During summer 2009, 111 students of different programs at Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, carried out a social service project in the south of Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States of America. Social service consists of the collaboration of students in social projects coordinated by NGO or Governmental Institutions in which they practice the generic and specific competencies learned during their university education, related to the solution of a particular social problem from a situated learning approach. During this experience, the student is advised by the project’s in site coordinator, and by an academic tutor through an online workshop. An authentic assessment is carried out using a rubric.
University social service is an academic space where the student puts into practice their professional knowledge to solve social problems in areas such as human rights, migration, education, environment, sustainable economy, health services and the elderly, among others in collaboration with institutions and Non- Governmental Organizations (NGO). For more than 30 years, Social Service has had a curricular nature at Universidad Iberoamericana, Ciudad de México. This means that it has carried a 16 credit load within the curriculum, which is divided into 14 credits for the implementation of the social practice and two credits to attend the workshop and these two phases must be carried out jointly. Until 2008, during the summer period, students used to move to different zones of the country, they performed the practicum and attended the workshop when they were back on campus, which resulted in a gap between the phases. Because of this, the purpose of linking theory with practice within the learning process was not fulfilled, and the student did not receive any academic advice while carrying out the project. To compound this error, social service was performed unprofessionally on occasions, when there was a lack of a clear and pertinent work methodology and the workshop was constituted as a theoretical subject detached of what was happening in the field.
Develop an educational strategy to link the university student with NGO's and the governmental sector in projects that seek to respond to the most urgent problems of society, and at the same time develop and practice generic competencies such as problem-solving, as well as specific competencies related to a profession.
This experience began in January, with the registration and assessment of social service projects. The 67 approved projects were located in the southern region of Mexico, in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Veracruz and Puebla; others, on the border with Guatemala, and some more in the cities of New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC. At the same time, an interdisciplinary team of professors that belong to the Program of Social Service and the Program for Faculty Training thought about the curricular meaning of social service within the university. The conclusion was that we should adequate social service under the approach of situated learning for the development of competencies, mainly the competence of problem-solving, as well as other competencies that involve the professional, human, and social dimensions. Thus, the focus of social service should be the identification of a problem in a set context and its professional solution. This implied, necessarily, a new configuration of the supervision workshop for students that ceased to be a space for deliberation, in order to become a space for mentoring students to monitor the project’s progress and the competencies’ developed through it. For this, an inverse planning work took place, identifying the students’ desired performances by the end of the social service, which resulted in a rubric with which it could be possible to carry out an authentic assessment. Four pedagogical tools that form the basic structure of the workshop were also created:
Foundation of the problem;
Work plan;
Reflection and analysis about social practice; and
A final report.
Subsequently, an online workshop was designed based on the Blackboard VLE platform. Necessary training was provided to 14 professors to perform the function of the workshops’ tutors. It consisted of intensive courses during the months of April and May. The social service had a length of eight weeks, during June and July. Prior to the transfer of students to their place of practicum, an induction course was given which sought to develop an openness to reality, generosity, professionalism, and commitment, and tools for the use of Blackboard and other ICTs were offered. 15 groups of the online workshop were formed with an average of seven students per group, making a total of 111 students. The conduction of an online workshop contributed so that students could link better to the projects and, therefore, their input was more efficient and professional. During the workshop, academic activities took place such as social problems research, readings, forums between students who were thousands of kilometers away from each other, interchange of ideas and reflections, video and photo transfers and other exchanges. In the end, a meeting of evaluation and presentation of experiences took place. There, students shared with the others their experiences during social service emphasizing three dimensions: professional, human, and social.
A more efficient link is made between the student, the University and the community.
This working methodology achieves a real and concrete knowledge about the social problem that is being met.
Student practices the acquired competencies in a set context and is advised and guided by two tutors, one is a face to face tutor and the other one is an online tutor. Both of them perform a work that combines theory and practice.
NGOs usually do not count with financial resources to hire quality professionals to develop their projects. The students who perform this work solve this need in the organizations. This is a very concrete way to link the university with community.
By taking this online workshop, the student carries out the practice at the same time that he acquires particular tools to organize and apply the knowledge.
Through the online workshop delivered by the Blackboard VLE platform, the work and experience of 111 students is interlaced, known, shared, and communicated in real-time. Therefore, a project of criticism, debate, refection, and broader knowledge of the social reality is generated, as well as seeking answers to the solution of certain problems.
A strategic use of teaching is implemented trough the approach of situated learning, since the development of students’ competencies is achieved at the same time that the University is linked to social organizations and this contributes to the solution of particular problems, promoting the democratization of knowledge.
Students get advice about their practicum in real time.
The ICTs as facilitators of university education and as enablers of the interrelation between the students with the population served, the NGO's, tutors, and others students.
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