SERVICE LEARNING AND OLDER ADULTS

Youth and older adults are the most valuable sources of community volunteerism in the United States today. An important part of involving youth in service to others has been the proliferation and sophistication of service-learning programs that provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and reflection. Increasingly, service learning is recognized as an integral part of both community involvement and education, and youth are provided with growing opportunities to combine practice and knowledge. As this movement has developed, however, older adult volunteers have been largely excluded. Despite theory and observation that demonstrates older adults' desire to stay engaged in learning and service, programs providing them with structured opportunities are rare. After outlining the development and expansion of service-learning programs for youth in the United States, this paper asks the question, ''Why not service learning for elders?'' analyzes some of the potential benefits of institutionalizing such an approach, and highlights promising efforts in the field.     

Queer (v.) Pedagogy

A great deal of research on multiculturalism looks at different approaches to multicultural education and visions of multicultural teaching and learning. Though some research theorizes about how preservice teachers might learn about race or gender, there is very little work that helps teacher educators understand what learning about diversity more broadly, might look like. This study uses the conceptual framework developed by Paine to raise questions about and illuminate differences in the learning outcomes of preservice teachers who participated in two similar yet notably different service-learning experiences. Through examinations of writing tasks we find that teacher learning did indeed depend on the opportunities to learn provided by service-learning placements. Service-learning experiences that facilitated non-traditional power dynamics, engaged out-of-school contexts, and connected to teaching pedagogy were associated with more complex understandings of diversity. We suggest that attention to the relationships between service experiences and learning will help us better manage service learning limitations, better understand the impact of service-learning, and better understand the opportunities to learn inherent in such activities.     

Implementing Quality Service-Learning Programs in Community Colleges

This cross-case comparative study at Western Community College and the University of the Coast explored through a constructive lens the characteristics that lead to sustainable, high quality service-learning programs and how they are implemented at institutions of higher education. The researchers determined that both Western Community College and the University of the Coast (a) have diverse collaborative partnerships that promote excellent communication between all of the entities, (b) offer a wide variety of service-learning courses to connect curricular and cocurricular experiences, (c) have a stable funding base, (d) provide the necessary resources, (e) have continuity in staffing, and (f) incorporate feedback and assessment into their respective service-learning programs. The findings from this study, based on one-on-one interviews, focus groups, observations, and document analysis, serve as a model on how to create quality and sustainable service-learning programs that combine academic scholarship, off-campus learning discoveries, reflection, civic engagement, and meaningful community service. The research may be applicable for educators at community colleges at various stages in developing service-learning programs, or who are transforming faltering programs, trying to make them sustainable.     

Engaging Criminal Justice Students through Service Learning

The increasing popularity of service learning has led to the implementation of the pedagogy across educational levels and disciplines. Evidence of its utilization in criminal justice education spans two decades, most of which include case studies of service-learning courses or projects. These examples of service-learning implementation seem to serve as a best practices guide for other faculty and researchers interested in adopting the pedagogy. By examining responses to offender populations and policy areas by students (n = 37) involved in a service-learning course, the current research adds to this “best practices” approach and is intended to instigate further examination of the benefits of service learning for criminal justice students and the discipline.     

论"服务学习"

服务学习有着将社区服务与学术课程结合起来的课程与教学取向.这一取向历久弥新,成为当今世界最主要的课程改革追求之一.服务学习最主要的特征包括:明确而真实的学习目标、适应真实的社区需要、儿童做决定以及分析性反思.时至今日,服务学习已经历三个历史时期,发展到制度化阶段.服务学习对学生的学术性学习成绩的提高、个性及社会性发展、公民责任感与职业意识的加强均有显著、积极的影响.而服务学习价值的体现,依赖于其高质量和创造性的实施.探讨服务学习对完善我国方兴未艾的"社区服务和社会实践"乃至整个综合实践活动课程具有不可替代的作用.     

Service-Learning for Remedial Reading and Writing Students

In 2008, Queensborough Community College incorporated service learning into 15 remedial reading and writing courses. To determine its impact, statistical analyses were performed, and they demonstrated significantly (a) higher GPAs, (b) improved rates of retention, and (c) the completion of more college credits among service learning participants. In addition, an ANOVA revealed insights into the individual service-learning projects. It was determined that the most effective programs (a) directly connected the service-learning activity to the course curriculum, (b) provided multiple experiences performing tasks, and (c) placed students in community-based organizations appropriate for their level of literacy.     

