Rewards and Costs of Faculty Involvement in Intergenerational Service-Learning

Service-learning (S-L) has been regarded as a relatively well-established and effective teaching pedagogy. Students who participate in S-L are more likely to learn more efficiently, more effectively, and remember more of what they have learned than their counterparts. Current studies have been done on the experiences of students in service-learning and implementing S-L components. Other research has focused on the barriers to conducting effective S-L. However, no qualitative studies have examined a faculty component of S-L. Also, there have been few studies or discussions delineating faculty perceptions or experiences in S-L. An e-mail survey supplemented with personal interviews was utilized in an effort to understand experiences of participating in S-L. Of specific interest were faculty perceptions of the costs and rewards in employing S-L in gerontology-related curriculums.     

Silent Partners: Developing a Critical Understanding of Community Partners in Technical Communication Service-Learning Pedagogies

Although many technical communication teachers and programs integrate some form of service-learning pedagogy, there is a dearth of technical communication research on the silent partners of these projects: the community partners. Drawing upon research data from 14 former community partners of professional writing service-learning courses, the authors suggest that understanding community partners’ own self-defined stakes in service-learning projects can challenge hyperpragmatist representations of community partners and aid us in the continued creation, management, and critical evaluation of service-learning pedagogies and curricula.     

Using Intergenerational Oral History Service-Learning Projects to Teach Human Behavior Concepts: A Qualitative Analysis

An intergenerational oral history project paired 63 students enrolled in human behavior in the social environment (HBSC) courses in a bachelor of social work (BSW) programs with older adults. The goal of the project was to provide contextual application of HBSE theories and concepts by engaging students in semester-long intentional interaction with older adults. Qualitative evaluation of the oral history project found that students reported multiple benefits from participation. The authors attribute the project's positive outcomes to its service-learning nature as well as the unique and applied way in which it allowed students to learn mandated course content.     

Building Strong Community Partnerships: Equal Voice and Mutual Benefits

This article explores an urban partnership and service-learning project deliberately created to improve literacy and strengthen learning communities in an urban, Latino neighborhood of Chicago. The project aligns activities and objectives with resources and needs of university participants, a Latino community organization, and local public schools. The needs addressed include (a) improving literacy achievement in Latino students, (b) improving literacy instruction, (c) expanding students’ awareness and engagement with social injustices, and (d) exploring barriers to literacy access in students’ homes and community. This project serves as a model for developing partnerships and outreach between higher education institutions and the community.     

Student and Police Partnerships: Cultivating Student Success and Community Development

Scholarship on service-learning and experiential learning increasingly demonstrates benefits for student access and success, but evidence is still needed of the impact of these strategies on sustainable development of communities and their infrastructure. This case study examines a university Police and Society course that partners with four police departments to use both experiential learning and service-learning in the form of ride-alongs, simulation trainings, and written and physical examinations, as well as hosting a police–community relations event. Focus groups of students and officers reveal how service-learning and experiential learning build capacity for police–community relations. Orienting students toward officer procedures, requirements, and culture creates a learning opportunity for both students and departments, while police–community relations activities humanize officers and build public understanding and trust.     

Developing School-Scientist Partnerships: Lessons for Scientists from Forests-of-Life

The concept of partnerships between schools and practicing scientists came to prominence in the United States in the mid 1980s. The call by government for greater private sector involvement in education to raise standards in science achievement saw a variety of programmes developed, ranging from short-term sponsorships through to longer-term, project-based interactions. Recently, school-scientist partnerships (SSPs) have been rekindled as a means of assisting schools to motivate and inspire students in science, improve levels of teachers’ science knowledge, and increase awareness of the type and variety of career opportunities available in the sciences (Rennie and Howitt, 2009). This article summarises research that used an interpretive case study method to examine the performance of a two-year SSP pilot between a government-owned science research institute, and 200 students from two Intermediate (years 7 and 8) schools in New Zealand. It explored the experiences of scientists involved in the partnerships, and revealed difficulties in bridging the void that existed between the outcomes-driven, commercially-focused world of research scientists, and the more process-oriented, tightly structured, and conservative world of teachers and schools. Findings highlight the pragmatic realities of establishing partnerships, from the perspective of scientists. These include acute awareness of the nature of school systems, conventions and environments; the science, technological and pedagogical knowledge of teachers; teacher workload issues and pressures, curriculum priorities and access to science resources. The article identifies areas where time and effort should be invested to ensure successful partnership outcomes.     

