ServiceLearning A National Movement in Higher Education

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Service-Learning A National Movement in Higher
Education
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• learning is a bit more complex than learning
  by doing. It is not just learning through
  experience, but experience plus learning that is
  significant.
• --David Kolb

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• My idea of citizenship has changed as a result
  of service-learning. Before this assignment, I
  believed that citizenship was only about voting
  and abiding by laws. We need to endorse our
  political efficacy A civil society lacking
  active citizens possesses no enrichment,
  diversity, or meaning.
• service-learning student,
• Miami-Dade College

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Goals of Presentation

• Create corps of s-l experts at TCC
• Share lessons learned at MDC (help TCC avoid
  common mistakes)
• Answer questions/dispel misconceptions
• Challenge you to consider it in your
  teaching/increase your effectiveness
• Support its institutionalization at TCC
• Foster community-faculty partnerships
• Understand ways to incorporate civic
  responsibility into syllabi

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Self Reflection

• Why did you become an educator?
• Why do you work (or plan to work) in
• service-learning?
• Why have you integrated, or are thinking about
  integrating, service-learning into your courses
  or agency?
• Why are you interested in civic responsibility?

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Facts about Service-Learning

• National movement
• Proven effective
• Academically rigorous
• Tremendous benefits
• Extensive resources available
• Important the right thing to do
• Not expensive

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MDCs Story 1994-2003

• Early Years
• Skepticism
• Another Fad
• Should this be part of HE?
• Reliance on grant funding
• On margins of institution
• Unfamiliarity
• Confusion about nuts and bolts
• No infrastructure

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2003 Status

• College-wide Center for Community Involvement
• Internally funded and institutionalized (230,000
  annual budget)
• College-wide Director and three Campus Directors
• Four Faculty Coordinators
• 15 Community Service FWS Student Coordinators

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2003 Status (Continued)

• 22,000 students since 94
• 450,000 hours of service since 94
• 200 faculty participants since 94
• Tremendous support from all stakeholders
• Hallmark program of the college
• Faculty rewarded and encouraged to participate
• College-wide, all six campuses
• AmeriCorpsVISTA program

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• What is
• Service-Learning?

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• Tell me and Ill forget.
• Show me and I may not remember.
• Involve me and Ill understand.

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• SERVICE-LEARNING IS
• The process of integrating thoughtfully
  organized service experiences with guided
  reflection to enhance student learning of course
  materials.

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• Service-learning is the combination of community
  service and classroom instruction, with a focus
  on critical, reflective thinking as well as
  personal and civic responsibility.
• --American Association of Community Colleges

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• Service-Learning
• Like Learning to Ride a Bike!
• --Richard Battistoni

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Why Service-Learning?

• How can we enhance student learning of course
  material?
• How can we serve collaborate with our
  community?
• How can we foster our students sense of civic
  responsibility commitment to the common good?
• How can we reinvigorate teaching?
• How can we fulfill our mission?

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KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE-LEARNING

• Students are involved in course-relevant service
  which benefits the community
• Offers a continuum of possibilities -- from
  single day service events to several hours a week
  for an entire semester

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• Structured opportunities are provided for
  students to reflect critically on their
  experience through a mix of writing, reading,
  speaking, listening, and group discussions

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• Service-learning gives academic credit for
  demonstrating learning achieved through the
  service, not just for putting in hours.
• Encourages a greater understanding of social
  issues, civic responsibility, and a sense of
  caring for others

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Best Practices for Service-Learning

• Academic credit is for learning, not for service
• Do not compromise academic rigor
• Establish learning objectives
• Establish criteria for selecting service
  placements
• --Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,
  Summer 2002

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Best Practices for Service-Learning

• Provide educationally-sound learning strategies
• Prepare students for learning from the community
• Minimize distinction between the students
  community learning and classroom learning roles
• --Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,
  Summer 2002

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Best Practices for Service-Learning

• Rethink the faculty instructional role
• Be prepared for variation in student learning
  outcomes
• Maximize the community responsibility aspect of
  the course
• --Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,
  Summer 2002

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Goals

• To enhance student learning of existing course
  competencies
• To meet community needs
• To foster civic responsibility

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(No Transcript)
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Academic Service-Learning

• Relevant, meaningful service
• Enhanced academic learning
• Purposeful civic learning
• --Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,
  Summer 2002

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• How is service-learning different from
  volunteerism, internships, community service.?

