Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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.

Service-Learning And Multicultural/Multiethnic Perspectives: From Diversity To Equity, Wokie Weah, Verna Cornelia Simmons, Mcclellan Hall

Diversity

The "missionary ideology" that currently underlies much of the service-learning movement is mostly the result of a series of decisions intended to "do good things" for others, and so the movement does not directly acknowledge what those others, particularly communities of color, might hove to offer, the authors say. It's time to change that.

The Service Sojourn: Conceptualizing The College Student Volunteer Experience, Brian C. Schmidt

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Despite the increasing popularity of volunteerism in student activities and service-learning courses on college campuses, little is known about the experience of volunteers. This study examines the experience of 16 students from the University of Utah who t participated in community service. The qualitative investigation is based on 54 interviews regarding student descriptions of their experience. What common events occurred? How did they make sense of their experience? What, really, did they learn? Ethnographic interviews and a "naturalistic" approach were used to identify patterns and analyze the data. Grounded in reoccurring themes such as leaving familiar surroundings. the shock of …

Associations Of Civic Attitudes In Service Learning, Christina M. Roemer

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Civic responsibility is comprised of actions and attitudes associated with democratic governance and social participation. Students enrolled at institutions of higher education have the opportunity to transform their social interests into advocacy through personal connections with the community. Service learning is an effective method of increasing citizenship participation and civic responsibility by incorporating community service activities with academic coursework.

This study used survey research to examine the civic attitude scores of service learning students at a large, public, mid-Atlantic state university. The research questions attained information on the associations among students who perform written and discussion reflection activities (outside of …

Development And Construct Validity Of Scores On The Community Service Attitudes Scale, Ann Harris Shiarella, Anne M. Mccarthy, Mary L. Tucker

Evaluation/Reflection

This study reports the multistage development of the Community Service Attitudes Scale (CSAS), an instrument for measuring college students' attitudes about community service. The CSAS was developed based on Schwartz's helping behavior model. Scores on the scales of the CSAS yielded strong reliability evidence (coefficient alphas ranging from .72 to .93). Principal components analysis yielded results consistent with the Schwartz model. In addition, the CSAS scale scores were positively correlated with gender, college major, community service experience, and intentions to engage in community service. The CSAS will be useful to researchers for conducting further research on the effects of service …

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.

Engaging Students In Community Issues, Kara A. Mccraw, Susan S. Taylor

School K-12

How can you integrate community resources in the classroom in an exciting and dynamic way? We set out to answer this question in the summer of 1999 when we attended a conference sponsored by the North Carolina Institute of Government. Our immediate goal was to help the freshmen students we teach in a course called ELPSA (Economic, Legal and Political Systems in Action) understand the importance of active citizenship and prudent fiscal decision making. What better way to teach this than through real life examples? After our conference and the introduction to a number of valuable resources and contact points …

What Kind Of Citizen? The Politics Of Assessing Democratic Values, Joel Westheimer, Joesph Kahne, Bethany Rogers

Civic Engagement

I was visiting a middle school the other day and saw a sign on a teacher's classroom wall that said "Assessment is your friend." It had a picture of a cuddly looking puppy on it. There was no explanation for the puppy, so I'm not sure why it was there. But it was cute and the message seemed to be saying that "assessment" if perhaps not man or woman's best friend, is, at the very least, something you need not fear. Now we are living in an era of high stakes testing and standards, so many would believe that there …

Nebraska Home Rule Project: Nebraska Municipal Survey, Robert F. Blair, Dale Krane

Publications

The purpose of the survey was to collect information from Nebraska municipal officials on how state government affects their operations and to identify potential areas for improvement.

The Airline Quality Rating 2000, Brent D. Bowen, Dean Headley, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 2000-2

The Airline Quality Rating (AQR) was developed and first announced in early 1991 as an objective method of comparing airline performance on combined multiple criteria. This current report, Airline Quality Rating 2000, reflects monthly Airline Quality Rating scores for 1999. AQR scores for the calendar year 1999 are based on 14 elements that focus on airline performance areas important to air travel consumers.

