Service learning: Applying knowledge through community service

My academic identity revolves around applying research-informed learning strategies from Cognitive Psychology to authentic educational contexts and disseminating this knowledge to a broader audience through science communication and outreach activities. A continuation of this work is to enable students to apply what they have learned at university to address problems in the community. The following case study outlines Service Learning as a teaching concept. Service Learning is a teaching approach by which knowledge obtained in the classroom is made available to a cooperation partner in the community to solve a prevailing need. In my case, university students acquire knowledge of effective learning strategies and then design and deliver research-informed ‘How-To-Study’ tutorials to pupils in local schools. Since I started teaching Service Learning in 2008, I have collaborated with 15 schools (9 schools in and around Glasgow, 4 schools in and around Dundee, and 2 schools in Mannheim, Germany) from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. My commitment to support students to meaningfully apply knowledge through community service has been commended by the BPS accreditation review committee (2019, University of Dundee) as ‘extraordinary practice that stands out on a national and international level’. I was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award by the School of Social Sciences for it, and it was recognised as a case study for my successful SFHEA AdvanceHE application in the same year.