How to Get Started:

1. Consider the Courses You Teach

   Determine how community service might be helpful in enriching learning in your discipline. Service-Learning can be effectively used in every academic discipline. Some applications require a little more imagination than others, and often the best are not immediately obvious. Brainstorm about the application potential to your course. Think about how your course content connects with the community, and what kinds of volunteer opportunities might be available at that linkage point.

2. Visit the Center for Service-Learning

   Discuss and identify community placements that offer experiences that are relevant to your course. With over 200 possible placements, you will be able to find ample sites appropriate for your course. There also may be faculty from your discipline with Service-Learning experience that can provide input and direction.

3. Consider Your Goals and Motives

   With service sites or activities in mind, consider your goals and motives in using the application. What are you trying to accomplish for your students, yourself, and the community? Review your course objectives to determine those that can be linked to service. List two or three specific and measurable service and learning goals and objectives for your initiative.

4. Choose a Service-Learning Option

   Decide how you will incorporate community service into your course. Course service options can range from a one-time special project, to a twenty (or more) hour commitment to an agency or public school throughout the course of the semester. You can offer the option as extra-credit, an alternative to a library research paper or other required project, or a requirement for course completion.

5. Alter Your Course Description

   Once you have chosen how Service-Learning will be incorporated, review and redesign the syllabus. To be successfully integrated, the service experience must be more than just an “add on.” Identify some readings that might tie the service to specific objectives. Allocate class time for discussion of the experience even if all students do not participate. By consciously committing to integrating service, up-front and in writing, you are on your way to a successful implementation.

6. Explain and Promote Service-Learning

   Explain the twofold benefits to the student and the community. Center for Service-Learning staff are available to visit your classes to explain Service-Learning and the process of choosing a community site.

7. Help Students Learn

   By that we mean to, “Teach students how to harvest the service experience for knowledge.” Experiential learning requires that we learn where we are. We can learn a variety of things in many different situations, depending on the questions we are asking.

   Many of our students are not skilled in this practice. Students must be guided in their development of these objectives so that they are clearly linked with the academic objectives of your course.

   With their learning objectives in mind, students must be taught to focus on these objectives and related questions as they participate in the service setting. For example, while the math student is working on a Habitat for Humanity project, she thinks about the algebra or geometry used in developing the architectural plans. The business student may listen to worker’s communication patterns and draw conclusions about the managerial structure of the Rehabilitation Center. Because many students lack experience and confidence in learning in nontraditional, non-classroom environment, we must teach them these skills.

   While we do want our students prepared and oriented to service, we must be careful not to over prepare them for their service experience. If we tell them exactly what to expect, their experience becomes a comparison instead of an adventure. Give them a good overview and set them free.

8. Base Service Academically

   Link the service experience to your academic course content through deliberate and guided reflection.

   The practice of reflection is what combines the learning to the service. We cannot assume that learning will automatically result from experience. If it did, we’d all be a lot wiser, wouldn’t we? Like us, our students may not learn from their experience. They may even learn the wrong thing or reinforce existing prejudices. Reflection helps prevent this from occurring.

   Reflection can be in the form of journals, essays, class presentations, analytic papers, art work, drama, dialogue, or any other expressive act. The key to effectiveness is structure and direction. The nature and type of reflection determines it’s own outcome. An unstructured personal journal or group discussion is a great way to elicit effective disclosure. More specific academic outcomes will result from structuring these exercises with specific curriculum related questions. For example, a biology student might be directed to comment on ecological balance in her journal account of an exotic plant removal project at the Desert Botanical Gardens.

   Written reflection is a productive approach that helps improve basic communication skills at the same time it leads to critical thinking about the academic focus of course objectives. It is the most common and the least intrusive in terms of taking up class time.

   A more powerful, and in many ways more effective, approach is the purposeful dialogue or a class “Reflective Session.” This dialogue provides an opportunity for students to share experiences and exchange ideas and critical thoughts about the information being shared.

   To achieve academic outcomes, the dialogue, while spirited and free, should be bounded by the learning objectives of the course. The faculty member must serve both as a facilitator to maintain the flow of ideas and a commentator who jumps on the relevant items and develops it into teachable moment.

   This is not an easy task, but with practice the rewards are great. When we seem to be losing control, the process can be threatening, but it is often at these critical moments at the real learning occurs.

   The real advantage of the group based reflective sessions over the independently written forms is its power to develop a sense of community, which is one of the general goals of Service-Learning. Whatever form of reflection is chosen, it is important to do it early in the experience to assure that students understand the process. It should then be followed up regularly to monitor their progress.

   This type of deliberate and guided reflection is what leads to academic learning, improved service, and personal development. From the description of the learning cycle, we know that reflection is the key element in creating meaning.

9. Assess Outcomes

   Evaluate Service-Learning results as you would any other academic product. Remember, students are being graded on their learning, not their hours of service. Many of us feel uncertain when it comes to evaluating or assessing the outcomes of experiences we did not completely structure or present.

   By designing flexible measures, however, you can use the same standard used in evaluating any other written or oral presentation. Did the student master the course material? This is the only way to assure academic integrity of the strategy.

   You may also wish to utilize formative and summative research techniques to measure your success in achieving your objectives. Formative assessment can be achieved through reading student journals with an eye toward answering your initial questions. Periodic quick surveys can provide specific answers to issues such as student satisfaction with the process, utility of experimental techniques, etc.

   Summative techniques might be employed to compare learning outcomes for Service-Learning sections with those from traditionally taught sections. For quantitative research, you could collect data on the number and type of people served by your students and the number of hours provided.

Contact the Center for Service-Learning: email | phone: 480-461-7393 | fax: 480-461-7114