Service Learning Commons^™

Geography And Mutual Understanding: "Harvest Of Hope", Marianne Kenney

Curriculum

The "Harvest of Hope" was an interdisciplinary science/geography project that provided students from two different schools and very diverse backgrounds the opportunity to work in a cooperative community service effort. With teacher coordination from both districts involved in the project, students from an inner-city school and a suburban school planted, tended, and harvested crops on unused school prope11y and donated the food to organizations providing resources to the needy. "Harvest of Hope" was designed to aid the needy of Denver and teach high school students about real-world geography issues. Students also gained knowledge of issues inherent in world agriculture and …

Draft Instructional Framework In Service-Learning For Elementary School, Maryland Student Service Alliance

Curriculum

MSSA wants to ensure that all Maryland students can make a difference in their schools and communities by learning to be responsible citizens. We published the draft instructional framework to help teachers develop a broad range of service-learning experiences.

Voluntary Action On The College Campus - From Theory To Practice, Debra Floerchinger

Higher Education

President and Mrs. Bush committed his administration to the promotion of volunteer service in the President's Inaugural Address in January l989. The "Points of Light Initiative" was announced in June 1989 to advance volunteerism and community service on the national level. This initiative created a foundation to promote these ideals.

Differences Among Community Service Volunteers, Extracurricular Volunteers, And Nonvolunteers On The College Campus, R. Thomas Fitch

Higher Education

Students involved in volunteer community service activities display different demographic characteristics and inte1personal values than do other students.

Researching Student Community Service: An Opportunity To Promote Reflection?, Cecil D. Bradfield, R. Ann Myers

Service Learning, General

In recent years there has been a growing interest in student community service. It is suggested that the students of the 1980's and 90's are returning to an ethic of community service. Organizations have developed to promote service from both the student and the academic perspectives. The Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL) is a student movement promoting community service. Campus Compact represents the academic administration interest in promoting student community service with presidents of institutions forming the membership in the organization. A third organization, the National Society of Internships and Experiential Education (NSIEE), includes student community service as a form …

The Role Of Service-Learning In Today's College Curriculum, Dwight E. Giles

Higher Education

When I am given a topic or question to address I find that playing with the topic produces intellectual stimulation, helps to develop a clearer focus for my thoughts, and provides a respectable form of procrastination. This topic has been no exception in providing all three of the above; I'd like to begin by suggesting some ways we might play with the topic together over the next few minutes.

Community Service And Critical Thinking: An Exploratory Analysis Of Collegiate Influences, Eric L. Dey

Higher Education

Interest in encouraging undergraduates to become involved in community service has grown rapidly over the past several years. In addition to the formation of groups such as the Campus Compact, this interest can be seen in the curricula of numerous colleges which have instituted community services requirements for graduation. Interest in critical thinking has increased as well, with widespread agreement among educators that critical thinking should be an important, if not central, goal of education. Although critical thinking has long been valued by educators at all (Siegel, 1980), the importance placed upon the development of critical thinking has recently been …

Student Involvement In Community Service: Institutional Commitment And The Campus Compact, Alexander W. Astin

Higher Education

Although interest in involving students in community service has been growing rapidly among higher education institutions, there has so far been little systematic study of who the volunteers are and of which institutional practices actually encourage student participation in community service. The study reported here presents some provocative new findings concerning factors that contribute to student participation in, and institutional commitment to community service. The data on which the study is based were recently collected in connection with a large-scale national study of undergraduate education that we have been conducting with support from grants by the Exxon Education Foundation and …

Do Faculty Connect School To Work? Evidence From Community Colleges, Dominic J, Brewer, Maryann Jacobi Gray

Higher Education

Despite an emphasis in recent policy on connecting school to work, relatively little is known about how these connections are made and what they look like. In this article, we explore the relationship between community college faculty and their local labor markets.We use a unique national survey that provides the first systematic data from a large number of faculty on this issue, supplemented by case studies. We show that faculty engage in a range of relatively low-level connecting activities; stronger connections are rare. Faculty receive minimal institutional support for such efforts. There are several important barriers to improving linkages related …

Educating For Social Responsibility, Sheldon Berman

Service Learning, General

Schools must help students fight their feelings of powerlessness by developing their sense of community and their confidence that they can make a difference in the world.

