realised thesignificance of commodification of sexuality, experiencing hierarchy in the peer group,
exploitation under the pretext of romance, and overlaps between perpetration andvictimisation. Through this program, the women students are suitably prepared to facereal life challenges.
iv) Future English teachers were prepared through the S-L program by Ginling
Women’s College, Nanjing University (United Board Report, 2015). The Institutionalmotto being “Abundant Life”, the English major students were enriched by serving in thecommunity children libraries. The students enrolled in this course learned Childdevelopment, second language acquisition and pedagogy to teach reading. On working
with the children in the library, the students became more confident on how to attract theattention of parent and children. They also developed skills to ask questions during
storytelling, to apply voice modulation, to adapt suitable body language, etc. This
experience has paved way for many students to take up teaching as career and theyexpressed that what they missed in learning in the classroom, the community engagement
has taught them.
v) The students of Nutrition and Gerontology course of Ginling Women’s College hada service-learning program on Health care for the elderly (United Board Report, 2015).
Nutrition and Psychology survey were conducted before and after Health education
offered to 1000 elders of 60 years and above. They found out that, higher the level of theireducation of the elderly, the greater the scientific ability of the elderly. Hence, thestudents realised the necessity of offering health care education for the elderly. This
experience with the elderly enabled them to connect with the senior citizens and develop
empathy for the senior citizens at home.
vi) The students of Architecture and Interior design departments, of Petra Christian
University, involved in a service-learning activity in inclusive designing (United Board
Report, 2016). The service activity was on exploring how to provide equal opportunities
for persons with disability, senior lecturers, pregnant women and children of the faculty,
in accessing the resources in the university library. The students were taught on inclusive
design in Sociology classes, where they learnt on Universal design approach. The training
sessions enabled them to develop empathy with the target community. The workshopswith the target group enabled the students to get input for designing the library. With all
the additional disciplinary knowledge gained, the students were able to design anaccessible library on the 6th floor.
vii) In a multidisciplinary theme-based service-learning by Silliman University, thestudents addressed the negative impact of change and disaster preparedness in ruralcommunities (United Board Report, 2016). The objective was to impart awareness on
climate change to the rural community and to organise a responsive program forappropriate mitigating measures against the negative impacts of climate change. Hence,
the rural community has become more sustainable and disaster–resilient. During the62activities with the rural community, the students were enriched with the local knowledge
from the community and worked extensively with external and internal partners. A
monograph prepared with an interdisciplinary approach on climate change adaptation,with drawings and paintings by the Fine Arts students of the university, was able to be
used by all age groups in the community.
viii) The nursing students of St Luke’s College of Nursing, Trinity University of Asia,
offers a health education model as service-learning for the elderly in rural-urban setting(United Board Report, 2016). On determining the indigenous knowledge on healthpromoting practices of the elderly, students developed Health Education model on thehealth practices of the elderly. A Training of Trainers model was also developed. Few
elders in the community started teaching classes for the others in the community alongwith the students of Nursing. The students of Nursing were able to apply all theiracademic learning for educating the elderly in rural-urban areas.
ix) Hue University College of Foreign languages, Vietnam offered a Service-Learning
program on Community teaching (United Board Report, 2016). Target community for
one group comprised of shop sellers, street vendors, orphans in pagodas, the second groupserved the staff at some tourist centres, and the third group taught English for the disabled
who were the inmates at Hope Centre and the fourth group taught English for the workers
in cruise boats. Lots of foreigners travel in cruise boats and many foreigners serve as
volunteers at Hope centre. The students designed syllabus and lesson plan, preparedteaching materials, compiled a bilingual phrase book for the respective community. The
students prepared materials with common vocabulary/phrases they use in dialogue alongwith Vietnamese translation. English teaching in the different community groups havetrained them to develop the required teaching skills for their future career as English
teachers.
x) The Service-learning Program on improving Small and Micro Enterprises by
Activity-based Budgeting, was offered for the students of Management Accounting, inSoegijapranata Catholic University (United Board Report, 2016). This service activity
enabled the students to design financial plan for small and micro enterprises. The
community engagement in this course has enhanced the student registration for thiscourse in the following semester. Many students continued to serve the community evenafter the completion of the course, by applying their marketing concepts and helping themin their marketing. On discussing the business problem with the community, the students
were able to identify the root cause of their problem related to financial planning. Theseexperiences in the community helped the institution to review and revise the syllabus todesign courses on budgetary implementation.
Students of Indonesian Economy, from the same university were involved in theservice-learning activity of poverty alleviation through family empowerment education,
Health and household Economic management (United Board Report, 2015). At the endof the program, students were able to identify whether it was an individual or structured
poverty and evolved poverty reduction strategies. The course content of Indonesian
Economy was changed so as to align with the concept of the learning from the community
on poverty alleviation.
xi) University of Hong Kong undertook a service-learning approach in Cambodia andimplemented for students in Cambodia, by developing resilient student teachers at
University of Hong Kong by nurturing resilience in others (United Board Report, 2017).
The student teachers designed a curriculum on resilience and implemented it for girl63

