Author(s): Deepak Babu, Imran Ahmed Khan
The covid-19 pandemic made a definite impact on education worldwide, forcing brickand-mortar higher education institutions to move online and virtual learning become the new normal. This paradigm shift pushes students to complete social isolation. The virtual teachinglearning mode the experiment-based education and team-based peer learning on the back foot. In this study we examined how community service learning was helping students to learn team building skills more effectively while serving communities during the rural camp in the remote areas. The current study examines the pre and post rural camp effectiveness of team building through community service learning. The responses of three hundred post graduate management students were considered for the study. Our findings from the confirmatory factor analysis show three important factors in assessing the perceptions on team building and its effectiveness. The results from the independent sample t-test did not show any significant effect of team building on the behavior of students based on different genders. However, the paired sample T test results show that there is a difference in the perceptions related to the team building. The empirical findings offer a premise to educators and policy makers to design curriculums and pedagogies based on experiential, outbound, community serviced based learning for the post pandemic era. This study proves the effectiveness of service learning as tools which is useful for the educators and corporate trainers in enhancing team building abilities among the students and socially connect them with communities as well as many social realities at the grassroots level.