Service Learning Commons^™

Moving Mountains: Institutional Culture And Transformational Change, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

Our institutions are changing all the time but for the most part these changes do not make a big difference, either because the results are confined to an isolated segment of the organization or because the environment is not responsive. To be considered truly transformational, the initiative must alter the culture of the institutions by changing select underlying assumptions and institutional behaviors, processes, and products; it must be deep and pervasive, affecting the whole institution; it must be intentional; and it must occur consistently over time (Eckel, Hill, & Green, 1998).

Principles Of Best Practice In Community Service Work-Study, Erin Bowley, Marsha Adler

Higher Education

The following document outlines best practice in combining college and university work-study experiences with community service and service-learning. The principles were created by Erin Bowley and Marsha Adler for Campus Compact after conducting focus groups with practitioners from 52 colleges and universities in May and June, 2002. Ten principles that help construct an effective community service work-study program are listed below, then explained in greater detail with key points and specific campus examples. Representatives from the campuses used as examples are willing to be contacted for further information; their contact information appears at the end of the document.

Eleven Principles Of Effective Character Education, Tom Lickona, Eric Schaps, Catherine Lewis

Special Topics, General

There is no single script for effective character education, but there are some important basic principles. The following eleven principles serve as criteria that schools and other groups can use to plan a character education effort and to evaluate available character education programs, books, and curriculum resources.

Service As A Pathway To Political Participation: What Research Tells Us, Tobi Walker

Special Topics, General

Historically, there has been a rich American tradition connecting service to politi­cal engagement. To test whether this pathway remains significant, research on the political outcomes of young people's service participation is reviewed. The author argues that most research operationalizes citizenship as a helping behavior, contributing to a perspective that service is an alternative to politics. The article Concludes with a set of recommendations for reinvigorating service to support more robust political participation.

Consortia And Institutional Partnerships For Community Development, Mitchell R. Williams

Special Topics, General

The need for effective community development to address social, economic, and environmental issues is perhaps stronger now than at any other time. Making communities functional and livable is critically important to our society. There is a renewed interest in using the resources of higher education to assist communities and regions through community development initiatives (Livermore and Midgley, 1998; Usnick, Shove, and Gissy, 1997), To illustrate the contribution of colleges and universities to building sustainable communities, this chapter examines the development of community leaders through institutional partnerships and consortia involving different types of institutions of higher education.

Service Helix: A Grounded Theory Of College Student Development And Outcomes Through Involvement In Community Service, Mary Kay Schneider

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Community service and service learning have been lauded as ways of teaching civic and social responsibility during college. In order to better understand the concept of social and civic responsibility and whether students gravitated toward these concepts, this study was undertaken. The grounded theory was designed to understand students' experiences with community service, what they see as outcomes from their involvement, and the role of responsibility in this dynamic.

Grounded theory was utilized as the methodology because of the lack of research and theory regarding service and the outcomes for the servers. To achieve depth of understanding, information-rich participants were …

Serving Safely: A Risk Management Resource For College Service Programs, Sharon A. Joyce, Elaine K. Ikeda

Guides

This resource book has drawn upon the expertise of individuals in the fields of service learning, community service, risk management, insurance, and law. The valuable feedback and input from the experts in these fields has not only made this book possible, but it has strengthened the readability and technical accuracy of a complex subject.

Destination Democracy: An Educator's Guide To The Activities, Rahima C. Wade

Guides

Destination Democracy is the high school service-learning curriculum produced by Kids Voting USA. Through the lessons and activities in Destination Democracy, high school students practice the skills of democratic living as they learn important civic lessons in the classroom and participate in activities in their communities. The service-learning activities in the curriculum focus on meaningful civic involvement through voting, voter registration, working for political candidates, educating young children about the political process, and addressing community issues of interest to high school youth. Destination Democracy can be used by high school teachers, club advisors, youth group leaders and others interested in …

Learning To Serve: Service Learning Toolkit, Disney

Guides

Why serve?
If you're ready to initiate a service learning program with your students and want to know where to begin, you've come to the right place! This section will give you a step-by-step guide to starting a service learning program.

Community College Engagement In Community Programs And Services, Lisa Phinney, Mary Kay Schoen, Ellen Hause

Partnerships/Community

In 2001, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) conducted a national survey of community colleges to identify their community programs and services. Survey responses demonstrated a strong level of community college commitment to improving the quality of life in their communities and offering a place to pursue lifelong learning. Responding colleges indicated that they are engaged in a wide variety of programs and services designed to reflect the diverse needs of the communities they serve, with many partnering with local and state government, nonprofit organizations, and local schools.

Eric Resources On Service-Learning And Related Topics: An Annotated Bibliography, Unknown

Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

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.

