Service Learning Commons^™

Service-Learning For Multicultural Teaching Competency: Insights From The Literature For Teacher Educators, Rahima C. Wade

Special Topics, General

The growing disparity between the largely White teacher population and the increasingly diverse student body in the United States (Hodgkinson, 1991;Jordan, 1995) has led to greater interest in how to en­hance pre-service teachers' multicultural competencies (e.g., knowledge of diverse cultures, ability to teach children of color successfully, positive attitudes toward chil­dren and families of color). Given the low expectations for achievement held by White teachers for children of color and White teachers' lack of interest in working with stu­dents (from cultures other than their own (Zeichner, 1993; Zeichner & Melnick, 1996a), it is imperative that teacher educators seek out successful …

Shumer's Self-Assessment For Service Learning, Robert D. Shumer, Pat Duttweiler, Andrew Furco, Madeleine S. Hengel, Gwen Willems

Service Learning, General

The Shumer Self-Assessment for Service-Learning (SSASL) is designed as a self-reflective system for professionals in the service-learning and experiential learning fields. What follows is a series of instruments and analysis worksheets arranged to help individuals evaluate their current service-learning initiatives to improve and strengthen them.

What Do Students Learn From Service-Learning And How Do We Know It?, Scott A. Chadwick

Special Topics, General

Service-learning presents a unique opportunity for those interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). This opportunity exists because relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the efficacy of service-learning with respect to the intended learning outcomes designed into the course by the teacher.

Reading The Lives Of Others: The Winton Homes Library Project A Cultural Studies Analysis Of Critical Service Learning For Education, Matt Musucci, Adam Renner

Service Learning, General

This article examines the value and usefulness of expanding a particular approach to service learning in an educational setting. As a result of participating in a graduate seminar that combined cultural studies with service learning, reflecting on involvement in a service project, and a careful reading of relevant literature, the authors advocate for a more critical engagement with the reality of overwhelming social injustice. Moreover, the authors suggest a four-step framework (critical service learning), which is informed by both cultural studies and critical pedagogy. Finally, the authors argue for the adaptation of this framework into the school curriculum-thereby providing students …

The Community College Conscience: Service-Learning And Training Tomorrow's Teachers, Robert Franco

Service Learning, General

Across the landscape of American higher education, one senses the increasing intellectual colonization of higher education by advocates of accountability and gurus of management. Business and private-sector terms, such as "risk taking," "restructuring," "client focused" and "responsive to market demands" weave their way through what many call the "creeping vocationalism" of higher education.

At the same time, universities, colleges, nonprofit organizations and private business extol the virtues of thoughtful "mission statements" designed to focus energy and activities within the organization and represent the organization to its "clientele." Rarely, however, does one hear about or challenge the "conscience"1 of organizations in …

Strategic Directions For Service-Learning Research: A Presidential Perspective, Judith Ramaley

Higher Education

Service-learning can be viewed as a form of pedagogy designed to enhance learning and promote civic responsibility as well as one of a set of strategies to link the capacity of a college or university to the needs of society. A commitment to service-learning can become the avenue for a larger transformational change agenda by providing a focus and a reason to consider significant changes in campus priorities, faculty roles and rewards, resource utilization and university-community relationships. The case is made for the role of the scholar/practitioner president and the importance of a legitimate scholarly base to effect institutional change, …

Using Hypermedia And Multimedia To Promote Project-Based Learning Of At-Risk High School Students, Tracy Carr, Asha K. Jitendra

Special Topics, General

The term at-risk in this article refers to those students who are in danger of dropping out of school (Rodriguez, 199i). Often, these students have low self-esteem resulting from persistently low academic achievement. One possible reason for academic failure is a mismatch between the student's needs and the curricular expectations. Consequently, it is important to plan to meet individual student needs appropriately and minimize the rate of dropouts. Planning more appropriately requires individualization of goals and curricula.

Community Service: Mandatory Or Voluntary?, Diane Loup

School K-12

School districts struggle to find the best approach for bringing a real-world aspect to learning.

