How does service learning enhance the curriculum and or help students to understand the importance of individuals who made a difference?

According to Vanderbilt University, service learning is defined as: "A form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves."

Wikipedia explains service learning as: "An educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs."

That second definition is easier to comprehend, but it still feels more complicated than it needs to be. How about this: In service learning, students learn educational standards through tackling real-life problems in their community.

Community service, as many of us know, has been a part of educational systems for years. But what takes service learning to the next level is that it combines serving the community with the rich academic frontloading, assessment, and reflection typically seen in project-based learning.

In a service-learning unit, goals are clearly defined, and according to The Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement, there are many kinds of projects that classrooms can adopt. Classes can be involved in direct issues that are more personal and face-to-face, like working with the homeless. Involvement can be indirect where the students are working on broader issues, perhaps an environmental problem that is local. The unit can also include advocacy that centers on educating others about the issues. Additionally, the unit can be research-based where the students act to curate and present on information based on public needs.

Here are several ideas for service-learning units:

• Work on a Habitat for Humanity building site.
• Pack up food bags for the homeless.
• Adopt-a-Highway.
• Set up a tutoring system or reading buddies with younger students.
• Clean up a local park or beach.
• Launch a drought and water awareness campaign.
• Create a “pen pal” video conferencing group with a senior citizens home.

It’s not enough to help others. Deep service learning isn’t afraid to tackle the rigorous standards along with the service. You might find it helpful to split your unit into four parts:

1. Pre-Reflection: Have your students brainstorm in writing the ways in which they can help their world or their local community. Check out Newsela, CNN Student News, or their local papers for articles on current events and issues of interest to get in informational reading, as well.

2. Research: Guide your students in techniques to help them search wisely and efficiently. They should conduct online polls (crowdsourcing) and create graphs to chart their findings. Students should summarize their findings using embedded images, graphs, and other multimedia elements. (Try an infographic tool like Piktochart.)

3. Presentation: Have your students present their findings to the school, each other, and outside stakeholders. They can develop posters to promote their call to action, write a letter campaign, or develop a simple website using Weebly. Students can “go on the road” with their findings to local schools and organizations or produce screencasts for the school website.

4. Reflection: Ask your students to think back on what they gained from journeying through this project. Have them reflect on the following:

• What did you learn about the topic?
• What did you learn about yourself?
• How do you now think differently?

Another element that tends to make service learning unique is that multiple stakeholders assess students:

Community assessment: The community partners can get their say as well by assessing the students. They may even get voice in developing the rubric or criteria for evaluating the students.

Teacher assessment: Along with evaluating students on the content, you might additionally assess them on how well they accomplished the writing, graphing, researching, or speaking.

Student assessment: Your students might conduct self-assessment as a form of reflection. They also may assist in developing the rubric that other stakeholders use to assess them.

What we’re talking about here is a form of engagement. It’s about leveraging the need to do something good in the world as a means to help kids hit their learning objectives. It’s about teaching empathy as well as literacy. It’s about teaching compassion as well as composition. It’s about teaching advocacy as well as algebra.

What is your take on or experience with service learning? Please share in the comments section below.

Learning outcomes are statements of the knowledge, skills and abilities that individual students should have and should be able to demonstrate upon the completion of a learning experience or sequence of experiences[1]. It is important to note that learning outcomes do differ from school to school, and curriculum to curriculum. The 5 learning outcomes that we feel give the best all-round approach to driving personal growth and development in students focus on the following[2]:

1. A strong sense of identity – children feel safe, secure and supported, they show independence, autonomy, resilience, respect for others, care and empathy.
2. Connection with and contribution to their world – children develop a sense of belonging, respond to diversity with respect, become aware of fairness, show respect for the environment and become socially responsible. 
3. Strong sense of wellbeing – students become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing and take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. 
4. Confident and involved learners – students develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity. They focus on skills that include problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. They can transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another and learn through connecting with people, places, technologies and natural and processed materials.
5. Effective communicators – students interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes and express ideas and create meaning using a range of media. They also use information and communication technologies to access information, investigate ideas and represent their thinking.

From the above, it is clear that these 5 learning outcomes focus on tracking and managing a student’s progress, not just from a knowledge and work retention level, but on a personal level as well. So how do you ensure that the way you are teaching facilitates these outcomes? The answer is simple, by incorporating teaching techniques and pedagogies that aim to build on these outcomes, like service-learning.

Service-Learning not only fulfills the institution’s historic mission, but reinforces the concepts woven throughout the university’s strategic plan. Teaching and advising, research and scholarship, outreach, and the university community can all be enhanced through student and faculty involvement in community service-learning.

1. Service-Learning is a high impact practice for student success.

Students benefit through…

• hands-on use of skills and knowledge that increases relevance of academic skills
• accommodation of different learning styles
• interaction with people of diverse cultures and lifestyles
• increased sense of self-efficacy, analytical skills, and social development
• valuable and competitive career guidance and experience
• opportunities for meaningful involvement with the local community
• increased civic responsibility
• “It brings books to life and life to books.”

2. Service-learning has a positive effect on students:

• personal and interpersonal development
• leadership and communication skills
• reducing stereotypes and facilitating cultural & racial understanding
• sense of social responsibility and citizenship skills
• commitment to service
• academic learning
• ability to apply what they have learned in “the real world”
• career development
• relationships with faculty involved in service-learning
• satisfaction with college
• physical health (benefits of volunteering)

Adapted from CSU Service-Learning Faculty Manual, Fourth Edition; courtesy, The Institute for Learning and Teaching at Colorado State University

3. Service-Learning is part of a national movement in higher education to increase civic and political engagement.

See the national survey findings of civic engagement in U.S. research universities.

4. Service-Learning helps prepare students for the job market.

Seventy-three percent of employers would like to see “The ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings through internships or other hands-on experiences” emphasized more in higher education. -AACU survey of employers.

5. Service-Learning provides useful services in the community and communities report enhanced university relations.