schools in Cambodia. Teachers and social workers in Cambodia were also given training
on resilience by student teachers of Hong Kong. This experience made them understandmore on resilience and they redesigned the curriculum on resilience focusing on the
different aspects such as mastery, sense of relatedness and emotional reactivity. They also
prepared five lessons with lesson plans for each aspect of resilience along with thematerials. The students were able to integrate theories learnt in the classroom withpractice in the community and through implementing their own curriculum; they grew as
resilient educators with a sense of social and cultural awareness.
xii) The Psychology students of Union Christian College, Kerala, India undertook aservice-learning initiative on identification of risk factors and psychological correlates ofsubstance abuse, since substance abuse was part of their psychology curriculum (United
Board Report, 2017). The students visited psychiatry hospitals, and some of the schools;
they also attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Based on their service in thecommunity in these places, they were able to develop suitable psychological assessment
tools.
xiii) The Special Education students (B.S.Ed.) of Central Philippine University,
through their service-learning initiative designed Inclusive Education for elementary
schools (United Board Report, 2017). The students visited the schools of Special needchildren, interacted with their parents, observed their classes, and assessed theirdifficulty in reading and learning Maths. They wrote Individualized Education Program(IEP), prepared instructional material, designed a strategy for classroom reading andlearning Maths. Based on the service experience, they modified their lesson plans. The
elementary school library was also redesigned based on the multisensory material
prepared by the student teachers.
xiv) Ginling Women’s College had a service-learning program on risk education of
middle aged and old people’s investment and financial management in the age of internet(United Board Report, 2018). The students interviewed different types of communities
and residential settlements. Based on the condition of the community, they designed theactivities to educate them on their investment and financial management; the service
activities of proper education on financial matters enabled the community to get adequate
internet knowledge and also the possible internet financial frauds.
xv) Christ University in India undertook a service learning program E-SAILEngineering– Service Assisted Integrated Learning (United Board Report, 2018). The
students applied their technical skills to design a non-invasive glucometer for randommeasurement of blood sugar as one part of E-SAIL in a village Bairahalli. They were alsoable to develop an Android app to give glucose levels in real time.
In all the institutional stories mentioned above, the students were able to get anenhanced disciplinary knowledge along with the ability to get connected with their peers
and community. The common outcome in all these projects was that the students
becoming civic responsible.
Impact of Pandemic in Service-Learning
Every norm of human life got affected because of the global crisis of COVID-19
since March 2020 and higher education is not an exemption. The Lockdown restrictions
mandated by the competent authorities across the globe have posed severe restrictions ofmobility even in the residential areas since March 2020. With the high speed in the spreadof COVID-19, the educational institutions have shifted to online teaching–learning and64

testing since no other alternate option was possible. The technical skills become mostessential during these pandemic days. Every area of human life, both personal andprofessional, needs to be governed by technology.
The absence of physical classes in the educational institutions seems to result inhigh levels of physical and mental health issues, since many of our students get deeply
affected by lack of socialising with their peers. Many times, it’s the outside classroom
activities pave way for lots of learning, for example: discussions happening at cafeteria,
residential halls, games arena, under the trees in the college campus and very importantly
the service sites in the community. Unfortunately, constant exposure to screen, make theteachers and students quite fatigue. Another greatest loss for the younger generation isthat they lose opportunities to develop social and interpersonal skills due to lack ofphysical social contact. Moreover in countries, where the institutions have a special
mission of educating the students from less privileged background, the digital divide
causes another level of stress. Hence, restrictions of social distancing have closed thedoors for physically visiting the community site and the Service-Learning programs facea huge threat. It becomes a serious concern for those institutions where Service-Learning
programs are implemented for promoting whole person education.
Lack of preparedness for the current new normal condition is a serious issue in
Higher Education institutions, too. The higher education institutions need to rethink andredesign their curricular options so that the mission of the institutions be achieved througha detour. During these days of pandemic, there has been a huge pedagogical shift towards
the online mode, where personal classrooms have become virtual and seminars havebecome webinars. This poses the administrators, and teachers to explore the possibilities
of innovations. For any innovative changes (Mishra et al, 2020), external and internal
forces are responsible for three step process, as unfreezing- change- refreezing.
Traditional teaching learning process needs to undergo unfreezing; because of COVID19 protocols, it is shifted to online teaching. The changing process involves two options,
whether the institutions are going to follow the new online mode of other institutions or
the institutions are ready to attempt any innovation. This change process needs to be
dynamic and it cannot be a onetime event. After a few months of constant online teaching
and learning, and even after COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the change has to be consistently
followed as a step of refreezing. Under this condition, the systems continue to operatewith integrated technology for teaching–learning and community engagement either as
blended model or hybrid model. Only when Higher education institutions integratetechnology for all the processes, it can match with the demands of the 21st century. Hence,the educators need to rethink, revamp and redesign the whole education system including
service-learning. Under new normal conditions, service-learning cannot afford to beignored, because this is the pedagogy that builds the classroom on the screen with thereality in the streets, where the character formation is happening seamlessly. As the levelof uncertainty is quite high, because of COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity for whole
person education becomes all the more important. In service-learning experiences, thestudents develop many of whole personal skills associated with whole person
development, such as self-awareness, interpersonal skill, team building, risk taking,empathy, ability to appreciate the goodness they experience compared to the people inthe community, getting connected with strangers in the community, citizenship, social
consciousness, which the virtual classrooms cannot provide. Hence the universities/
65

