Service-Learning Workshop
Lead Presenter: Natalie Cooke, Nutrition Sciences doctoral student
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Research Building III, Room 230 3:30-5:00pm
Approximately 40 people
Workshop Description:
This well attended two-part workshop covered the basics of Service-learning and the ways it differs from traditional community service and volunteering. Ms. Cooke spoke on the value and implementation of a service-learning class. She also discussed the amount of work involved in starting a program and the importance of the universities commitment to creating a hands-on learning environment across the curriculum.
Synthesis:
This workshop was exciting to me. I see service-learning as a natural extension of the classroom, at all education levels. As I searched for information on curriculum and looked for actualized programs, I started wondering why I was not seeing classes and projects offered in every department at NCSU. Many other schools and universities implemented service-learning programs more than fifteen-years ago. This is the sort of real world experience that keeps kids and adults in school.
Service-learning reminds me of teaching whole-language reading. Children begin reading by making their own books, drawing pictures of stories, and telling those stories to an adult who writes the story in the child’s book. Soon, the children are reading the stories they authored, followed by writing the stories on their own. The children progress by continuing to read and write and their work becomes more sophisticated. This process grows into a love of language, and reading and writing are a natural part of the process of making and doing. It is a real-life experience with long-term implications that have positive benefits that last a lifetime.
By combining academic theory with practical real-life experience, service-learning provides students with an expansive understanding of the course content. It prepares students for citizenship by engaging them directly with community problems, challenging their assumptions and requiring them to consider multiple points of view, and multiple paths to solution. Students develop an enriched respect for the value of being a socially responsible citizen.
The concept is a simple one: students provide service in their community that is directly connected to their academic coursework and the community provides an educational experience for the student. Involvement with the larger community provides increased value to the academic and public purpose of our state schools and universities. Happily, my enthusiasm for Service Learning is on the mark. I found the interest in incorporating Service Learning at the highest levels at NC State. The findings: “At the request of the Provost and the Vice Chancellor for Extension, Engagement and Economic Development, the Committee on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Courses at NC State was formed in early 2012 to develop a series of suggestions concerning the formal recognition of academic course-based service-learning at NC State.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Research Building III, Room 230 3:30-5:00pm
Approximately 40 people
Workshop Description:
This well attended two-part workshop covered the basics of Service-learning and the ways it differs from traditional community service and volunteering. Ms. Cooke spoke on the value and implementation of a service-learning class. She also discussed the amount of work involved in starting a program and the importance of the universities commitment to creating a hands-on learning environment across the curriculum.
Synthesis:
This workshop was exciting to me. I see service-learning as a natural extension of the classroom, at all education levels. As I searched for information on curriculum and looked for actualized programs, I started wondering why I was not seeing classes and projects offered in every department at NCSU. Many other schools and universities implemented service-learning programs more than fifteen-years ago. This is the sort of real world experience that keeps kids and adults in school.
Service-learning reminds me of teaching whole-language reading. Children begin reading by making their own books, drawing pictures of stories, and telling those stories to an adult who writes the story in the child’s book. Soon, the children are reading the stories they authored, followed by writing the stories on their own. The children progress by continuing to read and write and their work becomes more sophisticated. This process grows into a love of language, and reading and writing are a natural part of the process of making and doing. It is a real-life experience with long-term implications that have positive benefits that last a lifetime.
By combining academic theory with practical real-life experience, service-learning provides students with an expansive understanding of the course content. It prepares students for citizenship by engaging them directly with community problems, challenging their assumptions and requiring them to consider multiple points of view, and multiple paths to solution. Students develop an enriched respect for the value of being a socially responsible citizen.
The concept is a simple one: students provide service in their community that is directly connected to their academic coursework and the community provides an educational experience for the student. Involvement with the larger community provides increased value to the academic and public purpose of our state schools and universities. Happily, my enthusiasm for Service Learning is on the mark. I found the interest in incorporating Service Learning at the highest levels at NC State. The findings: “At the request of the Provost and the Vice Chancellor for Extension, Engagement and Economic Development, the Committee on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Courses at NC State was formed in early 2012 to develop a series of suggestions concerning the formal recognition of academic course-based service-learning at NC State.
Workshop Reflection and Activities
Workshop Part I: Pre-Workshop Activity
Service-learning classes offered at universities:
Duke University Service Learning
Students engage in a minimum of 20 hours of planned service activities.