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Distinctions Among Service Programs

• Who is the primary intended beneficiary?
• The service recipient or the person providing the
  service?
• Volunteerism vs. Internships

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Distinctions Among Service Programs

• Is the focus on service or on learning?
• Volunteerism vs. Internships

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Service-Learning

• An experiential education teaching strategy where
  ...
• SERVICE-LEARNING - service learning goals of
  equal weight and each enhances the other.

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Service-Learning Examples

• Marketing students create and implement a marking
  plan for a non-profit
• Accounting students serve in the business offices
  of non-profits
• Business students study minority entrepreneurs,
  create a publication and coloring book, and
  present to low-income school children
• History students complete oral histories with
  senior citizens, create booklet, and hold event
  to celebrate the participants

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Service-Learning Examples (cont.)

• English composition students help non-profit
  write manuals/brochures organize writing contest
  on civic responsibility for high school students
  chose an issue, serve, and do all their writing
  about that issue and their service
• Nursing students adopt a homeless shelter and
  provide health care services once a week, every
  week
• Environmental Science students teach school
  children lessons about protecting the
  environment.
• Intro to Computers students help teach at a local
  technology center

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Making the Case for Service-Learning
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• We higher education educate a large
  proportion of the citizens who bother to vote,
  not to mention most of the politicians,
  journalists, and news commentators. We also
  educate all the school administrators and
  teachers, who in turn educate everyone at the
  pre-college level. And we do much to shape the
  pre-college curriculum through what we require of
  our college applicants. In short, not only have
  we helped create the problems that plague
  American democracy, but we are also in a position
  to begin doing something about them. If higher
  education doesnt start giving citizenship and
  democracy much greater priority, who will?
• --Alexander Astin, 1995

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• Too many of us have become passive and
  disengaged. Too many of us lack confidence in
  our capacity to make basic moral and civic
  judgments, to join with our neighbors to do the
  work of community, to make a difference. Never
  have we had so many opportunities for
  participation, yet rarely have we felt so
  powerless. In a time that cries out for civic
  action, we are in danger of becoming a nation of
  spectators.
• --National Commission on Civic Renewal, 1998

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• Service is something we owe to ourselves or
  to that part of ourselves that is embedded in the
  civic community. It assumes that our rights and
  liberties are not acquired for free that unless
  we assume the responsibilities of citizens, we
  will not be able to preserve the liberties they
  entail Where students use experience in the
  community as a basis for critical reflection in
  the classroom, and turn classroom reflection into
  a tool to examine the nature of democratic
  communities and the role of the citizen in them,
  there is an opportunity to teach liberty, to
  uncover the interdependence of self and other, to
  expose the intimate linkage between rights and
  responsibilities.
• --Benjamin Barber, 1992

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• Why is it, in spite of the fact that teaching by
  pouring in, learning by passive absorption, are
  universally condemned, that they are still
  entrenched in practice.
• --John Dewey, 1916

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• Citizens must be engaged in both thought and
  action
• Education is the key to civic engagement
• Institutions of learning must prepare students
  for such activities
• --John Dewey, 1916

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• We challenge you to assure that the next years
  entering students will graduate as individuals of
  character more sensitive to the needs of
  community, more competent to contribute to
  society, and more civil in habits of thought,
  speech, and action.
• --Wingspread Group Report on Higher Education,
  1993

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• If there is a crisis in education in the United
  States today, it is less that test scores have
  declined than it is that we have failed to
  provide the education for citizenship that is
  still the most significant responsibility of the
  nations schools and colleges.
• --Frank Newman, 1985. Higher Education and the
  American Resurgence

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• .the theme of civic responsibility/civic
  participation/citizenship is the most frequently
  articulated intended student outcome on the
  national level In contrast, college students,
  faculty, staff, and administrators barely
  mentioned notions of citizenship in describing
  the outcomes of service-learning projects.
•   
• Community Service-Learning Striking the Chord of
  Citizenship
• Marilyn Smith
• Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning,
  Fall 1994

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• Service, Service-learning, and
• Social Justice

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What is Good Citizenship?

