Conference Agenda

How can Service-Learning projects be designed to specifically strengthen students’ democratic competencies? This workshop addresses this central question from the call and develops a practice-oriented approach that combines a network perspective, didactic reflection, and project-based concept development. It is situated within the field of didactic methods for effective democracy education and refers to the RFCDC.

The workshop begins by working with an egocentric network map (Truschkat et al., 2015). Participants first visualize which relevant actors they already know in their own environment and could engage for potential SL projects. The Quintuple Helix (Carayannis et al., 2012) serves as a heuristic framework, making visible the relationships between higher education, civil society, politics and administration, the economy, and the environment or socio-ecological context. In this way, existing contacts, potential for cooperation, gaps, and possible new partnerships are systematically reflected upon.

This visualization of one’s own network is followed by a brief input that links central didactic principles of service-learning with the competency framework for a democratic culture. The focus here is on questions regarding the design of a democracy-oriented learning process: How can social engagement, subject-specific learning, and structured reflection be interrelated in such a way that democratic competencies are not merely implicitly present but are consciously fostered? The input addresses selected competency areas such as values, attitudes, skills, as well as critical knowledge and understanding, and translates them into concrete didactic guiding questions and the formulation of learning objectives for project planning.

Building on this foundation, participants move into a guided working phase in which they develop initial Service-Learning project ideas for their own organizations. In doing so, they reflect on which societal needs and partner constellations are relevant, which learning objectives are being pursued, and how democratic competencies can be specifically addressed. Participants leave with both a mapped overview of their relevant stakeholder network and an initial draft for a democracy-oriented SL project.

The Transfer Team at the University of Koblenz coach the participants. The Team has many years of experience in the field of Service-Learning. Both Dr. Voigt and Dr. Engel have led citizen science projects and are currently collaborating with the DasKreatop association in Koblenz, where students work on SL projects (community-based research) with a focus on third places/places for democracy education. Both possess in-depth methodological and pedagogical expertise based on their training and have jointly offered seminars in higher education pedagogy for several years.