Reframing Service-Learning as Learning and Participation With Urban Youth

This article describes a critical service-learning project that resulted from an educational partnership among a national teachers' union, a local teachers' union, and a major research university. The partnership—funded by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service, Learn and Serve program—focused on professional development opportunities for K–12 educators across subject areas throughout an urban school district. Teachers enrolled in a university-level graduate course where they learned about critical service-learning, engaged in community-based activities, developed partnerships with local organizations, and facilitated critical service-learning projects in local schools and communities. Here, we highlight one of the many projects that emerged from this partnership as we attempt to connect theory with practice by reframing service-learning as learning and participation. We ask: How can a reframing of service-learning as learning and participation impact how we understand the educative and social engagements of four urban youth?     

美国高校服务学习的社会文化意义探寻

20世纪90年代初期,联结整合社区服务与学术课程的服务学习在美国高校崭露头角.经过近20年的改革与发展,服务学习已经成为美国当代高等教育的一大特色.作为一项高等教育活动,服务学习在实践中对美国的社会生活、文化理念产生的重要意义耐人寻味,主要体现在以下三个方面:1)对美国个人主义文化的超越;2)对美国多元文化融合的推动;...     

“服务—学习”教学理念的应用

随着高校教学改革的深化,高校教学理念落后、教学方法陈旧、学习方法单一保守、学生学习被动的问题越发凸显,日益成为制约高等教育质量提升的瓶颈。"服务—学习"有以下几方面的优势:1.以课程学习、社区服务与经验反思的结合为核心;2.以学生为中心;3.以能力培养为目的;4.以社区需求为导向;5.理论联系实际,培养公民意识和社会责任感等,可以应用于我国的教学改革中。     

Service Learning and Early Childhood Education: Intersection of Developmentally Appropriate Practice and P.A.R.E.

ABSTRACT

Service learning (SL) is both a pedagogy and philosophy adopted by many early childhood teacher educators. Extant research suggests the incorporation of service-learning can be effective for facilitating preservice teacher learning of curriculum, pedagogy, approaches to diverse learners and families as well as establishing a professional identity. To guide the intentional adoption of SL and its assessment in early childhood teacher education programs, the authors present the Developmentally Appropriate Practice /P.A.R.E. model and illustrate how the model might be applied in a teacher education program. Challenges to incorporating service-learning in early childhood education programs and future areas of research are described.     

Exploring How a Study Abroad and International Service-Learning Project Shaped Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Humanizing Pedagogy

In an attempt to better prepare future teachers to fight against social injustice, support their culturally and linguistically diverse students and wrestle with social and educational complexities around the globe, many education programs have increased the number of study abroad programs and international service learning projects. In this qualitative study, we explored seven preservice teachers’ experiences related to humanizing pedagogy after participating in a study abroad program combined with an international service-learning project in a South African rural community. Analyzing multiple data sources such as interviews and reflective journals, we discovered that the preservice teachers grappled with the political, social, economic, and educational differences they encountered during the international project and wrestled with conflicting ideas and beliefs about poverty and language. They identified their relationships with students as catalysts to address these educational issues and their need to reverse systemic inequities. They built caring relationships with students in the community and developed additive perspectives the focused on the students’ community cultural capital. The preservice teachers expressed deep critical reflection and a desire to promote a more fully human educational world where students have the opportunities to enact their agency, their creativity, and their language and culture.     

Using a Critical Service-Learning Approach to Facilitate Civic Identity Development

This article highlights elements of civic engagement programs that have the rich potential to facilitate civic identity development. Focusing on research with alumni, the study examines 3 civic engagement programs, the approaches of which are guided by critical service-learning. It explores elements of the experiences that alumni name as influential to their learning, development, and present commitments to understand the ways that civic engagement programs based in a critical service-learning approach can encourage them to develop commitments to active citizenship as exemplified by Knefelkamp's (2008) vision of a mature sense of civic identity.     

Social Justice and the Future of Higher Education Kinesiology

ABSTRACT

This article presents a rationale for the infusion of social justice into kinesiology programs for the purpose of reducing inequities in society. Specifically, the current climate for social justice is considered and discussed using examples from an university-inspired service-learning initiative, law, and politics. Of note are the following areas of discussion: (a) differentiation between social diversity and social justice, (b) public pedagogy as a means by which to inspire service action, (c) the creation of climates for speech and application of social justice, (d) modeling and socialization for equity, and (e) the neoliberal threat to inclusiveness. The article concludes with suggestions for practice, research, and training to implore kinesiology programs to position movement as an issue of justice.     