Student Service Learning And Student Activities -- A Perfect Fit, Deborah Craig

Higher Education

"A thousand points of light ... Lifetime national service ... Be part of the solution ... The volunteer initiative ... Corporate volunteerism ... " These and other slogans have become popularized during the past few years as the "Me Generation" is being replaced by the "We Generation." Yes, volunteerism is once more in vogue, but the issues of the '80s and '90s arc different from those of the '60s. Vietnam and civil rights versus illiteracy and homelessness. Today's issues are less personal for today's typical college students. Very few of them have personally experienced illiteracy or having been homeless. But …

Comprehensive And Integrative Planning For Community Development, Ronald Shiffman, Susan Motley

Partnerships/Community

Over the years, both the public and nonprofit sectors have moved away from comprehensive, community-based planning strategies, lured by "quick fix" of a project-by-project development strategy. Unquestionably, these projects have directly benefited some poor individuals and families. More often than not, however, they do little to increase the economic vitality of the community in which the project is developed. To deal effectively with the issues of community disorganization and poverty and to broaden participation in the community renewal process, we must examine in today's light the originally envisioned community development corporation model and its principles. We need to plan, initiate, …

Differences In Interpersonal Values Among Students Involved In Volunteer Service, R. Thomas Fitch

Higher Education

A study of college students involved m. community service volunteer activities found that students' interpersonal values differed relative to whether they were involved through religious, Social Greek, or service organizations.

Service-Learning Advances School Improvement: A Position Paper From The International Service Learning Initiative, Barbara Gomez

Special Topics, General

The base on which the United States is built is participatory democracy -achieved only when all citizens are included in choice and decision-making. Nothing could be worse for our nation than to have our children feel alienated from the communities in which they attend school. For more than 200 years the rest of the world has been watching our progress, and as we have succeeded they have made efforts to emulate our sense of individual freedom and collective responsibility for governance.

Youth Service: From Youth As Problems To Youth As Resources, Bonnie Benard

School K-12

New Paradigm "Youth as problems, or youth as resources? Communities with problems or communities with resources?" These opening sentences to Reaching Out. a recent book on establishing community service programs for youth, encapsulate a critical issue I see confronting anyone relating to or working with young people, whether as parents, teachers, community folk, or prevention advocates and other helping professionals: the framework or perspective from which we view youth in our society today. Whether we view youth as problems or as resources determines not only our expectations for our youth and our actions towards them, but also the type of …

Principals Of Good Practice For Combining Service And Learning, Ellen Porter Honnett, Susan J. Poulsen

Guides

The level of interest and sense of urgency in community and voluntary service grows greater every day. In every community, programs are being designed for participants from kindergartners to the elderly. Is there a set of guiding principles by which service programs can be designed and by which their effectiveness can be judged? Is there a set if ideas which have the potential for deepening and sustaining current movements?

The principles described on these pages reflect the grassroots experience and the thinking of thousands of people, hundreds of programs and numerous national organizations over the last several decades. They are …

The Value Of Community-Service Programs, John H. Buchanan

Service Learning, General

When both President Bush and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts assume leading roles in a new national movement, there is reason to believe that something significant may be happening.

Such appears to be the case with the growing interest in Washington and elsewhere in youth-focused community-service programs.

The National Agenda, Paul A. Elsner

Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Reciprocity: A Major Paradigm Shift, John A. Calhoun

Special Topics, General

It is not news to the youth-serving community that something new is afoot regarding how we think about and work with youth.

Well known is the stir on the national level: President Bush's YES initiative; numerous pieces of congressional legislation whose proposals range from school-based programs through conservation and urban corps to mandated national service. Locally, projects of various sorts are springing up in schools, youth-serving agencies and in other organizations whose functions impinge on youth.

Not so well known-or fully understood-is a key notion that could well be lost amid the legitimate clamor and enthusiasm for the concept, namely, …

Evaluating And Working With Community Agencies: A Guide For The Principal, Carl I. Fertman

Partnerships/Community

Schools can take the initiative in dealing with community agencies, says this writer, who offers some suggestions on how schools can help such agencies develop programs to meet student needs.

Does Values Education Belong In The Curriculum?, David W. Hornbeck

Curriculum

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am particularly enthusiastic about joining you to discuss values education. It is one of the three most important challenges favoring American public education. The other two, parenthetically, are: (1) Successfully meeting the needs of children and youth at risk of school failure; and (2) The availability of sufficient quantities of quality teachers. Frankly, the three are very much intertwined, but this afternoon I will focus on values education.

