Local Global Learning: Community-based Learning for Local and Global Citizenship

The aim of the Local Global Learning project was to explore to what extent students from diverse backgrounds and unique dispositions engage in service learning experiences to develop global perspectives, and how the agentic qualities of these students could be promoted and fostered towards future development of global perspectives. In particular, it focused on identifying the pedagogical elements of service learning curriculum that support this development. The project was designed to identify and synthesise robust curriculum and pedagogical practices into a good practice guide that could extend capacity building around mobile and ‘non-mobile’ (local) experiences to develop global perspectives. The research generated by this project establishes the importance of curriculum design and the benefit of linear curriculum narratives to guide students and support their learning experiences. In response to the top four barriers to participation nominated by students – finances, time, work and family commitments– it is important that non-mobile experiences are equally privileged with mobile experiences as they can allow students to engage with experiences while maintaining finances, work and family commitments. Intentional curriculum design and enactment are critical in orientating students to and preparing them for their experiences. Likewise, purposeful ‘in-placement’ activities that expose students to potentially disruptive experiences, and opportunities for dialogue and collaboration that facilitate in-depth reflection, are essential pedagogic tools. Consequently, in-placement is also a point of departure from linear narratives that do not reflect students’ lived experiences, where flexibility and recognition of unintended learning require responses from individuals rather than from the cohort as a whole. Educators must realise that to engage students as active, agentic learners on the path to becoming global citizens, the curriculum must also be informed by the student voice. Meaningful assessment that aligns with student experience plays a strategic role to create space for students to reflect on the implications of their experiences for future personal and professional actions. A delicate balance of structure, space and student agency enhances the development of students’ global perspectives.