Research Anthology on Service Learning and Community Engagement Teaching Practices


Book Description

The need for more empathetic and community-focused students must begin with educators, as service-learning has begun to grow in popularity throughout the years. By implementing service and community aspects into the classroom at an early age, educators have a greater chance of influencing students and creating a new generation of service-minded individuals who care about their communities. Teachers must have the necessary skills and current information available to them to provide students with quality service learning and community engagement curricula. The Research Anthology on Service Learning and Community Engagement Teaching Practices provides a thorough investigation of the current trends, best practices, and challenges of teaching practices for service learning and community engagement. Using innovative research, it outlines the struggles, frameworks, and recommendations necessary for educators to engage students and provide them with a comprehensive education in service learning. Covering topics such as lesson planning, teacher education, and cultural humility, it is a crucial reference for educators, administrators, universities, lesson planners, researchers, academicians, and students.




Integrating Service-Learning Into the University Classroom


Book Description

Service-learning is on the rise across campuses, as more and more students and professors are engaging with the communities around them. While this is a rewarding experience for students and the communities served, a tremendous amount of effort is needed to incorporate service-learning into the curriculum. It takes trial-and-error to find the right pedagogical tools and the perfect balance of in-field and in-class learning, as well as considerable time spent fostering relationships with community partners. For many, this can be too daunting. Integrating Service-Learning into the University Classroom helps simplify the process by providing educators with a series of course portfolios to follow. Written by instructors who have taught service-learning courses across a variety of disciplines, these portfolios model how to effectively design, teach, and evaluate a course. As service-learning courses range in topic, format, learning goals and community commitment, the book highlights both the variety and best practices of service-learning courses in higher education. Each chapter provides a detailed course description, including the goals of the course and the materials and assignments; a narrative of what has worked and what has not worked in the course; a section citing student feedback; and finally, an instructor reflection on the overall value of the course to the students, department, community partner, and themselves.




Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?


Book Description

As academic service-learning continues to grow rapidly, practitioners are discovering a pressing need for solid empirical research about learning outcomes. Where's the Learning in Service-Learning? helps define learning expectations, presents data about learning, and links program characteristics with learning outcomes. It is the first book to explore the experience of service-learning as a valid learning activity.




Service-Learning Essentials


Book Description

Service-Learning Essentials is the resource you need to help you develop high-quality service-learning experiences for college students. Written by one of the field's leading experts and sponsored by Campus Compact, the book is the definitive work on this high-impact educational practice. Service-learning has been identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as having been widely tested and shown to be beneficial to college students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Organized in an accessible question-and-answer format, the book responds clearly and completely to the most common questions and concerns about service-learning. Each chapter addresses issues related to individual practice as well as to the collective work of starting and developing a service-learning center or program, with examples drawn from a variety of disciplines, situations, and institutional types. The questions range from basic to advanced and the answers cover both the fundamentals and complexities of service-learning. Topics include: Determining what service-learning opportunities institutions should offer How to engage students in critical reflection in academic courses and in cocurricular experiences Best practices for developing and sustaining mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships Integrating service-learning into the curriculum in all disciplines and at all levels, as well as various areas of student life outside the classroom Assessing service-learning programs and outcomes The dilemmas of service-learning in the context of power and privilege The future of service-learning in online and rapidly globalizing environments Service-learning has virtually limitless potential to enable colleges and universities to meet their goals for student learning while making unique contributions to addressing unmet local, national, and global needs. However, in order to realize these benefits, service-learning must be thoughtfully designed and carefully implemented. This easy-to-use volume contains everything faculty, leaders, and staff members need to know about service-learning to enhance communities, improve higher education institutions, and educate the next generation of citizens, scholars, and leaders.




Service-Learning in Higher Education


Book Description

Advocates have positioned service-learning as a real-world, real-time opportunity for students to encounter academic knowledge in a meaningful and relevant manner. Service-learning in higher education settings offers a powerful alternative to traditional models of teaching and learning. Students are encouraged to develop links to local institutions, volunteer their time, and create a special bond between the university and the community in which they live. Service-learning has become a very popular alternative to standard courses in higher education and is gaining significant popularity. This book takes a serious look at the unintended consequences and alternative conceptualizations of this mode of learning and explores what it could offer us in the future.




