A Service-Learning E-Tutoring Program For Romanian Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

The Service-Learning (S-L) pedagogy is an innovative, malleable and convertible curricular tool that can be efficiently adopted by any discipline, serving a wide array of academic, community and social goals. This paper describes the restructuring and extension proposal for PedTut, a previously developed S-L e-tutoring program for pre-service teachers, following the guidelines of a validated model for including S-L in higher education ( CLAYSS, 2016 ) including multistep-stages (motivation, diagnosis, design & planning, execution, closure and celebration) and cross-sectional processes such as the reflection process, the record and communication process and the assessment process. The aim of the e-tutoring program was to develop and implement a S-L project designed for aiding novice pre-service students with online feedback on their pedagogical teaching practice regarding some methodological and psychological aspects of teaching, as well as the teaching experience as a whole. This study aims to restructure and extend the wireframe for the initial S-L program offered to pre-service teachers, at a national level, through e-tutorials, to enhance their pedagogical training for more accuracy and efficiency, as well as their civic responsibility, academic performance, subjective happiness and self-efficacy levels and to increase their workforce enrolment by easing their transition into the world of teaching practice.

Keywords: Service-LearningCLAYSS guidelines for SL in higher educationpre-service teachers

Introduction

Service-Learning (S-L) is a pedagogical concept that can be practiced within formal, non-formal and informal educational settings (CLAYSS, 2016), a „balanced approach to experiential education” that can be „distinguished by its intention to equally benefit the provider and the recipient of the service, as well as to ensure equal focus on both the service provided to the community and the learning that is occurring” (Furco, 2003). Due to the fact that S-L is a flexible educational approach that can bring mutual benefits to both the providers and to the recipients, as well as with multiple beneficial effects for the learners and for the community, there is an increased interest for such programs in the academic practice, thus the increased number of investigations into S-L in recent years (Eyler, 2000). S-L is widely chosen by educators due to its flexible, cost-effective nature and various outcomes on students. Hence, a meta-analysis of S-L programs (Celio, Durlak & Dymnicki, 2011) reveals that in 62 cases, in comparison to controls, students that took part in S-L projects showed statistically significant increases in the following outcome areas: attitudes toward self, attitudes toward school and learning, civic engagement, social skills and academic performance, and other benefits that include enhanced self-efficacy and self-esteem, increase in the favourable attitudes toward school and education, gains in positive social attitudes and social skills relating to leadership and empathy. This study describes the restructuring and extension proposal for a previously developed Service-Learning (S-L) e-tutoring program for pre-service teachers, i.e. PedTut (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015), following the guidelines of a validated model for including S-L in higher education (CLAYSS):

Project Presentation : Restructured Wireframe for PedTut, the Service-Learning Project

Project title: PedTut (acronym for Pedagogical Tutoring)

School and institution: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (www.ubbcluj.ro)

Project coordinators: one higher education teacher, which is also the, Coordinator of Office for Students with Disabilities and a PhD candidate in Psychology domain (the first author of this study).

Other participants: (1) Pedagogy Students from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ; (2) A member of the institutional board of the University.

Problem Statement

It is well known that, following the described itinerary of the S-L projects, at the root of every S-L initiative is an identified community problem that can be addresses through the framework. The community need that needs to be addressed in the context of the Babes-Bolyai University was identified in the diagnosis stage of the project. Student-for-student learning enhancement was chosen considering the priority-setting criteria. Therefore, PedTut focuses on facilitating access to education, tutoring and learning improvement for pre-service teachers in the context of their initial pedagogical training to enhance their pedagogical training and ease their transition into the world of practice. Thus, the initial developed project has now been reformed and divided into two section: a first section (PedTut I) that focuses on enhancing the pre-service teachers pedagogical training with online e-tutoring sessions and the second section (PedTut II) that extends the latter at a national level by implementing a series of online pedagogical e-tutorials, accessible to pre-service students all around the country.

