The Importance Of Service-Learning

Tulane, being the first private research university in the nation to institute a public service requirement for graduation, clearly attracts students who are similarly motivated towards civic engagement and public outreach. As an active member of the Service Council at the William Penn Charter School, I have witnessed firsthand the value of learning outside of the classroom and engaging with the world. One of the projects I am most involved with is providing meals for the hungry at the St. Francis Inn soup kitchen. As a food server at the Inn, I have learned more about mankind and interactions between people than would ever be possible in a classroom alone. Penn Charter high school, through its Quaker philosophy, has inspired me to seek out a life devoted to the common good. As a result of service learning courses at Tulane, such as Conservation Biology and Pathways to Urban Sustainability, I will be learning, applying knowledge and making an impact before I even graduate.

Since the 1990s, service-learning and volunteerism have become pervasive throughout higher education. Many campuses now have a center for civic engagement and have hired service-learning coordinators. Large organizations and initiatives have dedicated themselves to promoting and enhancing engagement research and practices. We even have engaged campus awards and designations at the national and state level. Civic engagement is a professional field of study and practice and it is our best hope for bringing in a discussion about sense of community.

In 2013 Nazareth College located in Rochester, NY was awarded the Presidential Award for Community Service, based largely on an innovative education summer program for urban youth that included service-learning classes. In the same year this program was terminated and service-learning faculty had to advocate in order to maintain a director level for the Center for Service Learning. These paradoxical events indicate the ongoing opportunities and challenges for institutionalizing engaged learning, service, and scholarship at tuition-driven institutions. The case highlights strategic

Throughout my service learning, I have mainly experienced working with children, at all different levels of skill set. There are several children in my classroom, who have Individualized Education Programs (IEP). I have worked with most of these particular students in small groups. One student I have spent a quality amount of time with is recovering from a serious brain injury. Although, my assistance has also been provided to all the students through teaching lessons and reading to the classroom. Thus, my service learning experience, has consists mainly of differentiating approaches, in order to provide support to students with a vast range of ability.

A situation our clinical group encountered at our service learning project involved working with other volunteers at Ronald McDonald House to get a task done more efficiently. During our volunteer time, organizing boxes of donations and cleaning up any leftover boxes in the building’s basement was one of our tasks. During this, we accumulated a large quantity of boxes and trash that needed to be taken out to the dumpster. Instead of attempting to carry all these boxes up a small stairwell, and possibly create a disturbance for the house residents, we communicated with the lead volunteer staff and were able to load the boxes on a utility lift. This simple situation shows the type of active communication and mindfulness our group utilized during our time at our service learning project.

For my service-learning assignment, I will be assisting students with their English via, Learn English Online (LEO). Our first week was used as an Open House, where we tried to work out some technical errors, and get a feel for the program we will be using. This was our first week of LEO, and I had only one student, Suyuan Chen, a 26-year-old PhD student from China. Since it was an Open House, there wasn’t an exact lesson for the week, but I did take the opportunity to go over Past Tense Verbs with Suyuan. I had her tell me stories about previous vacations, so I could hear her use verbs in the past tense, and help her correct her speech. Suyuan, also had some issues when it comes to using plurals, and singular forms of a noun, we worked on

Service learning is an up and coming method of teaching in many universities across the country. Community service and volunteering are very similar to service learning, so similar in fact that people tend to get them confused or believe that they are all the same thing. Although, they are similar to service learning projects, they are not at all the same. Service learning projects are educationally based projects that are not only beneficial to the community in which students and educators are working in, but it is also beneficial to the students and educators who are working with the community (McDonald & Dominguez, 2015).

By participating in Service Learning I have learned that helping others in and around the community not only makes myself feel good for helping someone, but also leaves a positive impact on those that I help/interact with. I love volunteering at the elementary schools over the years I have realized how hard teachers work and by helping them out once a week by grading some papers, making copies and any other busy work they may have for me to do. Also working at the little kid camp I learned that it takes a lot of patients to work with kids trying to get them to listen, follow instructions and learn a routine is way harder than you think it would be. By contributing my free time to help others out I hope I am able to leave a positive impact on

It is paramount as educators to sustain a commitment to service learning, as it has the potential for personalised and professional development (Spencer, Cox-Peterson & Crawford 2005). Spencer, Cox-Peterson & Crawford (2005) highlighted the benefits of integrating service learning into pre-service and current teacher education as prudently planned service learning projects contribute to superior teacher learning and growth of primary aged students.

Service-learning has a massive potential as a teaching and learning strategy in college and universities. It gives students a wide range of experience, which often benefit others and the community, while also advancing the goals of curriculum-based learning. Service-learning is often mistaken with volunteering and communication services. Both activities are a form of service within a company and they are not necessary to have a connection with educational purposes, which is the main objective of all service learning projects. Volunteering is a form of working towards helping a specific social or educational duty in the community with no financial gain. Hence, it is similar to community service, because both terms and both groups take the time,

Service Learning. Yorio and Ye (2012) defines service-learning as “is an experience-based approach to education and learning that has a set of diverse learning outcomes” (p. 9). Although service learning is connecting classroom learning with community projects, it differs from community service which is simply voluntary work intended to help people

Working to improve the lives of others is often noted as one of the most remarkable ways to improve one’s own life. It is important to understand that service learning is a not a new method of education, although it has grown and developed quite a bit over the years. The benefits of service learning are countless. It is an undeniably constructive effort for people of all ages to participate in. Exposing these types of activities on youth is particularly helpful to those individuals in myriad ways. Discovering the ability to improve something else while also benefitting yourself and untold amounts of other people can change a person’s entire perspective on life. Implementing this type of learning into more schools would allow these types of

The author goes on to state that service learning projects are required to be completed by every Jackson State graduate. This has led to over 7000 hours of local community service in the area being completed. This not only leads to several benefits from the students, but the community gains many as

Switching teachers, students, and even the academic level of students makes for both an interesting and somewhat difficult transition in terms of service learning. Unlike Mrs. Gawriluk’s classes, which throughout the day honors or advanced placement, Mrs. Casanova’s classes are regular Government in the morning and regular Economies in the afternoon. The rapport I have with the students is also a bit lacking, as I have only ever meet the students once during an observation under my internship class. As such, I have not been able to have group interactions with the students, and the students are more hesitant to seek help from me within the classroom. As only one notable example of me answering a student’s question comes to mind; the question itself was based on my opinion of UCF, not even on the content within their class. Beyond this change, Mrs. Casanova is a young, first year teacher that did not graduate without a full Education degree. While I had expected to see this teacher’s newbie like style to come out, I however, have been pleasantly surprised to see Mrs. Casanova doing more or less what Mrs. Gawriluk does within her class. This of course is due to the PLC in which she and another teacher are in with Gawriluk, and the support the school gives to new teachers. This Empowering of school culture comes into play within these PLC groups, as teachers who are regular, first year teachers are paired with veteran, AP or honors teachers. This helps get rid of the stigma first year teachers may have about teaching regular kids, as the strategies and support they receive are tailored to higher achieving students.

As seen in the previous literature, much of the empirical research in the last twenty years has focused on documenting the positive student outcomes associated with service-learning. Despite this focus, only few studies have also explored the role individual characteristics play in participation in such outcomes. Susan Jones (2002), for example, finds that the student’s ability to actively participate in all aspects of her/his service-learning experience depends on “the intersection of the student’s own background. . . , developmental readiness for such a learning experience, and the privileging conditions that put a college student in a community service organization as a volunteer in the first place” (p. 13). Accordingly, different