Abstract
Traditionally, universities focus primarily on instructionist teaching. Such an understanding has been criticized from theoretical and practical points of view. We believe that sociocultural theories of learning and the concepts of social capital and social creativity hold considerable promise as a theoretical base for the repositioning of universities in the knowledge society. To illustrate our assumption, we provide case studies from the University of Colorado and the University of Siegen. These cases indicate how approaches to community-based learning can be integrated into a curriculum of applied computer science. We also discuss the role these didactical concepts can play within a practice-oriented strategy of regional innovation.
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Acknowledgments
We thank (1) the members of the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design at the University of Colorado, who have made major contributions to the conceptual framework described in this paper; (2) the colleagues from the University of Siegen and RWTH Aachen, with whom the courses in practice have been developed and realized; (3) Sharon Derry (University of Wisconsin), who collaborated with us to develop the concepts of transdisciplinary education; (4) Kenneth P. Morse (MIT), whose kind invitation allowed us to experience practice-based education at the Sloan School’s Entrepreneurship Center; (5) the following companies: Billiton, Siegen; Buhl Data, Neunkirchen; Domestic, Siegen; and Media Dialog, Siegen, for their cooperation within the CiP education program of the University of Siegen; and (6) David Tietjen (Drexel University), who edited the final version.
The research was supported by (1) the National Science Foundation, Grant REC-0106976 “Social Creativity and Meta-Design in Lifelong Learning Communities”; (2) the Coleman Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA; (3) the German American Fulbright Commission, which provided a scholarship for Volker Wulf; and (4) the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (bmb+f), which funded the research projects “Wissensprojekt Informatiksysteme im Kontext — Vernetzte Lerngemeinschaften in gestaltungs- und IT-orientierten Studiengängen (Wisspro)” (Fkz.: 08 NM 052A) and “Virtuelles Software Engineering Kompetenzzentrum (VSEK)” (Fkz.: 01 IS C39E).
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Fischer, G., Rohde, M., Wulf, V. (2009). Community-Based Learning: The Core Competency of Residential, Research-Based Universities. In: Carroll, J.M. (eds) Learning in Communities. Human-Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-332-3_12
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