Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Death Of A Dream Service-Learning: 1994-2010: A Historical Analysis By One Of The Dreamers, Don Hill

Service Learning, General

This essay was written in 1994 to stimulate discussion about issues that I felt threatened the efforts of the service-learning community to effectively expand with high-quality programs. It was based on my observations as a person involved in providing professional development support to teachers and education professors. — Don Hill, October 2005

Service Learning: Strategies For Developing Character, Catherine Berger Kaye

Special Topics, General

Simply put, service learning connects school-based curriculum with the inherent caring and concern young people have for their world-whether on their school campus, at a local food bank, or in a distant rainforest. With the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, young students are especially attuned to how we as a nation, truly rely on the spirit and actions of volunteers to bring both essentials for daily living and to restore hope.

Making The Case For Social And Emotional Learning And Service-Learning, Linda Fredericks

Service Learning, General

This ECS Issue Brief provides an overview and description of both social and emotional learning (SEL) and service-learning (S-L) as tools to improve the lives and academic performance of students. It describes how the two practices arc interrelated and the research evidence that supports the expanded use of both practices in the classroom. Also provided are descriptions of the essential clements required of successful SEL and S-L programs, examples of such successful programs that are in existence today, and a discussion of state activities and experiences. Lastly, the brief discusses a series of likely challenges that education leaders implementing SEL …

Service Learning In Contemporary Japan And America, Joseph R. Feinburg

International Service Learning & Community Engagement

Among the people of both Japan and the United States, there is currently widespread concern that the student population is in trouble, that students are losing interest in civic participation and their moral sensibility. Educators in both countries are looking toward service-learning as a means of recapturing a sense of civic responsibility in today's young people. The article discusses mandated service-learning and required service-learning in schools in Japan and Maryland.

Searching For The Meaning Of Youth Civic Engagement: Notes From The Field, Molly W. Andolina, Krista Jenkins, Scott Keester, Cliff Zukin

Civic Engagement

This article reports on the early lessons from a multiphase, multimethod study of youth civic engagement. It uses insights from expert discussions along with a series of focus groups to explore how young adults approach politics, volunteerism, community, civic duty, and generational identity. The study finds many of the distinguishing characteristics of today's youth to be subtle and nuanced, which poses unique challenges for qualitative research of the generation. The important implications of language are discussed in detail.

Nurturing Future Leaders Via Service-Learning, John T. Boal

School K-12

Coming into the ninth grade, Jon Porges was admittedly "a shy guy" who had a learning disability and who had never volunteered in his life, but when he sat down in freshman English class at Waterford High School in Waterford, Connecticut, in 1996, a slow transformation - life a cocoon becoming a butterfly - took place.

Service-Learning Delivers What Americans Want From Schools (New Poll Shows A Way To Improve Public Education), Academy For Educational Development

Service Learning, General

It is not news that: Americans are deeply concerned about the quality of public education,² nor that almost half of them believe that improving schools should be our nation's highest priority.³ What is news is that Americans believe that service-learning can deliver what they expect from schools.

A new poll asked more than 1000 Americans⁴ about their views of K-12 education and service-learning, a way of teaching that integrates service projects into core academic curriculum. The poll was conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Building Community: A Tool Kit For Youth & Adults In Charting Assets And Creating Change, Innovation Center, National 4-H Council

Partnerships/Community

The purpose of the Building Community tool kit is to equip youth and adult facilitators with a framework and specific tools to unleash the power of many diverse resources for positive community change.

Service-Learning Leadership Development For Youths, Joy Des Marais, Farid Farzanehkia

Special Topics, General

Service-learning without intentional leadership development is trivial and shallow, these youthful authors point out. And such leadership development requires adults and young people to work collaboratively in the design of service-learning. When that happens, the outcome will be both profound learning and successful projects.

Learning In Deed: Service-Learning And Preservice Teacher Education, Jeffrey B. Anderson

Service Learning, General

Progressive teacher education programs face a pair of daunting yet crucial tasks. New teachers must be prepared to function effectively in schools as they exist today. They also must be educated to take a leadership role in the improvement and restructuring of P-12 education to meet students’ and society’s needs more fully. Service-learning appears to have considerable potential as a method to achieve both these goals.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation believes that meaningful service to the community, combined with curriculum-based learning, builds stronger academic skills, encourages lifelong civic commitment, and improves workplace and personal development skills among youth. Educators lead …

Free To Choose Service Learning, Michael P. Garber, Justin A. Heet

Service Learning, General

Only disciples of Ayn Rand could oppose the idea of service-learning. In the best situations, when service is part of a school's program. students are challenged to define themselves through a larger sense of their community and of their responsibility to it. They have the opportunity to apply their skills to problems that require judgment and leadership. Service-learning, if properly understood, can help re-create the functional communities that renowned University of Chicago sociologist James Coleman wrote about as being vital to increasing the amount of "social capital" generated by schools.

Learning Our Freedom, Ingrid Flory, Debra Henzey

School K-12

Over the past three years, several events have drawn attention to the startling stare of civic education in North Carolina.

