SERVICE LEARNING

Curricular options | Choosing a site | Weblinks

Service-Learning: Curricular Options

Faculty can integrate service-learning into a course in many ways, some extensive and others not. Possibilities range from basing a written assignment on a one-time service activity to involving students in weekly community service throughout the semester. The curricular options for service-learning described here are not exhaustive. Rather, they are representative of the types of service-learning courses most frequently taught in U.S. universities today.

Service as a Required Course Component

A course requires students to engage in some form of community service (one-time or ongoing, individually or with a group) and complete one or more reflective essays or other activities related to the service experience.

Advantage: Since all students in the course participate in the service and subsequent reflection, they establish a common ground for class discussions and for the synthesis of observations at the service site, lectures, and readings.

Disadvantage: Some students might have legitimate reasons for not being able to participate in the service (e.g., child care or transportation issues).

Tips: Consider whether or not you will allow a substitution for the service component. Clarify the requirement in the course schedule, syllabus, and on the first day of class. Clearly explain the rationale for requiring service.

Example: A course on group communication sends students to different agencies to do various tasks with groups of clients. The faculty member asks students to present their findings to the class and to write a paper comparing several of the various settings studied.

Service as an Optional Course Component

Service and accompanying reflection are offered as an alternative to a quiz, particular readings, other experiential learning activity (ethnography--a way to study another culture or
subculture through participant observation--or interviews), or a research assignment.

Advantage: Students can choose service-learning or the more "typical" assignment based on their preferred learning styles.

Disadvantage: Some students might perceive service-based learning as less demanding, seeing it as the Aeasy way out.@

Tip: Faculty should ensure that whenever a service-based assignment replaces other work, it requires equal levels of academic rigor.

Example: In a psychology course on aging, students can opt to provide recreational activities for nursing home residents in place of reading three articles on aging and the psychological impact of mobility impairment. During a subsequent class discussion, students who chose the readings can compare their reactions with those of their peers whose experience might challenge or reinforce what the readings presented.

Fourth-Credit Option

Students enrolled in a three-credit course have the option to earn a fourth credit by performing community service in an area related to the course and by demonstrating learning based on the service experience. A learning contract agreed upon in advance between the faculty member and the student specifies the number of service hours required and the reflection activities (e.g., journal, project, paper) that link the service experience with the course content. This is not currently a university-wide option at UM, but some departments and programs offer such arrangements in particular courses.

Advantages: This option can be student-initiated, if the student takes the responsibility to approach the faculty member and identify the service site. Potentially, a student could link service to any course. This option often serves to introduce faculty members to service-learning.

Disadvantages: This option runs the risk of not truly integrating service into the course. Unless carefully designed, the service will seem like an add-on to the course. Also, much like supervising a field experience, this option requires extra work from faculty members.

Tips: Be sure to require a student learning contract and review it periodically with the student. Help the student design reflection activities to achieve desired learning outcomes. Contact the service site to discuss the student=s progress several times during the semester.

Example: A student in an introductory marketing course develops, administers, and analyzes a survey of client satisfaction for a local meals-on-wheels program. The survey serves as a basis for making recommendations for improved services.

Course Clusters Involving Service-Learning

Two or three courses in different disciplines cluster around a common question or theme and a service experience. Students enroll in all courses in the cluster and do community service at one site or at multiple sites that offer related experiences.

Advantage: Students can critically examine the service experience from the perspective of several different disciplines simultaneously. They can also understand how different disciplinary frameworks inform the discussion of one particular question or theme. Also, faculty have the opportunity to work with each other faculty across disciplines.

Disadvantages: If the faculty member prefers to work with only one community site, he/she will need to select one that can handle a large number of volunteers and will not be confused by the students= various disciplinary approaches. The collaboration involved in team-teaching requires additional faculty time.

Tip: Faculty should work together in advance to set learning goals and explain them clearly to both students and sites.

Example: Faculty devise a course cluster which consists of a nutrition course, a human development course, and a literature course. Students serve at a pregnancy center teaching women how to practice good nutrition, studying the impact of nutrition on short- and long-term outcomes like birth weight and school readiness, and using stories of women in transition to help pregnant women discuss their concerns.

