Service-Learning: Partnering with Our Community

1. Service-Learning: Partnering with Our Community Marcela Uribe, Ph.D.

2. What is Service-Learning? For the most part, service-learning is an educational experience in which students participate in a credit bearing course whose learning outcomes are linked to an organized community service (Bringle& Hatcher, 2009). Students perform guided reflections to: • Enhance comprehension of the course content • Integrate academic and service concepts • Develop civic responsibility

3. Key components of service-learning Course content that provides a theoretical framework Service to the community relate to the course content Reflection activities Conscious incorporation of civic responsibility: How what I do help my community? What is not service-learning: Volunteering Skills base development (internships)

4. How is S-L Different TO… Academic Service-Learning Tools, Source: http://www.whitworth.edu/Academic/Programs/ServiceLearning/Faculty.htm

5. Benefits of Service-Learning • Creates a more dynamic classroom • Increases student interest in the subject • Enhances performance on traditional measures of learning • Makes teaching more enjoyable • Personal • Social • Cognitive

6. Why Service-Learning at the Sophomore Year • Traditional-age sophomore students • Major life transitions (Schaller, 2007) • Sophomore slump (Lemons & Richmond, 1987)

7. Benefits of Service-Learning in the sophomore year • Random exploration vs. focus exploration(Schaller, 2007) • Exploration of career paths • Commitment • Responsibility

8. Faculty • We identified129 professor teaching classes to sophomore students • 25% or more sophomore students in their classes • Majority of the classes in the College of Liberal Arts and Science

9. I need your help • Be aware that service-learning is new to campus • Support faculty that are willing to make the transition to service-learning • Perceive service-learning as an opportunity for scholarship and faculty development

10. “It was a fun and learning experience for us and for the children as well. They learned about bullying and we learned how to bring things together for the children. I feel I contributed to my community.” • Delia was a student in the service-learning class: “Literacy and Language Acquisition.”