colleges need to evolve strategies for e service-learning too not only for the pandemicdays but also for post pandemic days.
E Service-Learning is the Solution for the Present and Post Pandemic Days
The e- service-learning is defined (Marianne, 2020) as “university-community
engagement facilitated by social media, online courses and other online platforms”.
During the COVID-19 crisis, local government, local non-profits and vulnerable
individuals like elders, they all have a greater need for the help of volunteerism. Hence,
HEIs need to provide ample opportunities for college students to do their volunteerism in
the virtual world.
The experiences of some institutions are suggested below where service-learning
is offered for promoting WPE during the present and post COVID-19 Pandemic period:● Evolving COVID-19 Service Policies (University of Central Arkansas)● Constitution of Pandemic Planning and response team which considers all
implications of the pandemic for students and staff. This team needs to have a
sub-team to consider curricular revision on the mode of delivering servicelearning courses/programs.
● Change in the overall framework: Instead of direct service, it can be offered as
indirect service, research-based or advocacy-based service projects so that theservice-learning courses become contactless, remote or virtual.
● Communicating with community Partners in orienting them on how thetransition into online instruction will affect the service-learning projects● Individual students need to be given guidelines on how to engage in remote
service. Letters of agreement to be signed by community partners with the
expectations of COVID-19 protocols during service.
● Recommendation for faculty: The possible options to be given: a) Indirect,
research-based or advocacy-based service-learning: Examples are, advocacy
within the university community- working with students on civic engagements
projects, research, assessment or evaluation in collaboration with a partnerorganisation, deliverables created for a partner organisation such as digital
media or social media content, print materials, logos or handbooks. b) Direct
service offered in a virtual or contactless setting such as tutoring or mentoring
through video conferencing platforms, hosting or assisting with a virtual event
for a partner organisation, etc.
● Guidelines to be developed for COVID-19 safety procedures for student
volunteers● The institutional technical team to be available for helping the students andfaculty of service-learning.
● ‘GivePulse’ application to be integrated with the institutional LMS, which gives
list of virtual services for non-profit community partners and students can selectaccording to their interest and convenience. Using the search, students can findout virtual service opportunities. Some of the examples for e- service-learning
are: becoming social media ambassadors by Media and communication students,
hosting online fund raising or donation drives by Social work students, remote
services for web designing, graph designing by Computer Science students,
financial coaching by Business studies students, tutoring by student-teachers of66