The service experience is integrally related to the academic subject matter of the course.
Coursework involves critical reflection on the relationship between academic course content and the service experience.
ARTSVIS 390S: (Art, Art History, and Visual Studies)
Building Creative Communities
This course explores how cultural bridges are created between migrant and local communities; in particular the ones build around youth and education. The course will incorporate a theoretical framework and a practical, hands-on experience on the topic of creative practices and community building.
The theoretical framework will introduce students to interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary way to look at culture and its products. The students will look at case-studies related specifically to education, human rights, environmental survival, and artistic practices in the Americas. For example: social movements that use aesthetic means to portray their demands (such as The Mothers of May Square in Argentina, the Landless Movement in Brazil, the Coalition of Farm Workers in Immokalee, Florida, among others), utopian (green) communities in the savannas of the Amazon (Gaviotas in Colombia), and community based and socially engaged creative practices (particularly in the work of some creative communities in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Chile and Mexico).
Students will have the opportunity to explore the issues and exchange experiences while documenting stories in Duke and Durham. There will be an individual and collective project (a photo mural, collective performance, dramatic reading, short documentary) developed as part of the course. The actual project is based on the ideal of unleashing human potential, exploring new possibilities and building inclusive and vibrant communities.
Cornell University Service Learning
Various colleges and disciplines offer service-learning courses to engage students, faculty, and community partners on issues relating to poverty, literacy, education, access, health care, immigration, hunger, affordable housing, environment, and others. These courses are academically rigorous and offer the opportunity to link theory and practice through structured public service activities, gain hands-on problem-solving skills, and develop critical thinking skills. The classes are in collaboration with local communities, and students’ gain further understanding and a ‘real world’ appreciation of the discipline, while achieving an enhanced sense of community responsibility.
DEA 4300 – (Design and Environmental Analysis)
Furniture as a Social Art
Focuses on how innovation in furniture design is inspired. The four sources of inspiration explored are user needs, aesthetic interpretation, material and manufacturing technologies, and environmental impact. The interplay among these four sources of inspiration is examined with emphasis on the first, user needs. Assignments involve both analyzing furniture products currently on the market and designing and constructing a furniture piece for a special population inclusive of young children, older adults, and people of any age living with a congenital or hereditary condition, injury, or disease.
FSAD 4660 – (Fiber Science and Apparel Design)
Textiles, Apparel, and Innovation
Designed for students in all FSAD options. Explores the relationship between materials and design with a concentration on the use of innovative textile materials in apparel. Both aesthetic and functional issues are addressed. The course consists of a combination of lecture, discussion of readings, oral reports, a research paper, and project work.
Part II: The “In-person” Workshop:
Discussion and examples of Service-learning:
The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse cites the difference between service-learning and community service:
Service-Learning Example: When students remove trash from a streambed, analyze what they found, share the results and offer suggestions for the neighborhood to reduce pollution, and then reflect on their experience that is service-learning.
Community service example: If students remove trash from a streambed: they are providing a service to the community as volunteers.
Service-learning is a credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs. The project is incorporated into coursework to help classroom theory become real-life experience.
At the close of the project students write a reflection paper examining and interpreting the experience. It is the process of looking back at the successes and mistakes, the good and bad, recognizing what has been gained, lost, or achieved, and connecting these conclusions to future actions and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.
Developing and implementing a service-learning project
Determining which learning objectives fit well with service-learning:
Measureable/evaluate
Relevant to the subject/class
Implementing and sustaining the service-learning project:
Establish criteria for the selection of community service placements
Provide educationally sound mechanisms to harvest the community learning
Re-think the faculty instructional role
Be prepared for uncertainty and variation in student learning outcomes
Identify who will be involved
Plan a budget
Establish criteria for monitoring
Consider how to retain good community members for future projects
Identify resources needed to sustain the service-learning project
Identify Specific learning objectives:
Set learning goals for students
Provide support for students to learn how to harvest the community learning
Minimize the distinction between the student’s community learning role and the classroom learning role
Maximize the community responsibility orientation of the course
Clearly articulated learning objectives help students to differentiate among types of knowledge.
Declarative knowledge: the knowledge of facts and concepts that can be stated or declared.
Procedural knowledge: involves knowing how and knowing when to apply various procedures, methods, theories, styles, or approaches.
