INNOVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: SERVICE LEARNING

Abstract

The article is dedicated to service learning – a popular and innovative method of teaching and learning that aims at bridging the academic and non-academic environments, introducing students to real-life challenges faced by local community, enhancing students’ social responsibility, empathy, leadership etc. Service learning is a comprehensive holistic approach that mixes traditional academic learning with community engagement, research, civic education, value-based and life skills learning, nurturing inclusion and diversity. Community service is distinctly linked to the curriculum and the subject area of the study programme; theoretical learning is complemented by service that augments students’ specific and general (transversal) competences. Service should be genuine, meet the real needs of a community, merge learning with practical activity and target personal development of service beneficiaries who are actively engaged. Students, though they work under guidance and coordination of their teachers, are expected to play an active role in service learning planning, delivery, monitoring and evaluation; they should demonstrate leadership and agency during service learning. Service learning is a flexible and allowing for variability teaching and learning method, which precipitates its effectiveness and attractiveness. Implementation of service learning in Ukrainian universities seems rational and essential as it can provide impetus for revision and modernization of study programmes, complement cognitive learning with social-emotional learning, augment links with stakeholders, involve students into real-life problem-solving, influence their outlook and encourage students to change the world for the better.