TUTORIAL 1 Introduction to Service-Learning (Community-Based Learning/CBL) and its Connection

1. TUTORIAL 1 Introduction to Service-Learning (Community-Based Learning/CBL) and its Connection to Jesuit Ideals

2. Tutorial Goals • At the end of this tutorial, you will have an understanding of: • The definition and principles of service-learning/CBL • The benefits of service-learning for students and faculty

3. Tutorial Objectives • At the end of this tutorial you will be able to: • Reflect on your own perceptions of service-learning based on your pre-assessment • If you have not completed the pre-assessment, please stop now and complete it prior to continuing with the tutorial • Identify the type of potential course you have in mind for service-learning • Explain how you see service-learning benefiting your personal and professional life • Articulate how you think service-learning can benefit your students

4. What is Service-Learning? Or CBL? • A pedagogical strategy where students apply what they are learning in the classroom (course/learning objectives) to a particular community • Communities are typically nonprofit (or underserved) and the application, in part, is done through service that fills a public good in the community; service that is meaningful & relevant for all parties (community and students) • Parties involved create a relationship and are considered the recipient and the provider of the service; both are changed by the experience

5. What is Service-Learning? Or CBL? • Students make meaningful connections between what they are studying and its applications to the community through guided reflective writing and classroom discussion • “The community becomes an additional text for the course.” • Community also becomes empowered as they co-develop the partnership and the work from their strengths • Hopefully students will become more civically engaged, leading to future community participation (some materials adapted from Howard, 2001)

6. Who is Involved in Service-Learning?

7. 4 Principles ofService-Learning (Heffernan/Campus Compact, 2001)

8. 4 Principles ofService-Learning • Engagement: Direct experience working with underserved communities and/or organizations that promote the public good • Does the service component meet a public good, and how do you know this? Has the community been consulted? How have campus-community boundaries been negotiated and how will they be crossed?

9. 4 Principles ofService-Learning • Reflection: Reflection on the community experience in connection to classroom materials • Is there a mechanism that encourages students to link their experience to course content and to reflect upon why the service is important? What assessment measures will be used to analyze these reflections?

10. 4 Principles ofService-Learning • Reciprocity: Planned reciprocity of learning and benefits • Is reciprocity evident in the service component? What is the community doing with and for the students? What are the students doing with and for the community? How? • Service-Learning assumes that colleges are living parts of communities, that the location of learning and service is often beyond the classroom, and that the communities have much to teach students and faculty (Sigmon and Colleagues, 1996)

11. 4 Principles ofService-Learning • Public Dissemination: Sharing the outcomes with appropriate communities • Is service work presented to the public or made an opportunity for the community to enter into a public dialogue? • For example: Do oral histories that students collect return to the community in some public form? Is the data students collect on saturation of toxins in the local river made public? Does the University hear about what the students have done? How? (Heffernan/Campus Compact, 2001)

12. Teaching/Service Spectrum Community Service Practicum (“Pure” Service) (“Pure” Learning) Service-Learning (the meeting in the middle) Charity Pre-professional Philanthropy Training (Zlotkowski, 2000; personal communication)

13. What makes Service Different from Service-Learning? • Both are just as important and valuable for students and make an important contribution to society • The nature in which the service component or activity is used as a pedagogy (in a course or within a co-curricular program) to accomplish learning outcomes, to enhance the learning of skills/concepts, and the inclusion of guided reflections related to course content/outcomes is what characterizes service-learning/CBL from service • Service-learning/CBL is also typically with the same site throughout a semester; not a one-shot brief experience

14. Service Example

15. Co-Curricular Service-Learning Example

16. Service-Learning/CBL Course Example

17. How does it Fit in the Course? Optional or Mandatory? • Service-learning is a pedagogy; a unique mode of teaching and learning • You do not have to justify reading a textbook or explain why students need to write a paper; as long as they meet your course objectives • Thus, you do not have to justify why students work in the community - it is simply a course requirement • Remember, the community is another text for meeting course objectives • It helps course material come to life and enhances learning! • If you do not make it an issue; students are less likely to make it an issue!