Draft a plan and syllabus
Basic factors to take into account for a successful project:
The number of students
Units offered (hours per week plus homework expected)
Time of day the class scheduled
Where and how long are class meetings; how many meetings per semester
Course level: lower division, upper division, or graduate level.
Curricular requirements to fulfill state and school requirements
Choosing a community partner
Successful partnerships with a community partner are based on mutual understanding, respect, and trust. Before starting the project ask important questions: how many students can they take, what are transportation options, who will conduct orientation, are there health tests required, what skills are required? Provide clear, negotiated, written agreements (service contracts) and maintain communication (confirmation letters, thank-you letters, meetings, emails, phone). Look for staff interested in the project and willing to mentor your students. The project must beneficial to the community partner as well as the class to be successful.
The initial meeting
Tour of their facilities
Pitch the project: bring written outline of expectations and objectives
Responsibilities: for all parties
Set-up a follow-up conversation before either side makes a commitment
Student Reflection
A quality reflection assignment is a critical first step in facilitating students' learning from service-learning experiences.
Evaluating Ideas and Types Of Evaluations
Choose the criteria for assessment: e.g., argument, evidence, and clarity
Descriptors: the characteristics associated with each dimension (e.g., argument is demonstrable and original, evidence is diverse and compelling)
Performance levels: a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion
Group and Self-Assessment Tool
Create categories for peers and self-assessment- 4-point system plus comments
Pre-post interviews
Objective evaluation of skills
Surveys
Student presentations
Community impact
Did the project facilitate discussion in your class? Among other faculty?
Faculty Challenges and Assessments
Was it to time-consuming? Would it take less time if repeated?
Is the project sustainable?
Will your community partner continue to work with you and/or your school? If not, why?
Do all parties view the relationship as mutually beneficial and as an equal partnership?
Because service-learning brings a third party into the traditional teacher-student learning relationship, including your community partner in assessment can add a positive dimension to your analysis of the project. Consider asking community partners to complete evaluation forms, provide feedback, and stay in touch regarding students’ performance. The community partner will need detailed information on exactly what and how you want them to evaluate your students, and be explicit about how the partner’s assessment will be factored into students’ grades.
Workshop Part I: Pre-Workshop Activity
Service-learning classes offered at universities:
Duke University Service Learning
Students engage in a minimum of 20 hours of planned service activities.
The service experience is integrally related to the academic subject matter of the course.
Coursework involves critical reflection on the relationship between academic course content and the service experience.
ARTSVIS 390S: (Art, Art History, and Visual Studies)
Building Creative Communities
This course explores how cultural bridges are created between migrant and local communities; in particular the ones build around youth and education. The course will incorporate a theoretical framework and a practical, hands-on experience on the topic of creative practices and community building.
The theoretical framework will introduce students to interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary way to look at culture and its products. The students will look at case-studies related specifically to education, human rights, environmental survival, and artistic practices in the Americas. For example: social movements that use aesthetic means to portray their demands (such as The Mothers of May Square in Argentina, the Landless Movement in Brazil, the Coalition of Farm Workers in Immokalee, Florida, among others), utopian (green) communities in the savannas of the Amazon (Gaviotas in Colombia), and community based and socially engaged creative practices (particularly in the work of some creative communities in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Chile and Mexico).
Students will have the opportunity to explore the issues and exchange experiences while documenting stories in Duke and Durham. There will be an individual and collective project (a photo mural, collective performance, dramatic reading, short documentary) developed as part of the course. The actual project is based on the ideal of unleashing human potential, exploring new possibilities and building inclusive and vibrant communities.
Cornell University Service Learning
Various colleges and disciplines offer service-learning courses to engage students, faculty, and community partners on issues relating to poverty, literacy, education, access, health care, immigration, hunger, affordable housing, environment, and others. These courses are academically rigorous and offer the opportunity to link theory and practice through structured public service activities, gain hands-on problem-solving skills, and develop critical thinking skills. The classes are in collaboration with local communities, and students’ gain further understanding and a ‘real world’ appreciation of the discipline, while achieving an enhanced sense of community responsibility.
DEA 4300 – (Design and Environmental Analysis)
Furniture as a Social Art
Focuses on how innovation in furniture design is inspired. The four sources of inspiration explored are user needs, aesthetic interpretation, material and manufacturing technologies, and environmental impact. The interplay among these four sources of inspiration is examined with emphasis on the first, user needs. Assignments involve both analyzing furniture products currently on the market and designing and constructing a furniture piece for a special population inclusive of young children, older adults, and people of any age living with a congenital or hereditary condition, injury, or disease.