The Airline Quality Rating 2000 is a summary of month-by-month quality ratings for the ten major domestic U.S. airlines operating during 1998. Using the Airline Quality Rating system of weighted averages and monthly performance …

Development Of Leadership Skills: Experience And Timing, Michael D. Mumford, Michelle A. Marks, American Institutes For Research, Stephen J. Zaccaro, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

To develop organizational leaders we need to understand how requisite skills are acquired over the course of people's careers. In this article, a cross-sectional design was used to assess differences in leadership skills across six grade levels of officers in the U.S. Army. Increased levels of knowledge, problem-solving skills, systems skills, and social skills were found at higher grade levels. Certain skills and experiences, however, were found to be particularly important at certain phases of leaders' careers. These findings are used to propose an organization-based model of skill development. Implications of this model for leader development programs are discussed.

Education For Democratic Citizenship, Rosemary C. Salamone

Civic Engagement

Over the past decade, pollsters and pundits have raised warning flags of moral decay and declining political understanding and commitment among Americans. Scandals from Washington to Wall Street, voter apathy and cynicism, and the regeneration of the "me generation" in a climate of unprecedented prosperity have raised increasing concerns in the media over the moral state of the country. The most alarming evidence has emerged from education, validating and documenting the anxieties that Americans share over the failure of schools to create citizens of character. By the mid-1990s, half of the nation's high school students reported that drugs and violence …

Service-Learning: Comparison Of Hospitality Programs In Two- And Four-Year Institutions, Verna M. Ward

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Partnerships between community and academic institutions are the cornerstones of academic service-learning. While the term "academic service-learning" emerged in the 90's, civic or citizenship education has been part of academic curriculums for centuries. Hospitality management programs at two-(n=63) and four-year (n=79) institutions were surveyed for this study using a 21 question faxed survey and two-year (52%) and four-year (48%) institutions responded. Results indicated that academic service-learning was not as prevalent in hospitality management programs of four-year institutions as anticipated, while two-year (67%) institutions had higher participation.

Overall results showed that hospitality program directors did not identify what influences inclusion/exclusion. The …

Doing Good While Doing Well: Service Learning Internships, Louise Rehling

Higher Education

Internships for students in business and professional communication have rightly been seen as a transitional form of coursework: a guided move away from academia and into the workplace. The assumption accompanying this vision has been that, since most business and professional communication students will graduate to work in industry, the best placements for them are, therefore, necessarily in industry as well. Certainly industry-sponsored internships are valuable as career preparation.

Embracing Civic Responsibility, Judith Ramaley

Higher Education

In the past year, there have been several calls for colleges and universities to take up their responsibilities as members of society in order to model the civic virtues and to become instruments of a working democracy. It is becoming clear that a genuine democracy is also a learning society and that good citizenship requires the capacity to form a learning community with others.

Descriptive Analysis Of News Magazines’ Coverage Of John Glenn’S Return To Space, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

This study examined issues of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report for articles concerning John Glenn’s return to space and described their content. A review of pertinent literature found that little attention has been paid to how older adults are portrayed in magazine articles. Although comments were made concerning Glenn’s age and his role as a rookie payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery, there were few comments considered ageist or demeaning to older adults.

Involving English Language Learners In Community-Connected Learning, Lili Allen

Diversity

This brief provides policymakers and state and district-level staff with an overview of how to involve English language learners in community-connected learning programs. It lists effective strategies for involving English language learners in internships and project-based learning programs, gives guidelines for community supervisors, and points out how school structures can support these students' involvement. The brief was produced by JFF in collaboration with the Education Alliance/Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University.

Highlights From Service-Learning In California's Teacher Education Programs: A White Paper, Andrew Furco, Mary Sue Ammon

Service Learning, General

The purpose of this white paper is to provide a set of recommendations for advancing service-learning in California's Teacher Education programs. The recommendations are based on the findings from a three-year study conducted by UC Berkeley's Service-Learning Research & Development Center (SLRDC). This paper reports on the viability of various approaches for advancing K-12 service-learning in teacher education, identifies institutional barriers that hinder the advancement of service-learning in teacher education, and describes successful approaches that institutions have used to advance service-learning in teacher education. The recommendations provided in this paper are intended to inform the California Department of Education and …

Boot Camps And Traditional Correctional Facilities For Juveniles A Comparison Of The Participants, Daily Activities, And Environments, Angela Gover, Doris Layton Mackenzie, Gaylene Armstrong

