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LINCS:
The International Service-Learning Course
Sequence took
24 Pitt faculty, undergraduates, graduate
students and staff to a small Peruvian village
this summer to construct a preschool and
community center.
The ACIE grant assists with the
dissemination of this service-learning model via
videotape and print material.
Director Maureen Porter, Educational
Anthropology, School of Education, says the
project has two main objectives.
First, LINCS (Learning Integrated with Needed
Construction and Service) connects service and
learning in ways through which a diverse
community of people take service-learning
and put it into practice.
“Service-learning involves learning
through a project that has ties to a community
and reflecting on what we learned,” according
to Monica Pagano, a graduate student in the
Administrative and Policy Studies/ International
Development in Education Program (IDEP).
In fact, Pagano came to Pitt from her
native Argentina because of the strong
reputation of the IDEP. |
Maureen
Porter makes adobe bricks |
Another
objective is “to build a community that units all of
us who are involved in the project, those of us from
Pitt –who represent eight different countries— and
the people in Urumbamba,
Peru,” Porter said.
“Through their process of community planning,
the people there told us that what they most needed was
a preschool and a community center. About 20 of us will
work with about 20 of them, literally hand-in-hand, to
build with adobe and timber.
Together we will become a community.”
“Service-learning is an important field, and
its academic and theoretical base is increasingly being
recognized,” Porter said.
“This is a scholarly field, fundamental to the
whole mission of education.
Our project shows one of the best ways of linking
the theoretical base with hands-on learning. This is part of our effort to institutionalize
service-learning in a broader way across campus.”
Porter hopes that this project will serve as a model for
international service-learning projects for other
professional schools.
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