The impact of university Service-Learning: the Hope project

Abstract

The contemporary debate on the role of Higher Education places service to the community at the centre of both the relationship between university and society and the innovation process in university teaching. In this scenario, Service-Learning emerges as an innovative pedagogical approach capable of placing the university at the centre of the social development process, involving teachers, researchers and students in a teaching-learning pathway that challenges academic knowledge and makes it alive and effective to find answers to relevant needs, by co-building social improvement projects together with community members. This contribution – by contextualizing this pedagogical proposal in relation to design and evaluation challenges – describes the impact of a university Service-Learning project, starting from a stakeholder-driven approach. The data collection was carried out by using qualitative and quantitative assessment tools based on the logic of the change generated by the activities carried out. The analysis of the data has highlighted a series of findings capable of guiding future development perspectives regarding both the relationship between the university and the society and the renewal of university teaching so that the growth and development will not only benefit the individual but the whole community.