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The environments of twenty-seven boot camps and twenty-two traditional facilities were examined in a national study of juvenile correctional facilities. Surveys with administrators and data from institutional files indicated that juveniles in the boot camps had less serious offending histories than did those in traditional facilities. Boot camp environments were more structured and most incorporated military basic training components. There were differences in the use of summary punishments and certain other matters, but few differences were found in therapeutic activities. In general, boot camp juveniles were more active but comparison facilities had more educators and other staff for each juvenile. …

Item Selection Counts: A Comparison Of Empirical Key And Rational Scale Validities In Theory-Based And Non-Theory-Based Item Pools, Roni Reiter-Palmon, American Institutes For Research

Psychology Faculty Publications

Little explicit attention has been given to the impact of item pools on the validities and cross-validities of different background data scoring approaches. This study tests the idea that pools of items theoretically related to the performance of interest will outperform pools of items with no hypothesized relationship with the criterion. Validities and cross-validities of rational scales and empirical keys created from theory- and non-theory-based item pools were compared for 3 criteria. When size of the item pools was held constant, theory-based empirical keys (correlational and vertical percent) and rational scales showed larger validities and cross-validities than non-theory-based empirical keys …

Workforce 2000: Reshaping For School-Work-Career Transitions, Terry Pickeral, Dawn Wegter, Ellen Winiarczyk, Debbie Driver, Liz Newport, Eve Alitzer, Kellie Bond, Jill Painter-Holmes, Linda Burgess

School K-12

This document discusses: Definitions and Elements; Program Development; Narratives and Articles; Curriculum Resoures; Reflection; and Assessment.

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.

Day One ... In The Life Of A Program Coordinator, Unknown

Special Topics, General

As a tutoring program coordinator, you must juggle many tasks and responsibilities: forming partnerships with schools and community members, finding and training volunteers, and helping assess students' progress. The "to do" list can seem overwhelming. Day One breaks down typical beginning tasks into six steps: Assess What You Know and What You Have; Define the Program; Set Program Goals and Objectives; Meet with Stakeholders; Write a Memorandum of Understanding; and First Steps Toward Recruiting Volunteers. The information you find here will help you develop a course of action and build a successful program!

Community Service Learning: Pursuing Jewish Ideals Of Compassion And Justice, Joel Westheimer

Special Topics, General

Service learning involves community service activities tied to the academic curriculum. It has strong roots in the progressive philosophy of turn-of-the-century educators like John Dewey, Harold Rugg, and William Kilpatrick, but its Widespread popularity is a contemporary phenomenon. A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics reveals that 83 percent of high schools currently offer community service opportunities (compared with 27 percent in 1984). School-based service learning is among the fastest growing and popular education reforms of the past three decades. Jewish educators have seen similar

Service Learning Is The Great Connector, Jane Angelis

Service Learning, General

It isn't a coincidence that older people are flocking to learn about computers, the Internet, and E-mail. It's a part of the service-learning movement that has caught America's imagination. Why are older people, technology and service learning such natural partners? Ask a middle-school student who is teaching a computer class to older people. "Some senior citizens are afraid of computers in the beginning," he says, "But we know how to make them more comfortable." That confidence is the hallmark of service-learning programs across the country involving elementary, middle school, high school, and college campuses. William Butler Yeats wrote that ':Education …

A New Model Of Connected Learning, Justine K. Brown

Service Learning, General

Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor always dreamed of building a new type of high school. Throughout his many years in public education as a teacher and administrator, Washor felt that high schools were failing to meet the true needs of students, their families and the community as a whole. Littky imagined building a school that approached learning in a new way, making it a true hands-on experience and involving more than just students and teachers in the process.

The New Majority 2000, Cesar Chavez Foundation

Project Summaries

9th-12th grade students enrolled in a month-long Intersession class organized by members of their faculty and service-learning coaches from the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation. For three hours a day for four weeks, students learned about The New Majority 2000 and planned various community projects that would help address the needs of this new majority. They planned an assembly for the senior students at school where they were informed of important political issues such as the environment, military, the Patriot Act, gay marriage, and education and were given the opportunity to register to vote. The culminating project was a community focused …