FSAD 4660 – (Fiber Science and Apparel Design)
Textiles, Apparel, and Innovation
Designed for students in all FSAD options. Explores the relationship between materials and design with a concentration on the use of innovative textile materials in apparel. Both aesthetic and functional issues are addressed. The course consists of a combination of lecture, discussion of readings, oral reports, a research paper, and project work.
Part II: The “In-person” Workshop:
Discussion and examples of Service-learning:
The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse cites the difference between service-learning and community service:
Service-Learning Example: When students remove trash from a streambed, analyze what they found, share the results and offer suggestions for the neighborhood to reduce pollution, and then reflect on their experience that is service-learning.
Community service example: If students remove trash from a streambed: they are providing a service to the community as volunteers.
Service-learning is a credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs. The project is incorporated into coursework to help classroom theory become real-life experience.
At the close of the project students write a reflection paper examining and interpreting the experience. It is the process of looking back at the successes and mistakes, the good and bad, recognizing what has been gained, lost, or achieved, and connecting these conclusions to future actions and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.
Developing and implementing a service-learning project
Determining which learning objectives fit well with service-learning:
Measureable/evaluate
Relevant to the subject/class
Implementing and sustaining the service-learning project:
Establish criteria for the selection of community service placements
Provide educationally sound mechanisms to harvest the community learning
Re-think the faculty instructional role
Be prepared for uncertainty and variation in student learning outcomes
Identify who will be involved
Plan a budget
Establish criteria for monitoring
Consider how to retain good community members for future projects
Identify resources needed to sustain the service-learning project
Identify Specific learning objectives:
Set learning goals for students
Provide support for students to learn how to harvest the community learning
Minimize the distinction between the student’s community learning role and the classroom learning role
Maximize the community responsibility orientation of the course
Clearly articulated learning objectives help students to differentiate among types of knowledge.
Declarative knowledge: the knowledge of facts and concepts that can be stated or declared.
Procedural knowledge: involves knowing how and knowing when to apply various procedures, methods, theories, styles, or approaches.
Draft a plan and syllabus
Basic factors to take into account for a successful project:
The number of students
Units offered (hours per week plus homework expected)
Time of day the class scheduled
Where and how long are class meetings; how many meetings per semester
Course level: lower division, upper division, or graduate level.
Curricular requirements to fulfill state and school requirements
Choosing a community partner
Successful partnerships with a community partner are based on mutual understanding, respect, and trust. Before starting the project ask important questions: how many students can they take, what are transportation options, who will conduct orientation, are there health tests required, what skills are required? Provide clear, negotiated, written agreements (service contracts) and maintain communication (confirmation letters, thank-you letters, meetings, emails, phone). Look for staff interested in the project and willing to mentor your students. The project must beneficial to the community partner as well as the class to be successful.
The initial meeting
Tour of their facilities
Pitch the project: bring written outline of expectations and objectives
Responsibilities: for all parties
Set-up a follow-up conversation before either side makes a commitment
Student Reflection
A quality reflection assignment is a critical first step in facilitating students' learning from service-learning experiences.
Evaluating Ideas and Types Of Evaluations
Choose the criteria for assessment: e.g., argument, evidence, and clarity
Descriptors: the characteristics associated with each dimension (e.g., argument is demonstrable and original, evidence is diverse and compelling)
Performance levels: a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion
Group and Self-Assessment Tool
Create categories for peers and self-assessment- 4-point system plus comments
Pre-post interviews
Objective evaluation of skills
Surveys
Student presentations
Community impact
Did the project facilitate discussion in your class? Among other faculty?
Faculty Challenges and Assessments
Was it to time-consuming? Would it take less time if repeated?
Is the project sustainable?
Will your community partner continue to work with you and/or your school? If not, why?
Do all parties view the relationship as mutually beneficial and as an equal partnership?
Because service-learning brings a third party into the traditional teacher-student learning relationship, including your community partner in assessment can add a positive dimension to your analysis of the project. Consider asking community partners to complete evaluation forms, provide feedback, and stay in touch regarding students’ performance. The community partner will need detailed information on exactly what and how you want them to evaluate your students, and be explicit about how the partner’s assessment will be factored into students’ grades.