• Constitutional Citizenship
• Communitarianism
• Participatory Democracy
• Public Work
• Social Capital
• --Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum, Richard
  Battistoni, Ph.D.

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• Double-Dipping Case Study
• (student takes two courses that offer
  service-learning)

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Double-Dipping Case Study(student takes two
courses that offer service-learning)

• Communications (20 hrs)
• Intro to Education (25 hrs)
• Placement at elementary school
• Instructors -- no double-dipping...cant count
  hours for two classes..
• Should the student be able to use one placement
  (25 hours) for both classes?

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• EMPHASIS ON LEARNING, NOT HOURS
• Academic credit for demonstrating learning
  achieved through the service, not just for
  putting in hours.
• Learning assessed through reflective assignments
  -- journals, papers, learning objectives,
  presentations, portfolios, etc....
• Examining one service experience from multiple
  perspectives is ideal.

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DEP 2000, Human Growth Development

• 25 hours of service
• Reflective Journal
• Portfolio
• 5 minute class presentation

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Journal Entry Guidelines

• Perspectives on human development according to
  psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, and
  humanistic theories
• Experiences or incidents that support or refute
  these theories
• Pre, peri and post natal risk factors and how
  they effect development

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CGS 1060, Intro To Microcomputers

• 20 hours of computer related service
• (Microsoft Office, Lotus 1-2-3, dBASE, DOS,
  intro to a programming language)
• On-going learning objectives
• Journal, class presentation

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Service-Learning Benefits

• Students
• Faculty
• Community/Agency/Clients
• College

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Benefits to Students

• Enhance learning
• Connect theory to practice
• Promote critical thinking
• Provide experience
• Explore majors careers
• Foster civic responsibility
• Encourage life-long commitment to service
• Enhance employability
• Break down barriers/promote understanding
• Job offers, scholarships, self-esteem,....

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Benefits for Faculty

• Enhanced student learning (more engaged students)
• Reinvigorated teaching
• Improved relationships with students
• Professional development
• Research/publishing opportunities
• Sense of making a difference

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Benefits to the Community

• Infusion of people power to help
• Client/agency needs met
• More informed/involved citizenry
• New ideas and energy
• New employees
• Access to college resources
• Reinvigorate supervisors/staff

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Benefits to the College

• Fulfillment of mission
• True partnership with tangible results
• Higher quality graduates
• Increased community support
• Public relations/publicity
• Improved learning
• Benefit all stakeholders

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• WHAT IS REFLECTION?

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Reflection 4 Cs

• Continuous
• Connected to objectives
• Challenging
• Contextualized course specific

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WHAT IS REFLECTION?

• The process of deriving meaning from experience
• Reflection engages students in conscious,
  intentional, and critical thinking for the
  examination of their service experience
• Reflection is what makes service SERVICE-LEARNING

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REFLECTION TECHNIQUES

• Journals (highlighted, double entry, key
  phrase..)
• Reflective essays
• Directed writing
• Experiential research paper
• Directed readings
• Group discussion
• Etc..

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• Today I got to the nursing home at 200. Talked
  to some ladies. Passed out popcorn at the movie.
  Went home at 400.
• From a students journal

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• Working at the Homeless Shelter was one of the
  most memorable experiences I have had in college.
  I only hope my children will have the same
  opportunity.
• From a students journal

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• What can the agency supervisor do to help
  students reflect/learn?