The Classroom Researcher's Research Agenda, American Association For Higher Education

Higher Education

Involvement and critique from educators in dialogue with researchers is a critical element for achieving clarity about what research will benefit educational policy and practice. The AAHE Research Forum is convened annually to involve individuals committed to research and scholarship in higher education. The Forum stimulates educators' involvement in creating a research agenda that speaks to current educational concerns. Since each year's agenda is developed around the conference theme, educators and researchers can continually rely on the Forum agenda as an up-to-date source of research questions of common interest that flow from the year's most central educational issues. The Forum …

The Effects Of Service Activities On Adolescent Alienation, Raymond L. Calabrese, Harry Schumer

School K-12

This research evaluated the effects of involvement of adolescents in community service activities on levels of alienation. It was proposed that alienation could be reduced through the implementation of a model which utilized community service activities to facilitate adolescent access to adult society, development of responsibility, collaborative and cooperative work, and control over planning and outcomes. It is suggested that adolescent involvement in service activities can produce positive benefits, among which are reduced levels of alienation, improved school behavior, improved grade point average, and acceptance by the adult community. These findings also suggest that females respond more positively to school …

Service Experience And The Moral Development Of College Students, Margaret Gorman, Joesph Duffy, Margaret Heffernan

Higher Education

A considerable body of literature on deliberate moral education is now accumulating. Blatt was the first to explore the effect of 'classroom discussion on the level of moral judgment, Others have continued to report on moral education in both the secondary and college levels,

Toward Cognitive Development Through Field Studie, Barbara A. Hursh, Lenore Borzak

Higher Education

Although field study is as ancient as the apprenticeship concept, field study programs have been recreated in recent years as innovative features of many colleges and universities. These programs are as diverse as the institutions that sponsor them. Some are part of cooperative education plans whereby students alternate between a term on campus in regular classwork and a term off-campus in paid employment. Others combine working and studying in the same term. Nearly all have as a primary objective exposing students to a world or perspective beyond the traditional classroom, usually for the purpose of advancing career planning.

The Ideal Characteristics Of Foxfire Type Projects As Perceived By Teacher Advisors, Robert Dennis England

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Eliot Wigginton, after six weeks of classroom teaching at the Rabun-Gap Nacoochee School in rural north Georgia, was frustrated because he found that his students were not interested in the courses he was prepared to teach. He had graduated from Cornell University in May 1966 with a master's degree and had come to Rabun-Gap to instruct mountain children in English and geography. He realized, fortunately, that if his students were bored it was he who had bored them. He believed that it might be better him to seek another career (Wigginton, 1972).

The Effects Of A Community Involvement Program On Adolescent Student's Citizenship Attitudes, Stuart Harold Stockhaus

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Upon looking at any of the many lists of social studies instructional objectives. one can hardly avoid finding an objective called citizenship. A National Council for the Social Studies sponsored publication on civic education states, "In one sense, desirable citizenship traits in a democratic society remain the same today, in the midst of rapid cultural change. as they were hundreds of years ago. Effective participation by the individual in public affairs continues to require the same four essentials: knowledge. thought. commitment, and action. In application, however. each generation redefines good citizenship to fit demands of the times."

Environmental Education: A Community /University Approach, Tom P. Abeles

Higher Education

The current reassessment of higher education [1-4], coupled with increasing concern for our environment, has indicated several shortcomings in science-oriented curricula. Perhaps the most obvious one is that most basic courses in physics and chemistry focus the primary learning experience in the classroom. This isolation from the real world is further enforced by laboratory experiments which are primarily pedagogical exercises with little or no direct application to existing problems~only the techniques and principles Which are learned can be carried over, and often this can be done only indirectly.

Attitudes Of Returning Peace Corps Volunteers Concerning Impact Of Peace Corps Interlude On Subsequent Academic Work, Mary Abrams, Terrence Cullinan

Higher Education

A survey was undertaken in the summer of 1969, as part of the Interlude Research Program, among young people who had recently concluded service as Peace Corps Volunteers. The study's objectives were to (a) assess the impact of the Peace Corps interlude on subsequent formal education, (b) obtain respondent opinions on the educational value of the Peace Corps interlude itself, and (c) examine what steps, if any, the formal education system in the United States had taken toward :incorporating such an experience in formal academic programs.

Interlude Programs In U.S. Undergraduate Education, Terrence Cullinan

Higher Education

A survey was undertaken in the spring of 1969, as part of the Interlude Research Program, to (a) determine the attitudes of U.S. undergraduate institutions towards incorporation of formal off-campus experiences (academic interludes) as part of their educational program; (b) learn something about the current extent of ongoing interlude programs; (c) indicate some of the parameters of the ongoing programs; and (d) discover how some of those concerned with ongoing programs on individual campuses rate their own programs. The survey, based on responses to a questionnaire sent to as many four-year undergraduate (college and university) institutions as could be identified, …