The New Student Politics Curriculum Guide, Keith Morton, Sandra Enos, Sarah E. Long

Curriculum

The New Student Politics: The Wingspread Statement on Student Civic Engagement (2002) can be assigned as a text in a political science service-learning course that has as an explicit course objective the exploration of contemporary conceptions of citizenship, or a sociology service-learning course that focuses on community building and social transformation. Additionally, the text can be incorporated in service-learning courses across the disciplines with the aid of The New Student Politics Curriculum Guide. The Curriculum Guide is designed to provide a structure for engaging students in reflection on their community service experiences in a way that allows for the …

Inducing Voluntary Community Service In Undergraduates: The Relative Contributions Of Prior Experience, Coursework, And The Dispositions Of Empathy And Moral Development, Susan M. Hudec

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

In the past twenty years, higher education has been criticized for what is perceived to be a failure to create better citizens. As a result of this criticism, a variety of pedagogical and curricula innovations have been attempted. One of these innovations is service learning, a form of experiential learning, which engages students in activities that combine fulfillment of community needs and opportunities for promotion of student learning and development (Kendall, 1990). This study hypothesized that moral development and empathy would increase over the course of the required service learning experience in the first semester of college and that required …

Writing Toward Democracy: Service-Learning And Composition, Glenn C. Hutchinson Jr.

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

This study will show how encouraging students to write toward democracy could help them to become better writers and citizens. Service-learning can help students learn to write through active inquiry, collaboration with different discourse communities, and consideration of their roles as citizens. However, service-learning must meet three challenges in order to be successful.

First, I will argue that freshman composition's subordinate status as a service course to the university can inhibit a pedagogy of service-learning. Even though service-learning may be a useful term to name this pedagogy, I propose that we find a different name in order to emphasize student …

Service-Learning In California: A Profile Of The Calserve Service-Learning Partnerships (1997-2000): Executive Summary, Mary Sue Ammon, Andrew Fureo, Bernadette Chi, Ellen Middaugh

Partnerships/Community

Responding to the National and Community Service Act of 1990, the California Department of Education developed the CaiServe Initiative to support K-12 service-learning partnerships that would enhance student academic achievement and civic responsibility, increase teacher effectiveness and satisfaction, heighten school district awareness of service-learning, and provide authentic service to the community. The 1997-2000 local evaluation process was designed to assist CaiServe partnerships in the collection of participation and impact data for their local service-learning activities. The data collected were also to be used to develop a statewide profile of service-learning participation and impact across CaiServe's funded partnerships. The profile report …

Campus-Community Partnerships: The Terms Of Engagement, Robert G. Bringle, Julie A. Hatcher

Partnerships/Community

The emergence of service-learning in higher education and the renewed emphasis on community involvement presents colleges and universities with opportunities to develop campus-community partnerships for the common good. These partnerships can leverage both campus and community resources to address critical issues in local communities. Campus-community partnerships are a series of interpersonal relationships between (a) campus administrators, faculty, staff, and students and (b) community leaders, agency personnel, and members of communities. The phases of relationships (i.e., initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and the dynamics of relationships (i.e., exchanges, equity, distribution of power) are explored to provide service-learning instructors and campus personnel with …

Building Bridges And Crossing Borders: Using Service Learning To Overcome Cultural Barriers To Collaboration Between Science And Education Departments, Kevin Carr

Service Learning, General

Science faculty and teacher education faculty need to coordinate in order to prepare teachers to teach science. This article describes several successful and unsuccessful collaboration efforts between scientists and educators that took place during the creation of an interdepartmental service learning project, Science Outreach, at George Fox University.

Service-Learning, 1902, Julia Garbus

Service Learning, General

"We are all segregated in the prison of class," mused turn-of-the-century literature professor Vida Dutton Scudder. "More than we recognize, our inner life is shaped by the traditions of the group to which we happen to belong; and until we escape from such prison, at least through imagination, or better far through personal contacts, our culture is bound to remain tragically cramped and incomplete" (On Journey 67-68). In innovative literature courses, Scudder offered college students escapes from their class prisons through "imagination." She facilitated "personal contacts" by encouraging students to work with people of other classes and races in inner-city …

Meeting Ncate Standards Through Service-Learning: Professional Knowledge & Skills, National Service-Learning In Teacher Education Partnership

Service Learning, General

Community service has a long-standing tradition in the mission and purpose of California Lutheran University. Believing that the adoption of academic service-learning as an innovative and effective instructional strategy can enhance and enrich the teaching and learning experiences of both Faculty and students, in 1994, the School of Education included service-learning as a required assignment in several courses in the Teacher Preparation Program.