Teachers in higher education, who (want to) work with service-learning approaches or other similar methods to involve students into communities, are trained in a 5-day staff training based on IO3 – Pedagogical Workbook and IO2 – methodology toolkit. The training will be prepared and developed in the partner meeting before the staff training. Partners will discuss and finalize daily focus points of the training, the trainers, and special sessions needed. Participants can register with the project partner only and have to write a short motivational letter, why they want to attend.
The training will be organized using 2 different sets of activities:
1) One will involve different sessions under a daily focal point presented by expert speakers – inputs on teaching methods, an in-depth insight into the various methodologies explored and collected within IO2 and described in IO4. Methodologies are tested in small groups and evaluated against their a) usefulness in teaching practice, b) accessibility of material (ie open access), and c) structural framework conditions in teaching to use the material. One specific session (session 4) will be dedicated to student guidance measures, how students’ experiences can be documented (research diaries, logbooks, …) and orally talked about in class, about what works and what does not work well, and why (presentation techniques, question and answer sessions, talking about emotional experiences or critical incidents in the community).
The Sessions will be the following (but are subject to title change in the course of the project):
Session 1: Assessing real community needs
Session 2: Assuring participation of students
Session 3: Working with service learning / in-classroom teaching methods
Session 4: Reflecting experiences with students and continuing guidance
Session 5: Setting up external cooperations outside the university
2) The second set of activities will involve the deployment of the Part 2 of IO3 – Pedagogical workbook during which the teachers will be asked to plan a draft service learning project they intend to further develop and include within the topic they teach. The participants will use the proposed step-by-step training strategy throughout the reader is guided through a series of activities that will support him/her in planning and implementing a service learning project within a given topic. During these activities, the participants will be counseled by trainers and in the end, will be asked to present the outcomes of their work in a plenary session based on a given presentation layout.
The training will be done by experts from project partners and by an external expert that will be subcontracted.
The assessment of the learning outcomes of the training activity will consists in the assessment of the service learning projects drafted by the trainees and submitted in the last day of the training. The service learning projects will be assessed by the project partners’ experts that will provide feedback and support for improvements/further development.
The training will take place in Vienna (AT) and will be attended by 30 teachers from partner HEIs (5 teachers each). They will be selected from each partner HEI specialized community engagement/student counseling units as well as from other departments depending on the appropriateness of implementing service learning within their taught topic.
A certificate of attendance with the logo of the University of Vienna/Potgraduate Center will be distributed on the last day of the training (on condition that trainees attend at least 80% of the total hours of the training). The certificate will be free of charge.