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Reflection Ideas for Agency Supervisors

• Mission statement
• Learning objectives/goals
• Articles about your agency/clients/social
  problems
• Exit interviews/questionnaires
• Mini research project
• Processing meetings
• Written reflective assignments
• Critical thinking questions

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• Over the course of this semester I have become a
  citizen of New Brunswick. It could be argued
  that I was a citizen here well before registering
  for the course, but I did not feel as if I were
  one. Having taken the course, I now know why I
  felt as I did. A citizen must play an active
  role in his or her community. A citizen must
  work for change, and never accept the status
  quo--things can always be better. I am now aware
  of what is happening around me...I now see the
  city differently. I'm no longer scared walking
  to my service site --far from it. I feel like
  I know that small portion of the city now. Now
  when I pass people on the street, some say hello
  to me, and call me by name. Through my work I've
  gotten to know individual people, and they've
  gotten to know me. I enjoy my community service.
  It has opened my eyes as to the role I play as a
  citizen in my community.
• --Rutgers University service-learning student
  

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Student Impact

• What are your reactions to this quotation?
• What do you think contributed to the student
  changing his views and attitudes towards
  community and citizenship?
• What can you and your other agency personnel do
  to contribute to a students experience so that
  he/she will demonstrate a similar shift in
  his/her thinking?

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Great American Clean-up Case Study

• How could this event have been more successful?
• What could each participant have done differently
  from the standpoint of learning and reflection?
• Faculty
• Agency (Great American Cleanup Inc.)
• Student
• Service-Learning Center

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Agencies and the Students

• Why do you want to do your service here?
• What class are you doing this for?
• May I see your syllabus?
• Why did you choose this option?

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Agency Responsibilities

• Orientation
• Training/Preparation
• Supervision
• Reflection
• Communication with faculty
• Recognition
• Evaluation

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• Turning Challenges into Solutions

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• Recognizing
• Service-Learners

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• Create
• your own
• Agency
• Action Plan

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• Snowflakes are one of natures most fragile
  things, but just look at what they can do when
  they stick together. Unknown

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• How do you define civic responsibility?

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• Definition of Civic Responsibility
• Active participation in the public life of a
  community in an informed, committed, and
  constructive manner, with a focus on the common
  good

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Civic Responsibility Exercises

• Option One Questions about Teaching (Page 52)
• Option Two Appendix C-5 (Page 78)
• Faculty Case Study
• Option Three Questions about Service Learning
  (Page 52)
• Option Four Questions for Faculty (Page 63)
• Option Five Higher Educations Role in Promoting
  Citizenship (Page 34)

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Questions about Teaching (Page 52)

• How does your teaching affect your students
  ability to become responsibly engaged in their
  community?
• What ethical standards guide your profession or
  discipline, and how are they related to civic
  responsibility?
• What can you change in your teaching to promote
  civic responsibility?
• Should civic responsibility be tied to your
  course at all?

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Appendix C-5 (Page 78) Faculty Case Study

• Are there certain costs associated with
  controversial or loaded civic engagement at
  your institution?
• How do you model democratic decision making and
  participation for your students when a conflict
  arises?
• How can you encourage students to become
  civically involved without prescribing particular
  positions or viewpoints?

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Questions about Service Learning (Page 52)

• To what extent does service learning increase
  students awareness of their civic
  responsibility?
• How effective are the colleges partnerships
  with community agencies and other service sites?
• In what ways could partnerships be enhanced?
• How can faculty involvement strengthen these
  partnerships?

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Questions for Faculty (Page 63)

• What is the mission of your course?
• What are the learning objectives? How do they
  relate to civic responsibility?
• What changes do you need to make to incorporate
  civic responsibility into both the mission and
  the learning objectives?
• What are some of the challenges you think you
  will face as you integrate civic responsibility
  into your curriculum?

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Exercise 3.9 (Page 34)Higher Educations Role in
Promoting CitizenshipReflection Questions

• Do you think that our educational institutions
  are preparing students for a life of engaged,
  democratic citizenship?
• How does service learning play a role in giving
  citizenship and democracy greater priority?
• What specifically can higher education do to
  give citizenship and democracy greater priority?
• Will involvement in service learning necessarily
  foster civic responsibility in students?
• How can we create a culture of civic engagement
  that results in a more humane and just society?

