Developing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Partnerships across the Curriculum Tempus Project 158914-UK-JPCR

1. Developing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Partnerships across the CurriculumTempus Project 158914-UK-JPCR

2. What is service learning (SL)? ServiceLearning is a teaching method which combines community service with academic instruction. “experience enhances understanding, understanding leads to more effective action.” Eyler and Giles (1999)

3. Internship Volunteerism Service Learning Volunteerism primarily benefits the community Internships primarily benefits the student Service Learning benefit both the community and the student.

4. Why SL is considered as a powerful pedagogical tool? Theoretically: When students participate in community service activities, they gain: • further understanding of course contents • valuable experience related to their future career • an important sense of responsibility towards their community

5. Empirically: • Research showed that SL has positive impact on students’ achievement and cognition, their character development, and their social engagement. • SL has been tested in a number of diverse settings across various ages and using different approaches. • Service Learning projects have received generous fund. • SL centers that pair undergraduates with civic institutions were established and are currently active on hundreds of campuses around the world.

6. Who Benefits from Service Learning ?1- Students • Enriches their learning of course material and “brings books to life and life to books” • Engages students in active learning that demonstrates the relevance of academic work for their life and career choices • Increases awareness of current societal issues as they relate to academic areas

7. Who Benefits from Service Learning ?1- Students (continue) • Broadens perspectives of diversity issues and enhances critical thinking skills. • Improves interpersonal skills. • Develops civic responsibility and foster the ethic of service and civic participation through active community involvement.

8. Who Benefits from Service Learning? 2- Community • Provides substantial human resources to meet educational, human, safety, and environmental needs of local communities • Allows the energy and enthusiasm of students to contribute to meeting needs • Creates potential for additional partnerships and collaboration

9. Who Benefits from Service Learning? 3- University Help Universities to transform their mission into educating students to be responsible citizens, rather than just educating them for their future career.

10. Our Vision To see our students engaging with and participating in their local and national communities and to be well prepared as citizens

11. Our Mission To link personal and social development of our students with academic and cognitive development. This will result in individuals who can play an active role in the development of the community because they will be capable of recognizing and solving problems in their community. This can be achieved through service learning.

12. Our Objectives • Enhance student learning and civic responsibility through the training, implementation, documentation and evaluation of service learning. • Building on our experience, and in collaboration with the Universities from EU, Lebanon and Jordan through TEMPUS we will establish a Service Learning Center at the Hashemite University that would serve: • as a local and regional training center for instructors • to establish ties with the community • to identify community needs to provide constructive service learning education.

13. Service learning collaborationTEMPUS • Locally • Regionally • Internationally

14. Jordan-Lebanon-EU Service Learning Partnership Lead institutions: Roehampton University- UK Hashemite University- Jordan Partner institutions: NUI Galway - Republic of Ireland Plovdiv - Bulgaria Gothenburg - Sweden University of Belamand - Lebanon American University of Beirut - Lebanon Al Albyt- Jordan Zarqa Private University - Jordan

15. What have we achieved so far? The partnership has developed familiarisation and training programmes for staff and students which involve movement between the EU, Jordan and Lebanon: - Galway meeting in June 2010 – 16 Jordanian staff received training on SL - Five courses (nursing, education, biology, and IT) at HU is piloting SL this semester - Planning for Jan. 2011 meeting in Beirut- new 15 staff will receive professional training - Two papers, based on data collected from the project , have been prepared; one was sent to publication and the other was presented in Indianapolis conference in Oct. 2010.

16. What have we achieved so far? The partnership is working with the Hashemite University to help planning and preparing the creation of a Service Learning Center: - Lead institutions meeting at HU in Dec. 2009 - Steering committee meeting at HU in Jan. 2010 - Steering committee meeting at Galway in June 2010 - We have our LOGO and website launched in June 2010 (www.tawasol.org) - We collected resources for establishing Database for our center - We now have the space and ordered furniture and equipmentfor the center. - The effect on students will be discussed when they present their work.

17. Our Community Partners We have agreements with… • The Ministery of Social Development • The Ministry of Education • The Ministry of Health We are working on establishing ties with other institutions and NGOs

18. Duration and Finance The project is over a three year period 2010-2012 • The amount of the funding is 880,000 EURO • More details about the financial stand will follow with Dr. Aeiman. Thank you