After The Summit: Building Community Networks For America’S Youth, Sabrina Burke

Special Topics, General

The purpose of this research project is to provide a guide for local coordinators and organizers of America’s Promise and other national initiatives. It looks at the new paradigm of community youth development how it is changing the ways that social organizations are conducting business. It explores how to create community networks as a way for communities to better serve their young people. In this project, a community network is defined as an association of individuals representing different organizations and associations working together (collaborating) to achieve a common long term vision or goal. Although there is a rich diversity among …

The Effects Of Service Learning, Shelley H. Billig

Service Learning, General

Research, while limited, finds that students who help others help themselves academically and socially.

Costs And Benefits And Service Learning, Alan Melchior

Service Learning, General

A growing body of evidence points to school-based service learning as an effective means of achieving a variety of critical school and community goals. But what do we know about the costs of service learning?

Service Learning In An Age Of Standards, Terry L. Pickeral, Judy Bray

Service Learning, General

"The new standards have to do with application of basic learning. Students take things that at one time they simply memorized and instead take them into real-life settings. The graduation standards offer the opportunity for every student and teacher to bring learning to a higher level. Application, synthesis, analysis and integration of information are what real learning is all about."

Jim Grimmer, a teacher of philosophy at Richfield High School in Richfield, Minn., articulates one view of the connection between service learning and academic standards. At a time when academic standards, along with assessments and accountability, represent the big-dog reform …

Change As A Scholarly Act: Higher Education Research Transfer To Practice, Judith Ramaley

Higher Education

Achieving transformational change is a scholarly challenge best dealt with by practicing public scholarship, which is modeled by the leader and encouraged in other members of the campus community. Like all good scholarly work, good decision making by campus leadership begins with a base of scholarly knowledge generated and validated by higher education researchers.

Making An Impact On Out-Of-School Time: A Guide For Corporation For National Service Programs Engaged In After School, Summer, And Weekend Activities For Young People, National Institute On Out-Of-School Time

Guides

This resource contains: Exploring the Facts about Children’s Out-of-School Time; Understanding Basic Standards for a Quality Out-of-School Time Program; Training Members and Volunteers to Work in Out-of-School Time Programs; Understanding Service-Learning; Tip Sheets: Simple Ideas to Address Important Out-of-School Topics; Training Materials on Important Out-of-School Time Issues; Program Profiles; and Connecting to Additional Out-of-School Time and School-Age Child Care Resources.

Stone Soup Community Development: Sustainability And Americorp*Vista Projects, Amy Bonn

Curriculum

The Stone Soup Sustainability research project is an evaluation of how AmeriCorps*VISTA (VISTA) projects address continuity and viability. The research examines what elements are important to a project's sustainability and what resources are needed to improve efforts for stakeholders (Corporation for National Service staff, VISTA supervisors, VISTA Leaders and members). Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, stakeholders were interviewed and asked how they defined a successful project, what strategies they used to develop such a project and what tools would be useful to them. From these findings, the Stone Soup Sustainability series was developed. The series includes a supervisor's guide …

A Comparative Investigation Of Service-Learning Models In Maryland: Student Outcomes In Relationship To Employability Skills, Ruth Brodsky

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

The purpose of this descriptive study was to describe the relationship between structured service-learning outcomes, through Maryland's replication models, and the attainment of employability skills for adolescents. Participants included fifty-five out of ninety-two service-learning coordinators and a panel of experts comprised of five key informants. The site of the study was the state of Maryland, which is divided into twenty-three counties and Baltimore City. Three data gathering procedures were utilized: content analysis of the four most frequently used replication models, a key informant rubric, and a survey of nineteen counties in the state.

A criterion sample of four models was …

Research On K-12 School-Based Service-Learning: The Evidence Builds, Shelley Billig

School K-12

Practitioners and policy makers are curious about service-learning and its effects. Ms. Billig details for Kappan readers what research tells us about service-learning today and suggests the kinds of questions that still need to be answered.

Service-Learning: An Administrator's Tool For Improving Schools And Connecting With The Community, Sheldon Berman, Sheila Bailey, Randall Collins, Dale Kinsley, Elizabeth Holman

School K-12

What should students know and be able to do by the time they graduate high school? This basic question is at the heart of most education reforms in recent years. Increasingly, the answer lies not just in strong academic skills but also in a sense of self and the individual’s role in supporting and building a vibrant community.

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 …

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 …