Learning Through Serving

1. Learning Through Serving An Introduction to Service-Learning

2. Introductions • Your name • Your discipline • How long you’ve been at SDSU • Discuss the following questions: • What draws you to explore this pedagogy? • How do you think SL will affect student learning? • How do you envision your role changing, if at all?

3. Definition What is service-learning? • Service-learning combines meaningful service in the community with a formal educational curriculum and structured time for participants to reflect on their service and educational experience. Service-learning stands in contrast to traditional volunteering or community service, which generally does not include reflection or links to any organized curriculum. (Hollis, 2004, p. 576)

4. Another Definition Service-learning is a “course-based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students • participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and • reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.” Bringle & Hatcher, p. 83 in Toolkit

5. Essential Elements • Learning and service objectives are clearly identified and compatible • Service is meaningful, challenging, and meets a real need • Fosters learning about larger social issues • Reflection is continuous, structured, and complex

6. Types of Service • Direct • Indirect • Advocacy • Research • Capacity Building

7. Service Projects • One-time group projects • Cross-disciplinary projects • Multi-semester projects • Immersion experiences • Alternative Weekend • Alternative Breaks

8. Asset-Based vs. Need-Based • Intending to “fix” and “help” can drive community groups to feel marginalized and disengage • “Development” orientation encourages discovery of community assets and devising ways to build upon them

9. Needs vs. Assets

10. Partnership • Common plan • Resource sharing • Investment of time together • Closeness determined by • Frequency of interaction • Diversity of interaction • Strength of interdependency

11. The Power of Partnerships • Establish missing but critical connections • Identify new/better way to solve problems • Link complementary skills and resources of diverse people and organizations • Plan and carry out comprehensive actions that coordinate reinforcing strategies and systems

12. Campus-Community Partnerships • A series of interpersonal relationships between • Campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students • Community leaders, agency personnel, and members of community • To leverage resources to address critical issues in local community

13. Service-Learning Partnership • Faculty member and agency representative articulate • Educational and community needs • Roles and expectations • Communication plan • Time line • Evaluation process • What success will look like

14. Service-Learning Partnership • Faculty shares syllabus and learning objectives • Community partner provides matching service activity, orientation, and supervision • Partners communicate throughout and make adjustments if service or learning needs aren’t being met • Conclude by celebrating accomplishments and evaluating results

15. Things to Consider • How do the students benefit academically from the project? • Is there a balance between the agency’s needs and students’ abilities? • Have you assessed the length of the project? • Are the service projects designed to fit students’ class and semester schedules? • Is staff available to provide supervision and evaluation?

16. Something to avoid… Student shows up at agency and says: “I need X hours for my class. Can I get them this week?”

17. What’s wrong with this scene? • Learning objectives • What will student learn in X hours? • Can this be learned at this agency? • Service objectives • What are the agency’s needs? • Can the student be effective without training and orientation? • Where is the partnership?

18. Benefits to Students • Personal – enhanced sense of efficacy, identity, morality, leadership • Social – diversity, social responsibility, citizenship skills, commitment to service • Academic – increased complexity of understanding, problem analysis, critical thinking, GPA, cognitive development, ability to apply learning to “real world”

19. Benefits to Faculty • Enrich and enliven teaching • Identify new areas for research and publication • Develop projects that are simultaneously productive in research, service, and teaching • More efficient use of available resources • Foster cross-disciplinary learning communities

20. Benefits to Agencies • Infusion of people power to meet needs • Voice in education of next generation • More informed/involved citizenry • Build networks with others active in community development • Foster potential future donors and volunteers • New ideas, energy, and technical assistance • Gain perspective of outsiders; 3rd party evaluations

21. Benefits to Institution • Enhance student satisfaction, retention, and graduation rates • Improve relationships with community • Advance institutional goals • Social Responsibility • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning • Diversity Enhancement • Promote coherent collaborative curriculum

22. TLC Development of Community Partners • Discover needs of active service groups on campus and in the community • Attempt to connect faculty with potential partners to foster a relationship between them • Identify new organizations to add to a partner list encompassing more than 40 members

23. TLC Approach to Developing Partners • Identify active service organizations • Identify perceived needs and then investigate their validity • Soliciting recommendations from current partners on new potential partners • Maintain an open dialogue with Faculty to discover what they recognize as needs

24. Assessment • Key to establish learning outcomes related to integration of content and service-learning experience. Can be done by combining traditional classroom assessment with service-learning project assessments. • Presentations • Papers • Portfolios

25. Critical Reflection • Is an essential process for transforming experiences into genuine learning • Requires students to analyze concepts, evaluate experiences, and form opinions • Promotes higher-level thinking, problem-solving, self-awareness, and the habit of questioning • Challenges students to combine facts, ideas, and experiences to derive new meaning • Enables students to become knowledge producers, not just consumers • Generates, deepens, and documents learning

26. Critical Reflection • Links experience to course learning objectives • Is guided and purposeful • Challenges assumptions and complacency • Occurs before, during, and after service • Includes components that can be evaluated according to well-defined criteria • Involve reading, writing, doing and telling • Clarifies values and fosters civic responsibility

27. Reflecting Before Service • Helps students • understand community needs and organization • consider different perspectives • prepare to work with diverse population • examine own beliefs, assumptions, attitudes • establish baseline to measure change and growth at end of project

28. Reflecting During Service • Provides a means for instructor to • assess student progress toward goals • ensure that students are performing tasks competently • offer feedback, helping students to refine and develop ideas • determine developmental level of student • seize teachable moments • reinforce connection with course content

29. Reflecting After Service • Helps students to • evaluate the meaning of their experience • connect service back to disciplinary knowledge • explore future applications • acknowledge personal growth • Enables instructor to challenge students to • engage in critical thinking • practice public problem-solving • consider responsible application of knowledge • evaluate impact of service

30. Student Dissemination of Experience • Service-Learning Showcase • Undergraduate Research Opportunities • Conferences