Service Learning Commons^™

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.

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 …

Service-Learning For Preservice Teachers: Ethical Dilemmas For Practice, David M. Donahue

Service Learning, General

Increasingly in the United States, service-learning is being used to educate preservice teachers. Service varies greatly in its ethical foundation, however, and service-learning presents new teachers with a variety of dilemmas revealing the moral and political nature of teaching and service. This article presents one case of four preservice teachers writing curriculum as a service to a community agency hoping to promote service geared toward social justice among high school students. The case highlights ethical dilemmas faced by teachers in the process and illustrates the potential of service-learning to educate teachers for the moral imperative of their profession.

New England College Pre-Service Teacher Service Learning Guidebook, Debra Nitschke-Shaw

Guides

In a democratic classroom, teacher and students strive to create a participatory learning community (Wade, 1997), a community where the voices and needs of all are respected and valued by the members of that community. Democratic education involves connecting with the larger community through meaningful, hands-on involvement. According to John Dewey, "schools should be democratic laboratories of learning closely linked to community need" (National Youth Leadership Council, 1991, p. 4). Therefore, the focus of a democratic classroom should be on responsible participation from all members of the classroom community.

Challenges And Strategies For Success With Service-Learning In Preservice Teacher Education, Jeffrey B. Anderson, Terry Pickeral

Service Learning, General

This study examined challenges to the use of service-learning in preservice teacher education and also strategies used to overcome those challenges. We surveyed 123 teacher educators, education deans, and state department of education service-learning coordinators to gain their perspective regarding challenges most critical to the use of service-learning in teacher education. We then interviewed 42 of the survey respondents to obtain detailed descriptions of specific strategies used to overcome challenges. Results indicate the most critical challenges relate to lack of time for teacher educators to plan and implement service-learning, an already overcrowded curriculum, and a lack of alignment of service-learning …

The Status Of Faculty Professional Service And Academic Outreach In New England, Sharon Singleton, Cathy Burack, Deborah Hirsch

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In 1994 the New England Resource Center for Higher Education surveyed New England colleges and universities about the professional service faculty are engaging in, and the policies and structures that support such activities. Information was obtained from 120 institutions. As seen through a wide lens, there is considerable institutional commitment to faculty professional service. A majority of respondents reported that service is both a stated part of their institutional mission and that faculty, administrators and staff supported that commitment. However, a sharper focus reveals a gap between statements and practice: only a third of the respondents were able to demonstrate …

Service Learning And Teacher Education: Mapping The Territory, Carole Cook Freeman

Service Learning, General

Since the mid-1980's there has been a renewed interest in progressive approaches to the education of intending teachers¹. In the context of this progressive teacher education activity, several distinct, but related, ideas converge and become the theoretical base for teacher education practices involving (community) service learning.² Among these ideas are renewed interest in authentic field experiences, multicultural education, child advocacy, democratic education, social justice, school reform efforts, autobiography and teacher thinking, and an emphasis on community service in K-12 education. In addition, teacher educators increasingly recognize the gap between the backgrounds of those who intend to teach …

Rewarding Faculty Professional Service, Kerryann O’Meara

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Scholars of higher education have long recognized that existing reward systems and structures in academic communities do not weight faculty professional service as they do teaching and research. In the past five years, however, many colleges and universities have found innovative ways to define, document, and evaluate faculty professional service in traditional promotion and tenure systems. Other institutions have created or expanded alternate faculty reward systems, including faculty profiles in service, merit pay, and post-tenure reviews emphasizing service. Based on data from a nation-wide sample, this paper discusses innovations in rewarding faculty professional service and offers conclusions and recommendations.

Organizational Structures For Community Engagement, Sharon Singleton, Deborah Hirsch, Cathy Burack

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

In a time of public scrutiny of higher education, there is good reason - both for the survival of the campus and the survival of the community around it -- for institutions to promote outreach. Yet even within those institutions with formal structures -- mission statements, faculty handbooks, and presidential leadership that support community service -- the practical considerations -- work assignments, evaluation mechanisms and institutional rewards -- present real challenges. Service-enclaves are structures that exist or are developed within institutions that allow faculty and staff to work collectively as they serve their communities. While individual service work is no …

Bridging Two Worlds: Professional Service And Service Learning, Deborah Hirsch, Ernest Lynton

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Authors of this essay, also published in the NSEE Quarterly, argue that proponents of service-learning and faculty professional service should join forces to pursue a common agenda of community outreach. At a time when colleges and universities are being urged to help solve society's problems, the faculty represents a virtually untapped resource. Certainly, there are presently - and always have been - individual faculty working in the community as consultants or as supervisors and guides for students. If the campus is to make a significant impact, however, the institution must be able to deploy departments, divisions, interdisciplinary centers and …

Developing Active Citizens: Community Service Learning In Social Studies Teacher Education, Rahima C. Wade

Service Learning, General

How are social studies teacher educators to prepare teachers for working in a society fraught with social, environmental, and economic problems? If the true mission of our profession is active citizenship, we must help our students learn the value of engaging in long-term efforts to revitalize our democratic society and the skills to respond compassionately to those whose daily needs cannot wait for societal transformation. This article is based on the premise that social studies teacher educators are in a unique position to develop future teachers' commitment to giving their students opportunities for active involvement in the community and the …

Does Service-Learning Have A Future?, Edward Zlotkowski

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Until very recently the service-learning movement has had an "ideological" bias; i.e., it has tended to prioritize moral and/or civic questions related to the service experience. Such a focus reflects well the movement's past but will not guarantee its future. What is needed now is a broad-based adjustment that invests far more intellectual energy in specifically academic concerns. Only by paying careful attention to the needs of individual disciplines and by allying itself with other academic interest groups, will the service-learning movement succeed in becoming an established feature of American higher education.

Factors Which Influenced Pre-Service Teacher Education Students In Two Virginia Colleges, Marjorie Johnson White

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

No abstract.