Online Classes and Remote Service Activities in the Spring Term

In the Spring Term in ICU, all classes were online due to the influence of COVID-19, and we opened the course: "General Education: Service-Learning" consisting of "Lectures + 18 hours of practicum." Approximately 30 people (half of them are freshmen) registered for the course, were divided into 6 groups with 5 host institutions, and engaged in remote service activities such as international exchange (planning and operating virtual excursions with children etc.), environmental awareness survey in Mitaka, NGO's fundraising and public relations activities using SNSs, and SL program issue analysis and proposals to SLC. While students were sometimes confused at remote communication, they tried to work on each activitiy by taking advantage of the flexibility to respond without cost or time regulations.

 

Currently, while the needs for services are limited, a new form of collaboration has been created with Middlebury College in US, which is also affiliated with the JSSL program, and “Glocal Mitaka,” which promotes international exchange locally. At class, they gave a presentation to us about various local activities under the COVID-19 crisis. At another class, students who actually participated in the SL program last year talked about their experiences, and gave advice to students taking the course, about important essence of SL: "inquiry," "positionality," and "reflection." At the end of the course, we invited professors of ICU in various fields such as politics, international relations, religion, philosophy, and physics, and they gave a professional advice to students so that they could prepare for the final presentation.

 

At the final presentation, nearly 50 people, including host institutions and ICU faculty members, participated in the class, and each student group shared what they did and what they learned. In the presentation, we could see that each of students tried to think about what they could do for society as a university student, changed the way they interact with society with a critical and positive attitude, and found many discoveries of society and themselves through service activities.

 

Although the course has finished, we hope that these students will continue to develop further learning in their college life and in their life after graduation. Based on this experience of our first online classes, which SLC learned a lot as well as students, we would like to continue to explore new forms of "service-learning" with local communities and partner institutions.

STUDENTS' ACTIVITIES (abstract) *Click on the image to enlarge.

TALK WITH PROFESSORS (abstract) *Click on the image to enlarge.