Statistics Related To Youth Service, Points Of Light Foundation

Special Topics, General

Compiled into this resource packet you will find information to guide the reader towards statistical and narrative research published about young people and volunteer service. Some examples of each report's information are listed, along with a description, when possible, of the methodology involved and contact information for the publisher or research group. Studies are listed in chronological order, with the most recent first, and are not grouped by topic since many studies look at multiple issues related to young people.

The Impacts Of Service Learning On Youth, Schools And Communities: Research On K-12 School-Based Service Learning, 1990 To 1999, Shelley H. Billig

Special Topics, General

This is an excellent review of literature on the outcomes of service-learning for all involved by a respected author. Contents: Prevalence of Service Learning I Rationale for Use in K-12 Public Schools I Evidence of Impact /Impact on Personal and Social Development /Impact on Civic Responsibility /Impact on Student Academic Learning /Impact on Career Exploration and Aspirations /Impact on Schools /Impact on Communities. Includes five-page bibliography of all sources cited.

Youth Service-Learning And Community Service Among 6th- Through 12th-Grade Students In The United States: 1996 And 1999, Brian Kleiner, Chris Chapman

Special Topics, General

Involving America's students in community service activities is one of the objectives established under the third National Education Goal for the year 2000, which seeks to prepare students for responsible citizenship. Over the past 10 years, legislative initiatives have responded to and galvanized a growing national emphasis on increasing students' involvement with their local communities and linking this service to academic study through service-learning. Examples of initiatives that have mandated support for service-learning activities in elementary and secondary schools include the National and Community Service Act of 1990, the Serve America program and the National and Community Service Trust Act …

Reading, Writing And Service Learning, National Helpers Network, Inc.

School K-12

Cross-age tutoring programs, like the National Helpers Network's "Helpers Promoting Literacy" model, in which middle and high school students serve as reading tutors to younger children, have been popular fixtures in many school service learning programs in recent years. Described by many as "win-win" programs because both the "tutors" and the "tutees" improve their reading skills as a result of participating, these programs are often integrated into English and language arts curricula and give students the opportunity to learn by teaching. But a look at programs throughout the nation shows that service learning practitioners are expanding on that idea and …

Service Learning And Assessment: A Field Guide For Teachers, Susan Bonthron, Rick Gordon

Evaluation/Reflection

Recent advances in understanding the human brain, intelligence, and how we learn¹ indicate that successful schools need to provide
• rich, safe learning environments that address multiple realms of intelligence;
• opportunities for experiential learning to promote construction of knowledge and understanding;
• opportunities to develop both intelligence and skills through mediated learning;
• opportunities to transfer learning through reflection; and
• balanced assessment measures that include portfolios and performance assessments as well as more conventional standardized tests.

A Kinder, Gentler Student Body, Linda Jacobson

Special Topics, General

Monica Viega describes what went on in her classroom earlier in the school year as "Jerry Springer fights." Displays of anger and incivility among the 5th graders sometimes grew so intense that furniture would get tossed across the room. But the scene in Ms. Viega's classroom no longer resembles a raucous daytime talk show. Every morning, her Blalock Elementary School students sit in a circle and discuss how they treat one another. They talk about what they see on the television news and about keeping drugs and violence out of their neighborhoods. "This amazes me," Ms. Viega, a first-year teacher, …

African-American, Latino, And Hispanic Youth In Service Topic Bibliography, Charles C. Cook

Bibliographies

African-American, Latino, and Hispanic communities have been among the least discussed, least researched, and under-reported groups in the area of community service. Traditions of these cultures have a history of building and enriching their environments by involving youth. Over 80% of African-Americans, Latino, and Hispanic people populate the nation's 100 largest cities. Therefore African-American, Latino, and Hispanic youth who are engaged in community service are involved in strengthening and revitalizing our country's urban centers. Today organizations such as the National Urban League, ASPIRA, and the National Council of La Raza, as well as schools and local community organizations help mobilize …

Service Learning In Alternative Education Settings, Susan Meyers

School K-12

When service learning is part of the curriculum, students become involved in something important and learn that they can make a difference in the world. Based on John Dewey’s (1938) theory of experiential learning, service learning takes the student out of the classroom and into the community. In a 1995 public address, Secretary of Education Richard Riley remarked that “by involving students in hands-on learning, problem solving, and applications of academic knowledge in real settings, service learning can increase students’ academic achievement in challenging subjects and creates a sense of engagement that enhances a student’s motivation to complete school.”

Introducing …

A Study Of The Effects Of Participation In The Helper Model Of Service Learning In Early Adolescence, Center For Advanced Study In Education (Case)

Special Topics, General

The Service Learning Impact Study is a multifaceted multi-year study funded by the William T. Grant Foundation to examine the impact of the Helper Model of service learning. This research is exploring whether and how participation by middle school students contributes to the development of academic or school-related skills, enhances psychosocial abilities, and leads to the acquisition of skills for the school to work transition.