Disciplinary Capstone Courses/Projects

In the form of a capstone seminar, a senior paper or another culminating course, students design and carry out community service projects that demonstrate their fluency in the knowledge base of their disciplines, test their capacity for scholarship in their chosen fields, and enable them to integrate theory and practice.

Advantage: This option provides an opportunity for students to integrate service-learning into their major fields at a higher level. They can integrate knowledge from various courses and prepare themselves to transfer knowledge to the world of work.

Disadvantage: Students' ability to integrate service-learning into their disciplines at this level probably depends on prior and progressively intensive experience with service-learning.

Tip: Capitalize on the expertise of community members who are willing to guide students into increasingly higher levels of critical thinking and analysis. Since they work alongside the students at the site, they are able to extend the influence of the faculty member in shaping and interpreting the experiences of the students.

Example: Elementary education students who have previously worked in homeless shelters produce a children=s book about homeless children in order to counter stereotypes about people who are homeless.

Community-Based Action Research

A content-based course or a course in research methods centers around research performed by the students in conjunction with the faculty member and community members. Community members and students contribute equally to setting the research agenda and determining how the results will be used.

Advantage: By using this option, students can produce research that will actually be used because community members have tested and reshaped it throughout the process.

Disadvantage: Without advance relationship-building, inviting community members to help students set the research agenda might be too time-consuming for the confines of a semester course.

Tip: Once a faculty member establishes a relationship with a community group, action research conducted in one semester can lay a foundation for the research to be conducted in a subsequent semester. The first semester in which action research is included in a course is often the most difficult and time-consuming. After that initial period, such projects usually become easier for the faculty member to set up and maintain.

Example: Students of American history after 1865 collect and record oral histories from elderly members of the community about life in the Jim Crow era. Together they establish an exhibit on the topic for children at a local museum.

Service-Learning Internships/Independent Studies

Students serve intensively--about 10-15 hours per week or 150 hours per semester--in a community site approved by the faculty member. Either individually or in a seminar format, students meet regularly with the professor and relate the service experience to selected readings. Each final paper or project advances the work of the organization where the student served.

Advantage: Students can engage in service intensively with the guidance of faculty. Students can choose their own topics of study and tailor the community placements to their specific interests.

Disadvantages: The success of such an option depends upon the participation of students with sufficient motivation, maturity, and academic background to work relatively independently. Also, this option is time-intensive for the faculty member.

Tip: Directing students with prior service-learning experience into this option is one effective way of screening students based on their readiness for this option.

Example: For internship credit in international relations, a student serves in an international children=s advocacy organization and writes a series of articles comparing child labor laws in various nations for its monthly magazine.

[From Troppe, M. _Faculty Handbook for Service-Learning_, Commuter Affairs and Community Service, University of Maryland, 1998. Adapted from Enos/Troppe. "Service-Learning in the Curriculum." Service-Learning in Higher Education. Ed. Jacoby, B. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.]


Choosing a Volunteer Site: Good Questions to Ask

Choosing the best agency for you to volunteer with is a critical step in making your community service a worthwhile and meaningful activity. Learning about the agency's goals, expectations, history, philosophy, staff, and volunteers can help you select one that best matches your interests and skills. Use this list of questions to help you gather information from the volunteer coordinator in each of the agencies you are interested in.

ABOUT THE AGENCY:

ABOUT VOLUNTEERING: ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT: These questions are merely suggestions. Each person has specific needs; be sure to ask whether the agency is able to accommodate yours. Gather enough information to make an informed decision about where you would like to volunteer.

[Compiled by the Community Service Programs * 1195 Stamp Student Union]

Service Learning: Weblinks

Faculty Handbook for Service Learning, University of Maryland
Community Service Programs, University of Maryland
Campus Compact, Providence, RI
National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE), Raleigh, NC
American Association for Higher Education [AAHE], Washington, D.C.
The Home of Service-Learning on the World-Wide Web, Hosted by CSF at University of Colorado-Boulder
The Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (MJCSL)
Global Computing List of American Universities
For more information on these resources, please visit the WWW Resources for Service Learning by Marie Troppe, published in the Teaching and Learning News by the Center for Teaching Excellence.