Research Questions

Hypotheses:

• After completing the e-tutorial (e-SL) program, there shall be a significant increase in students’ levels of civic attitudes (civic actions, interpersonal problem solving skills and attitudes of diversity) from the experimental group compared to the students from the control group.

• After completing the e-SL program there shall be a significant increase in students from the experimental group of subjective happiness levels compared to the students from the control group.

• After completing the e-SL program there shall be a significant increase in the experimental group’s self-efficacy compared to the control group.

• At national level, after completing the video e-SL program, there shall be a significant increase in their final national pedagogical exam and work field insertion for teachers.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the current study is to standardize a previously designed S-L program which addresses pre-service teachers’ training by methods of e-tutoring and extend the latter at a national level, by methods of e-tutorials. The restructuring proposal and extension for the initial program following the CLAYSS (2016) validated itinerary stages and cross-sectional processes for S-L programs is presented in the following sections.

Research Methods

The following tables (Tables 1 - 3 ) explicitly describe the steps undertaken for a complete execution of the PedTut programs, according to CLAYSS (2016) validated model for the inclusion of S-L in higher education. The tables present the stages of both PedTut I and PedTut II following the literature characteristics (Billing, 2000; Furco, 2003), itinerary and cross-sectional processes (i.e. the reflection process, the record and communication process and the assessment process) for S-L projects (CLAYSS, 2016). Contemporary literature divides S-L projects on stages, such as: preparation/diagnosis and planning (identifying the community need, establishing a goal and objectives for the S-L project, necessary skills, resources and activities), implementation (and maintaining the connection between the service and academic content), assessment (evaluating the course, and/or student academic, social or civic learning) and demonstration/celebration (discussing and exhibiting their work) (Jenkins & Sheehey, 2011; CLAYSS, 2016). Hence, each stage of PedTut I & PedTut II is exemplified accounting for the curricular contents linked to the service in the corresponding phase described above, together with an exemplification of the activities proposed for students’ field work related to service and analogous learning components.

Findings

After the completion of both PedTut S-L sections, we expect that students’ attitudes towards diversity will increase, as stated and confirmed by previous findings (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015). Also, the hypotheses that their civic action, interpersonal and problem-solving skills, subjective happiness levels, self-efficacy and performance will increase, easing their transition into the world of teaching practice, need to be further tested after the implementation of the current restructuring and extension proposal.

Conclusion

This study aimed to describe the restructuring proposal for PedTut, a previously developed Service-Learning (S-L) e-tutoring program for pre-service teachers, following the guidelines of a validated model for including S-L in higher education developed by CLAYSS (2016). The aim of the initial tutoring program (PedTut 1) was to develop and implement a Service-Learning based tool in order to aid students enrolled in the second year of the Pedagogical Training Module with feedback on their online reflection of the pedagogical practice, whereas PedTut II completes the previous by adding online pedagogical e-tutorials, restructured on the CLAYSS model (2016). We consider the model to be a first step towards a unified approach in implementing such programs in higher education, encouraging the inclusion of similar practices in core curricula. In addition, it is also a comprehensive guideline with tremendous utility in increasing scientific rigorousness of S-L implementation in all higher education institutions, with positive outcomes in ecological validity, community engagement, academic learning, and community impact.

References

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• Celio, C. I., Durlak, J. & Dymnicki, A. (2011). A Meta-analysis of the Impact of Service-Learning on Students. Journal of Experiential Education, 34(2), 164-181.
• Centro Latinoamericano de Aprendizaje y Servicio Solidario (CLAYSS). (2016). Service- Learning in Higher Education online course. Retrieved from http://www.clayss.org.ar on 10 October 2016.
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• Rusu, A. S., Copaci, I. A. & Soos, A. (2015). The Impact of Service-Learning on Improving Students’ Teacher Training: Testing the Efficiency of a Tutoring Program in Increasing Future Teachers’ Civic Attitudes, Skills and Self-Efficacy. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 203, 75-83.