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Table 2 (Page 48)Service Learning Activities

• Service activities that address community needs
• Related courses
• Reflection components
• Activities that foster civic responsibility
  skills

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Civic Responsibility Case Study

• A faculty member has done a good job
• of incorporating civic responsibility into
• her courses. She has come to you because she
• is concerned about her evaluation methods.
• She is unsure how to measure civic
• engagement.
• How can you help her?

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• Assessing Civic Responsibility
• Chapter 4
• (Pages 51-60)

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• Create
• your own
• civic responsibility
• action plan

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Which course learning objectives are related to
  service?
• What do you want your students to gain from the
  experience?

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Learning Objectives

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Results oriented
• Timely

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• Establishing Academic Learning Objectives

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Action what types of service are appropriate
  for your course?

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Preparation how will you prepare your students
  for the s-l experience?

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Reflection what techniques will you use to
  guide/ensure student learning and successful
  service?

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Reflective Assignments

• Have students do a research paper on civic
  responsibility.
• Have students research the characteristics of a
  good citizen.
• Have students identify someone who is a good
  citizen and write an essay that describes the
  skills, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors that
  makes this person a good citizen.
• Have students interview a servant leader in the
  community and write a report/essay on that.
• Have students write about the connection between
  service, civic responsibility, and living in a
  democratic society.
• Have students do a report/paper on the issue that
  their service project addresses.

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Course Integration required, option, extra
  credit, number of hours, etc

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Assessment how will you evaluate/ assess/grade
  service-learning?
• Assess learning demonstrated NOT
• service completed

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Civic Responsibility how will you ensure that
  students can articulate and understand civic
  responsibility, and develop the skills necessary
  to be a good citizen

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Exercise 4.1 (Page 53)Syllabus Analysis

• What specific course material relates to CR?
• Which learning outcomes directly relate to CR?
  Are they explicit in the syllabus?
• Does the syllabus include a description of
  service learning projects and their relation to
  CR?
• What are the specific opportunities for
  deliberate connections among your academic
  content, the value of CR, and community-based
  service experience?
• How will the service experience be assessed? How
  will it relate to the learning of course material?

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S-L Course Development Worksheet

• Recognition how will you recognize and
  celebrate your students?

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Best Practices/Lessons Learned

• Gain administrative and faculty support
• Encourage faculty leadership (faculty
  coordinator)
• Emphasize academic rigor
• Create infrastructure with space staff
• Provide on-going training of faculty and agency
  partners
• Emphasize quality over quantity
• Promote student leadership (FWS student
  ambassadors)
• Encourage partnership model rather than
  clearinghouse model

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Best Practices (Continued)

• Gather and disseminate data
• Recognize all participants
• Place with Academic Affairs partner with
  Student Affairs
• Utilize Community Service FWS students to help
  staff program
• Market and publicize achievements
• Mobilize campus around service (e.g., Taste of
  Service events)
• Offer mini-grants at beginning?

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• Additional Information
• Gail Robinson, Coordinator of Service Learning
• American Association of Community Colleges
• One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 410
• Washington, DC 20036-1176
• Phone [phone] ext. 254
• Fax [phone]
• E-mail grobinson_at_aacc.nche.edu
• Web www.aacc.nche.edu/servicelearning

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• Order additional copies of the Guide from
• Community College Press
• 800/250-6557
• aaccpub_at_pmds.com

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Electronic Resources

• The S-L Home Page
• csf.colorado.edu/sl
• Campus Compact
• www.compact.org
• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
• www.servicelearning.org
• National Service-Learning Exchange
• www.nslexchange.org
• American Association for Higher Education
• www.aahe.org/service/srv-lrn.htm

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• Ossie Hanauer
• Miami-Dade College
• Center for Community Involvement
• 11011 SW 104 Street, Rm 6219
• Miami, FL 33176
• Ph 305-237-70631/Fax [phone]
• E-mail ohanauer_at_mdcc.edu
• www.mdcc.edu/cci

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• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
• committed citizens can change the world
• indeed, its the only thing that ever has.
• --Margaret Mead