高职教育“服务学习项目”的设计与实践——以江苏经贸职业技术学院为例

服务学习是一种经验教育模式,服务者(学生)通过参加服务活动促进自身的学习与发展。江苏经贸职业技术学院按照专业实践、社会实践、社团活动和专题活动四个模块分别开展服务学习项目活动,同时通过整合校内外优质资源,建立服务学习的导学体系及良性互动机制。服务学习项目的设计与实践对于激发学生自主管理、自觉学习、自我探索的内在动力及社会责任感将会起到积极作用。     

Service-Learning Programs and the Knowledge Economy: Exploring the Tensions

Community service-learning (CSL) programs are proliferating in Canadian higher education. University programs promote students’ experiential learning in community as part of a course; students most often engage in unpaid work in not-for-profit organizations and reflect on that experience in relation to their classroom learning. However, programs tend to occupy an ambivalent position in higher education—they are seen as important, but at the same time are often under-resourced and treated as marginal to universities’ core activities. This paper argues that the contradictory position of service-learning is partly related to the bifurcated view of theoretical and practical knowledge perpetuated in knowledge economy discourse. Drawing on interviews with service-learning program leaders, it explores their responses to knowledge economy discourse. Findings suggest varying levels of resistance; some leaders comply with university pressures to engage in transactional approaches to service-learning, while others seek to integrate theoretical and practical knowledge through the creation of hybrid learning networks. This paper outlines the reasons for and implications of different responses and suggests that socio-cultural learning theories can inform pedagogical approaches within programs.     

Service Learning as a Mechanism for Change in Attitudes and Perceptions of Human Services Students Toward Substance-Dependent Mothers

The purpose of the study was to explore the potential effectiveness of service learning as a pedagogical technique for providing substance abuse education to human services/social work students. Using a quasi-experimental design, the authors assigned 38 human services undergraduate students to experimental and comparison groups on the basis of their availability to attend a service-learning project in substance abuse. The service learning consisted of a 30-min educational presentation followed by a visit to a residential substance abuse treatment facility for women. Results indicated that service learning in substance abuse had a positive effect on the general knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of human services students toward substance-dependent mothers and their children. The findings from this exploratory study support future research in this area.     

美国高校服务学习及其推广

校园契约及其服务学习在美国经过多年的实践,被证明是促进高等教育与社会和谐发展和社会进步的有效方法,并且还在不断向前发展。由于社会发展阶段与教育体制的差异,服务学习理念及其实践的国际化推广遇到了一些障碍。探讨服务学习在推广、实施过程中可能遇到的不利因素,从中获取相关经验,有利促进服务学习在我国高等教育改革中的实施。     

Asian Pacific Americans and Critical Race Theory: An Examination of School Racial Climate

We attempt to answer where the social justice is in service-learning by probing what it is, how it looks in the process of being institutionalized at a Jesuit university, and why it is important. We develop themes about institutionalizing service-learning from a social justice perspective. Our themes were developed through an analysis of service-learning research focused on institutionalization and social justice, and a case study of a Jesuit university attempting to institutionalize it, including five faculty action research service-learning projects. From these themes, we share lessons that we learned from this experience.     

Examining Service-Learning Literature in Physical Education Teacher Education: Recommendations for Practice and Research

Service-learning is a teaching strategy designed to provide learners opportunities to transfer theory to practice in an authentic environment while concurrently meeting genuine needs in the community. The reciprocal nature of service-learning differentiates this pedagogy from other learning venues including field experiences, internships, and student teaching. Recently the interest surrounding, as well as the utilization of service-learning, has grown in numerous academic disciplines including physical education teacher education (PETE). PETE research investigating the impact of service-learning in regards to student and community outcomes is also emerging. The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the current PETE service-learning literature. Components of the review include examination of theoretical frameworks, exploration of the impact of service-learning on PETE students and community participants, and recommendations for practice and future research.     

Service learning and literacy tutoring: Academic impact on pre-service teachers

How does service learning impact content acquisition? Undergraduate pre-service teachers participating in a literacy tutoring service-learning experience are compared with pre-service teachers engaged in self-selected and independently directed tutoring sessions. The findings of this study support previous assertions that service-learning positively influences student academic achievement. The data gathered provide evidence that this positive influence is related to several design features. Specifically, the value placed on the service increased student motivation to learn course content. The frequency and variety of opportunities to reflect coupled with academic goals being embedded into the actual service experience strengthened connections between service and academic content.