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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

Workshop 1 / Track A: Service-Learning in the Age of Generative AI

Time:

Wednesday, 07/Oct/2026:

4:30pm - 6:00pm

Presentations

Service-Learning in the Era of GenAI: Challenges, Opportunities and Democratic Futures

Andrea Lyons-Lewis¹, Nives Mikelic Preradovic², Rahul Pandit³, Patrizia Lotti⁴, Berta Paz Lourido⁵, Irene Culcasi⁶, Filomena Soares⁷, Aline Ramos Esperidião⁸, Joan Navarro Martin⁸

¹Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom; ²University of Zagreb; ³Utrecht University; ⁴Indire; ⁵University of the Balearics; ⁶Lumsa University Rome; ⁷University of Minho; ⁸La Salle University Barcelona

Service-Learning (SL) is widely used in higher education because it enables students to move beyond the classroom and engage directly with communities and societal partners. At the same time, the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) raises important questions about the future of this kind of learning. If knowledge acquisition, communication and elements of reflection can increasingly be mediated by AI, it is unclear what this means for pedagogies that rely on authentic interaction and learning through action. For many educators, responding individually to these developments is challenging, creating a need for collective reflection and shared responses across the European Service-Learning community. This project explores how GenAI may reshape Service-Learning teaching, learning and assessment, while identifying ways to preserve and strengthen its democratic and civic purposes.

Project Objectives

To explore how Service-Learning educators in European higher education perceive the opportunities, concerns and implications of GenAI for teaching, learning and assessment, and to illustrate emerging practices across different contexts.

To examine how the integration of GenAI may influence the development and assessment of democratic and civic competences within Service-Learning contexts, particularly in relation to critical thinking, participation and ethical engagement.

To contribute to a shared European agenda for making Service-Learning critically and ethically AI-ready, including ways to address existing implementation challenges and support future innovation.

Methodology

The project adopts an action research approach, positioning Service-Learning educators as active co-researchers who collectively investigate emerging challenges and possibilities related to GenAI in SL. Participants from different European countries will engage in structured dialogue through online meetings and collaborative workshops. Data generated through these discussions will be analysed thematically, combining initial AI-supported coding with iterative review by the research team.

Results and their impact

Preliminary findings from the literature suggest that educators recognise both opportunities and concerns in relation to GenAI. Potential benefits include support for reflection, accessibility, multilingual communication and planning processes. Concerns include superficial learning, over-reliance on automated outputs, ethical issues in community partnerships and difficulties in assessing authentic student learning. The project contributes to an emerging European conversation on GenAI and Service-Learning and may inform future guidance, collaboration and policy discussions.