18. Benefits of Service-Learning:For Students • Connects Theory and Practice • Helps Students Gain a Sense of Community and Responsibility For Others • Learning/High Level of Student Engagement • Strengthens Promotes Active Analytical, Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking Skills • Promotes Value of Diversity/Reduces Stereotyping and Facilitates Intercultural Understanding

19. Benefits of Service-Learning:For Students • Strengthens Interpersonal and Communication Skills • Student Learning is Deeper; Understand Course Concepts Better • Affirms Two Cardinal Values: • personal responsibility for civic engagement • institutional responsibility to participate with the community to improve society Adapted from: Conville, R. L. & Weintraub, S. C. (2002)

20. Service-Learning and Jesuit Ideals The Mission and Identity of Creighton University parallel service-learning benefits: • Our Jesuit vision commits us to form women and men of competence, conscience and compassion who have learned from reflecting upon their experiences of being for and with others. We do this in service of a faith that does justice.

21. Benefits for Faculty: Teaching • Enables Teaching to become More Process-Oriented • Increases Variety of Unique Pedagogical Practices • Improves Student Satisfaction with College • Provides Authentic Assessment Opportunities • Builds Stronger Relationships with Faculty Members (and with Students) • Co-Creation of Courses with Other Faculty

22. Benefits For Faculty: Service • Improves Relationships with Community • Increases Personal Involvement with Community • Provides Opportunity for Community Boards • Allows for Campus Organizational/Service Opportunities • Affirms Two Cardinal Values: • personal responsibility for civic engagement • institutional responsibility to participate with the community to improve society

23. Benefits for Faculty: Scholarship • Integrates Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Projects • Allows Faculty to Reach Scholarship Level • Enhances Personal Scholarship of Teaching • Provides Opportunities for Regional/National Scholarship Engagement in Organizations • Broadens Outlets for Presentations and Publications of Research • Enhances Tenure/Promotion Dossier

24. Link to Jesuit Mission • As Jesuit, Creighton participates in the tradition of the Society of Jesus which provides an integrating vision of the world that arises out of a knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. • As comprehensive, Creighton's education embraces several colleges and professional schools and is directed to the intellectual, social, spiritual, physical and recreational aspects of student's lives and to the promotion of justice. • Creighton exists for students and learning. Members of the Creighton community are challenged to reflect on transcendent values, including their relationship with God, in an atmosphere of freedom of inquiry, belief and religious worship. • Service to others, the importance of family life, the inalienable worth of each individual, and appreciation of ethnic and cultural diversity are core values of Creighton. www.creighton.edu/mission

25. Link to Jesuit Mission • Creighton faculty members conduct research to enhance teaching, to contribute to the betterment of society, and to discover new knowledge. Faculty and staff stimulate critical and creative thinking and provide ethical perspectives for dealing with an increasingly complex world. www.creighton.edu/mission Your teaching should inform and be informed by your scholarship!!

26. Final Thoughts • Hope you now have a general understanding of service-learning/community-based learning and how you may find it useful in your classes • Remember just as you carefully pick the texts for your courses, you also carefully choose the service sites for your courses; if your objectives are appropriate, then think about the potentials of engaging your students in the wonderful world of service-learning! • Proceed to completing the post-tutorial exercises

27. References • Conville, R. L., & Weintraub, S. C. (2002). Service-learning and communication: A disciplinary toolkit. Washington, DC: National Communication Association. • Heffernan, K. (Ed.), (2001). Fundamentals of service-learning course construction. Providence, RI: Campus Compact. • Howard, J. (Ed.). (2001). Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning: Service-learning course design workbook. Ann Arbor, MI: Regents of the University of Michigan, OCSL Press. • National Service-Learning and Assessment Study Group (October, 1999). Service-learning and assessment: A field guide for teachers. The Vermont Department of Education -Learn and Serve America. • Sigmon, R. L., & Colleagues. (1996). Journey to service-learning: Experiences from independent liberal arts colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Council of Independent Colleges. • www.creighton.edu/mission