The goals of this project are to:
• examine the impact of participating during early adolescence in service learning (Helper Program)
• identify how impact is related to program characteristics and the types of service …

Increasing Service-Learning's Impact On Middle School Students, Peter C. Scales

Special Topics, General

The use of service-learning in middle and high schools has expanded in the 1990s (Scales & Koppelman 1997), but the gap between what is being done in schools and what research tells us about the impact of service-learning is uncomfortably large. Service-learning advocates are convinced of its profound impact on young people, both personally and socially. The quantitative research consistently shows positive effects, but the quality of the research has not been consistently high, the effects observed vary from study to study, and positive academic effects are the least commonly documented. The scarcity of data on academic impact may be …

Youth Act! For Human Rights, Youth Act! For Human Rights

Project Summaries

This pilot project, funded by The Ford Foundation, establishes Youth Act! For Human Rights initiatives in two locations (Washington, DC and Vancouver, W A), conducts social justice activism training for young people within these communities, challenges youth to put their newly learned human rights education into action, and provides a vehicle, via community advocacy summits, for them to showcase the results of their human rights activism.

Youth Act! For Human Rights presents a unique opportunity for young people to analyze and work to solve community problems from the root level. The comprehensive approach- through application of the human rights framework …

Make Sure It's Service Learning, Not Just Community Service, Leonard T. Burns

Special Topics, General

Service learning may be made more beneficial to communities by allowing students to participate aggressively in various learning activities, while keeping them abreast with their own social responsibilities. Students must also be given adequate opportunity to reflect on their service experiences.

Elder Mentors: Elder Mentors And At-Risk Youth, Marc Freedman

Intergenerational

Many at-risk youth are growing up isolated from the range of caring and consistent adult relationships so important for navigating the treacherous course from adolescence to adulthood. An accumulation of longitudinal research suggests that adult relationships-- provided not only by parents, but by grandparents, neighbors and other interested adults--are a common factor among resilient children, who achieve success despite growing up in disadvantaged and stressful circumstances. An important, and not often addressed, question for social intervention is whether the circumstances of more at-risk youth could be improved through efforts designed to provide greater access to these relationships.

Transforming Service Learning: An Argument For The Radical Inclusion Of Young People, Dana R. Fusco

School K-12

While much has been written delineating the reasons for supporting service learning, rarely have students' views been included. As a result of creating collective dialogues with young people, this article presents service learning from their perspective. Further, the methodology by which young people could be heard is put forth as a tool for bringing service learning to a new level.

School-Based Service: Reconnecting Schools, Communities, And Youth At The Margin, Joan Schine

Service Learning, General

The sound of gunshots was not particularly unusual in Washington Heights, a section of New York City where drug deals were common and children learned early to be vigilant. But on a late summer day in 1992, the fatal shot came from a police revolver, and it was a Dominican, a drug dealer, who was killed. The ensuing turmoil, born of the immediate crisis but a reflection of the longstanding antagonism between the youth of the neighborhood and the police, soon become a riot. Most of the police in the local precinct were White. The overwhelming majority of the young …

History Of The Service-Learning It Requirement In Maryland, Kathy Megyeri

Service Learning, General

Schools in Maryland have long provided some opportunities for students to volunteer. There have been the usual walk-a-thons, canned-food drives, visits to the elderly, and tree-planting projects. Building on this tradition, in 1985 the Maryland State Board of Education enacted a requirement that all school systems offer courses and programs in community service, open to all students, for elective credit, to provide opportunities for students to reach beyond themselves to help others. Two hundred of Maryland teachers were trained by the state, and during the 198889 school year, over 1,000 students were engaged in community service projects for credit (Maryland …

Research Paper Youth Service, Douglas H. Stubbe

Special Topics, General

An assumption that most people would probably agree on is that service to community, on a voluntary basis, builds character, self esteem, pride toward one's self and his/her community, develops personal growth and respect or compassion for others. I don't think many people look beyond that. Does the service need to be voluntary? Is service a responsibility that goes with being a part of a community? Why is service a positive aspect of community life? What are the characteristics of service that make it a fulfilling experience? Should youth be required to serve their community? If so, are there other …

Project Northland: Outcomes Of A Communitywide Alcohol Use Prevention Program During Early Adolescence, Cheryl L. Peny, Carolyn L. Williams, Sara Veblen-Mortenson, Traci L. Toomey, Kelli A. Komro, Pamela S. Astine, Paul G. Mcgovern, John R. Finnegan, Jean L. Forster, Alexander C. Wagenaar, Mark Wolfson

Project Summaries

Adolescent drinking and other drug use remain major public health problems in this country, despite some encouraging declines in the prevalence of use.^1-7 Alcohol use among adolescents is widespread (e.g., 88% of 12th graders reported any lifetime use in 1992), even though drinking is illegal for essentially all high school students.³ Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for adolescents,⁸ with one third to one half of such crashes involving alcohol.⁹ Furthermore, early onset of alcohol and tobacco use is a risk factor for progression to more serious forms of drug use.¹⁰