Integrating Service-Learning and Consulting in Distance Education


Book Description

As distance learning continues to grow, universities are seeking ways to integrate traditional student community service into online courses. Supported by seven years of successful implementation, this book presents an award-winning service-learning model through which online students serve as consultants to organizations nationwide.




Learning Through Serving


Book Description

This substantially expanded new edition of this widely-used and acclaimed text maintains the objectives and tenets of the first. It is designed to help students understand and reflect on their community service experiences both as individuals and as citizens of communities in need of their compassionate expertise. It is designed to assist faculty in facilitating student development of compassionate expertise through the context of service in applying disciplinary knowledge to community issues and challenges. In sum, the book is about how to make academic sense of civic service in preparing for roles as future citizen leaders. Each chapter has been developed to be read and reviewed, in sequence, over the term of a service-learning course. Students in a semester course might read just one chapter each week, while those in a quarter-term course might need to read one to two chapters per week. The chapters are intentionally short, averaging 8 to 14 pages, so they do not interfere with other course content reading. This edition presents four new chapters on Mentoring, Leadership, Becoming a Change Agent, and Short-Term Immersive and Global Service-Learning experiences. The authors have also revised the original chapters to more fully address issues of social justice, privilege/power, diversity, intercultural communication, and technology; have added more disciplinary examples; incorporated additional academic content for understanding service-learning issues (e.g., attribution theory); and cover issues related to students with disabilities, and international students. This text is a student-friendly, self-directed guide to service-learning that: Develops the skills needed to succeed Clearly links service-learning to the learning goals of the course Combines self-study and peer-study workbook formats with activities that can be incorporated in class, to give teachers maximum flexibility in structuring their service-learning courses Promotes independent and collaborative learning Equally suitable for courses of a few weeks’ or a few months’ duration Shows students how to assess progress and communicate end-results Written for students participating in service learning as a class, but also suitable for students working individually on a project. Instructor's Manual This Instructor Manual discusses the following six key areas for aligning your course with use of Learning through Serving, whether you teach a senior-level high school class, freshman studies course, or a college capstone class: 1. Course and syllabus design 2. Community-partner collaboration 3. Creating class community 4. Strategic teaching techniques 5. Developing intercultural competence 6. Impact assessment




Soul of a Citizen


Book Description

Soul of a Citizen awakens within us the desire and the ability to make our voices heard and our actions count. We can lead lives worthy of our convictions. A book of inspiration and integrity, Soul of a Citizen is an antidote to the twin scourges of modern life--powerlessness and cynicism. In his evocative style, Paul Loeb tells moving stories of ordinary Americans who have found unexpected fulfillment in social involvement. Through their example and Loeb's own wise and powerful lessons, we are compelled to move from passivity to participation. The reward of our action, we learn, is nothing less than a sense of connection and purpose not found in a purely personal life. Soul of a Citizen has become the handbook for budding social activists, veteran organizers, and anybody who wants to make a change—big or small—in the world around them. At this critical historical time , Paul Loeb's completely revised edition—and inspiring message—is more urgently important than ever.




Service Learning in Psychology


Book Description

Service learning is a powerful educational tool that allows undergraduate psychology students -- both majors and nonmajors -- to improve their scholarly, personal, and professional outcomes through civic engagement. Students hone knowledge and skills from the classroom by applying them to volunteer work in collaboration with community organizations and residents. Activities might include tutoring children, developing informational brochures, or conducting research in support of social change initiatives. This book reviews the theory, research, and practice behind service learning, establishing it as an effective pedagogy that can help psychology departments meet each of the five key learning goals -- as well as many learning indicators -- outlined in APA's Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major: Knowledge Base in Psychology Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World Communication Professional Development Chapters provide clear guidelines for designing service learning courses and integrating them into the undergraduate psychology curriculum. Specific implementation strategies -- including sample project designs and classroom assignments -- are applied to introductory, major, and capstone courses in a wide variety of popular subjects. The authors also examine departmental issues such as faculty development, assessment, and scholarship, providing useful blueprints for department-wide civic engagement.




Improving Learning


Book Description

Essys on new ways to teach and learn high school and college science.