Sociology Commons^™

Cesar Chavez: Educating The Heart, Orange County Cesar Chavez Day Initiative

Curriculum

Cesar Chavez was one of the most significant and influential civil rights leaders of our time. Chavez devoted himself to social justice and improving the lives of the impoverished and oppressed. His name, like the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks of character and commitment. This project is in honor of the life and work of Cesar E. Chavez.

The Cesar Chavez project is a multi-faceted service learning experience that will provide your 4lh graders with a unique, hands-on perspective of California History. Whether used to celebrate Cesar Chavez Day (March 31st) with your class or simply as a …

Student Ownership Of Service-Learning Projects: Including Ourselves In Our Community, Tammy V. Abernathy, Kathryn M. Obenchain

Disabilities

Service-learning projects can be an effective tool to actively engage students with learning disabilities while also providing needed community service. This article details a five-phase construction plan designed to guide students through the process of planning service learning projects with students responsible for all steps and the teacher assuming the role of facilitator and guide. Service-learning projects are encouraged as a means of including students with disabilities in their community while building academic skills and assuming personal responsibility.

Program Evaluation Principles & Practices, Northwest Health Foundation

Evaluation/Reflection

This handbook is provided by the Northwest Health Foundation as a framework for community organizations to use to evaluate and understand the effectiveness of their programs. It provides an overview of basic program evaluation principles and practices, and offers an approach to evaluation that will assist organizations in documenting their work -for themselves, for funders, and for others who are interested in issues of program impact and outcomes. The handbook is designed to complement the content of a Foundation-sponsored workshop on program evaluation, and can be used as a "stand-alone" guide for evaluation design and implementation.

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.

Community Service Learning In Culturally Diverse Stettings As A Springboard For Student Constructed Case Studies, Viviana Alexandrowicz

Service Learning, General

This article describes the process of incorporating case study development by students in a teacher education methods course. The students weekly and final reflections, in addition to the high quality of their case studies, suggested that case study development by teacher candidates is an effective approach to increase their understanding of and competence to work with second language and culturally diverse people.

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.

Principles Of Good Practice For Service-Learning In Preservice Teacher Education, Jeffrey B. Anderson, Don Hill

Service Learning, General

The purpose of this document is to provide principles to guide the integration of service-learning into the preservice teacher education curriculum. The ten principles included here were developed by a group of over 80 teacher educators and service-learning practitioners from all regions of the U.S. who contributed their ideas and feedback in order to achieve consensus. (Contributors are listed in Appendix B). These principles of good practice can be used by teacher educators to design and assess their service-teaming activities, and by policy makers to guide decisions regarding resource allocation and program development.

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.

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, …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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?

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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 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 …

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 …