Building Partnerships: Developing a Quality of Life Index

Cochise College, Cochise County, and the Cochise Community Foundation partnered to create the Cochise County Quality of Life Index—the first to be developed in Arizona. The project brought together stakeholders to address shared problems in new ways, based on non-traditional partnerships. The college's Center for Economic Research provided technical expertise.     

农村社区发展学院:高等教育通往农村的有效选择

本文分析了创建农村社区发展学院的必要性,并对农村社区发展学院的组织结构、运行机制、课程设置等问题提出了若干设想与建议。     

Partnerships for Implementing School and Community Prevention Programs

The planning and implementation of prevention programs for families and children has shifted towards community-based, multi-component approaches that are rooted in partnerships among diverse stakeholders. We argue that values and partnerships should be central to the planning and implementation of this new approach to prevention programs. Following from these concepts,wepropose 6 steps that can guide educational and psychological consultants in the implementation of prevention programs in partnership with other stakeholders. For each step, we identify key tasks, processes, and challenges for consultants. To illustrate these steps, we include examples from our work in prevention initiatives for and with immigrant and refugee children and families.     

In the Service of Self-Determination: Teacher Education,Service-Learning,and Community Reorganizing

Influenced by Third World Liberation social movements in the United States and abroad, this article applies a serve-the-people concept to service-learning in education. Rooted in pedagogies more traditionally associated with ethnic studies and community organizing, and informed by sociocultural and critical frameworks in education, this article offers insights from school community spaces that serve K–12 youth from different urban working-class neighborhoods. Transformative opportunities for grassroots collaboration, learning, agency, and community reorganizing are explored with implications for students, teachers, teacher educators, and community workers concerned with social justice.     

Finding Common Ground: Sine Qua Non for Educator/Teaching Artist Partnerships

Based in experience as a classroom teacher, school arts coordinator, parent, and teacher of teachers, an educator points to the crucial elements of partnership, giving examples of exemplary TA practice.     

Points of View: Effective Partnerships Between K-12 and Higher Education

Note from the Editors     

Preservice Interns Implement Service-Learning: Helping Young Children Reach Out to Their Community

Service Learning (S-L) is an integral component of the Early Childhood preservice curriculum at the University of South Carolina. In spite of the fact that our college students had experienced the benefits of S-L first hand during their professional education, they had not become adept at implementing this experiential pedagogy into their own preschool and primary classrooms. This article describes the strategies the authors used to motivate their college students to integrate S-L into the classrooms where they were completing their capstone internship. It recounts these teacher education students' successes in planning and implementing effective S-L projects and identifies the benefits that came to the preservice teachers, their young students, and the schools and communities where they taught.     

乌托邦与政治共同体的维系

由于乌托邦主义和反乌托邦主义都是建立在对人的一种预判上,而对人的预判是一种基于不完全归纳的经验性命题。经验性命题随着判断者经验的不同会有所差异。因此,对于"政治共同体是否需要乌托邦"的问题,既无法证实,亦无法证伪。退一步讲,假定政治共同体的维系确实需要乌托邦,那么,我们也要面临如何避免乌托邦的设计者将"己之所欲"强加于人的问题。由于乌托邦的特性决定了将其置于变动或模糊状态的做法,都会导致乌托邦的非乌托邦化困境,所以避免将乌托邦强加于政治共同体成员的惟一之路就是:使乌托邦远离强制性政治权力。     

Metropolitan College: Building Community Value Through Education–Business Partnerships

Metropolitan College is a distinctive and innovative business–education partnership that provides educational opportunities to many Kentucky residents who would otherwise be unable to attend college. The program also provides significant, tangible benefits to the business and education partners, as well as to the local and statewide community. This article outlines the structure of the Metropolitan College, chronicles some measures of program impact, and briefly describes the values on which the program was founded and continues to operate.