department of Education, along with the students of Theatre and musicalperformances from the department of Fine Arts.
● Success stories of such remote service-learning can be posted in the institutional
websites, so as to promote many students to engage in e service-learning.
● Contact details of the team in charge of E service-Learning to be made available
in the institutional website.
Few Examples of e Service-Learning Offered by Some Universities
Marianne (2020, May) has mentioned that at Troy University in Alabama, wherestudents went online to help a county with a high infant mortality rate in the state ofGeorgia to analyse health disparities and develop solutions. At five state universities in
the U.S. heartland, students are helping Michigan towns to create government websites.
Through civic ecology lab (Cornell University), it is reported that exploring eengagement may uncover new ways of thinking about university engagement that will
benefit engaged learning practice and research more broadly.
Cooley (Sept 2020) has reported that Purdue University’s Service-Learning
department offered a possible “hybrid flex model” for service-Learning courses’
instruction. He also has mentioned that the Associate Director of Duke University
Service-Learning said that students of Documentary photography course documented thequarantine from their own perspective. The students on reflection were able to connect
their lives during a very volatile time period. The students of the course on Aging and
Health continued writing letters to the older residents in nursing homes and retirement
facilities they were serving in person prior to the coronavirus outbreak.
Advantages of e Service-Learning
It provides new opportunities to help non-governmental organisations (NGO)overseas and local governments in disaster planning and hunger issues. E service-learning
gives an opportunity for students to be drawn back to humanities and arts courses(Brookes, 2020). These courses show that in no uncertain terms, how the content of thosecourses helps in understanding interconnected forces that are shaping the students’ lives.
And also, the students demonstrate more positive learning outcomes when they can use
educational technologies to tackle real-world issues. Megon Woodland, (Oct 2020)
mentioned about the Service-Learning courses offered by Marquette University,
Australia that the students of sales and marketing were involved in the service towards
veterans’ health and culture. Reflection sessions were held in Zoom breakout sessions.
Students have been talking to the veterans over the phone or through Face Time or skype.
Veterans share their stories and experiences.
Different Types of e Service-Learning: (GivePulse team, E Service-learning basics andbest practices)
E Service-Learning types can be classified as below:● Hybrid I: Onsite service and online teaching● Hybrid II: Online service and onsite teaching● Hybrid III: Both instruction and service are partially online● Extreme e service-Learning: Both service and teaching online (XE-SL)
The success of e service-learning relies on the instructional design and how informational
technology team incorporates synchronous and asynchronous technology.
67

How to Set up an e Service-Learning Course?
● Identifying the e service-learning type
● Designing the course outcomes/ learning outcomes● Evolving the assessment tools (need not be the same as that of in-person servicelearning courses)● Choosing the appropriate technology for execution for e service● Selecting the community partners, considering the locations and possibility forremote connectivity● Grouping the students is preferable for e service-learning● Letters of agreement with the students, staff and community partners● Finalising on the service hours (can be different from the real S-L courses)● Detailing the plan by the students, in alignment with the goals of the course● Reviewing the course after competition, through course evaluation by the
stakeholders, and decide on the changes to be incorporated for future
As in other service-learning courses, the structured reflection needs to be followed by
the course instructors periodically. At every stage all stake holders need to be involved inplanning.
Cautions to be Addressed in e Service-Learning:i) Communication barriers- between students, staff and community partnersii) Unreliable technologyiii) Time constraints, working schedules
In the present trend of the job market, employers prefer employees who can work
efficiently in online platforms so as to get cost effectiveness and efficiency. Sue Y.
McCrory (2012) has presented a case study that was conducted during the two semesters
in a private University in the Northeastern United States. Two sections of students ofMarketing Strategy and two sections of students of Marketing Research participated in
the study. These are the two courses of Marketing major. Same instructor taught all fourcourses with similar pedagogy for the traditional face to face strategy and researchcourses and the online strategy and research courses. On comparison of practical skills,
interpersonal skills, citizenship and personal responsibility, there is no difference between
traditional and online scores on any of the items.
In the past nine months of the pandemic crisis existing across the globe, we haveseen that local knowledge and wisdom have been brought for survival and resilience inmany parts of the world. Serving in the community is the best platform to acquire local
knowledge and wisdom.
Planning for Future (Post Pandemic Period) Service-Learning (Budd &Rajesh,
November, 2020)
Here are some suggestions:• Redesign the curriculum of current courses to introduce a component of field study tomonitor the current situation in nearby communities and neighbourhoods.
• Engage with local administrations and community organisations to identify poor andvulnerable families and people who have not been able to access various government
benefits and share the information with relevant agencies.
68• Undertake widespread multi- or trans-disciplinary studies on public health practices andeconomic situations in such communities (both rural and urban) in partnership with local
communities, including with regard to the competencies and skills of frontline workers
and community leaders and come up with innovative solutions.
• Participate actively to support frontline health and sanitation workers in spreadingawareness and messages about behaviour change.
Conclusion
COVID-19 has underlined the importance of community-university engagement
and now is the time to build on what we have learned from the experience of the pandemic.
Since good Service-Learning is very much human centric, offering e service-learning will
be quite relevant. The pandemic period has taught us the fragility and uncertainty ofhuman life and hence we realise the importance of whole person development to live a
happy and peaceful life, whether young or old, rich or poor and literate or illiterate. As
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “intelligence plus character– that is the goal of trueeducation”, let our Higher Education institutions also continue to offer Service-Learning
as one of the best platforms for character formation.

69

References
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サービス・ラーニング研究シリーズ 6Service-Learning in the Era of “New Normal”:
Reflection on the Modes of Service-Learning andFuture Partnerships
2021 年 3 月 19 日 発行
発行
編集

国際基督教大学 サービス・ラーニング・センター
センター長 西村 幹子
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