Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.
The goals of Service Learning are to:
Enhance social and academic learning by thinking clearly and making decisions
Develop character traits
Develop citizenship skills, respecting the intrinsic worth of each person
Learn about issues and develop a global perspective
Develop an action plan for service in ways that are sensitive to the needs of others and the environment
Act with integrity, establishing the need for peach and justice
Engage in meaningful service that will make a difference to: self, family/friends, peers, local, state, national, and global communities
Guiding principles:
When students are personally involved in selecting the service activity, they are far more likely to buy into the program and care about what happens;
When there are clear connections between the classroom and the service activity, students are far more likely to see the importance of what they are doing and more likely to invest themselves in the program.
If opportunities for reflection are included throughout the service activity, the likelihood of positive impacts from the service are increased.
Service Learning experiences need to be repeated consistently and in many different ways to maximise potential learning impacts.
Well-designed service-learning programs seek to balance developmentally appropriate challenge with appropriate levels of personal support in order to invite and encourage student risk-taking and growth.
L.Richard Bradley. “Using Developmental and Learning Theory in the Design and Evaluation of K-16 Service-Learning Programs” in Billig, S.H. & Waterman, A.S. (eds) (2003) Studying Service-Learning: Innovations in Education Research Methodology, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers; New Jersey, p.52.
Types of Service Learning Activities
The following list gives a sense of the many ways students can apply instruction and practice needed skills through helping others.
Full-scale projects include formal linkages with coursework, and part of the student's assessment is tied to the Service Learning project(s). Note that different types of projects have students apply different skills.
Direct Service Learning: person-to-person, face-to-face service projects in which the students’ service directly impacts individuals who receive the service from the students. Examples include:
Tutoring other students and adults
Conducting art/music/dance lessons for younger students
Helping other students resolve conflict
Giving performances or presentations on violence and drug prevention
Creating lessons and presenting them to younger students
Creating life reviews for Hospice patients
Impact on/skills practiced by servers include the following: caring for others, personal responsibility, dependability, interpersonal skills, ability to get along with others who are different, problem-solving, beginning-to-end, big-picture learning.
Indirect Service Learning: working on broad issues, environmental projects, community development-projects that have clear benefits to the community or environment, but not necessarily to individual identified people with whom the students are working. Examples include:
Compiling a town history
Restoring historic structures or building low-income housing
Removing exotic plants and restoring ecosystems, preparing preserve areas for public use
Impact on/skills practiced by servers include the following: cooperation, teamwork skills, playing different roles, organising, prioritising, project-specific
skills.
Research-Based Service Learning: gathering and presenting information on areas of interest and need- projects that find, gather, and report on information that is needed. Examples include:
Writing a guide on available community services and translating it into Spanish and other languages of new residents
Conducting longitudinal studies of local bodies of water; water testing for local residents
Gathering information and creating brochures or videos for non-profit or government
agencies
Mapping state lands and monitoring flora and fauna
Conducting surveys, studies, evaluations, experiments, interviews, etc.
Impact on/skills practiced by servers include the following: learn how to learn/get answers/find information, make discriminating judgments, work systematically, organisational skills, learn how to assess, evaluate, and test hypotheses.
Advocacy Service Learning: educating others about topics of public interest - projects that aim to create awareness and action on some issue that is in the public interest. Examples include:
Planning and putting on public forums on topics of interest in the community
Conducting public information campaigns on topics of interest or local needs
Working with elected officials to draft legislation to improve communities
Training the community in fire safety or disaster preparation
Impact on/skills practiced by servers include the following: perseverance; understanding rules, systems, processes; engaged citizenship, working with adults.