The pandemic has required faculty to rethink many things about the way they teach. Perhaps nothing has been more pedagogically confounding than trying to imagine
We all know that community-based learning, including service-learning, is a high impact practice and effectively engages students by connecting them to both their course content
We are doing some (late) spring cleaning to the Mentor Commons. Removing the oldest programs as we continue to add new ones. This 20-Minute Mentor is from 2010, so while the technology looks a little dated, the content remains highly relevant. We’ll continue to add more programs that we’re retiring from video library throughout the next few months.
If you’re looking for guidance on integrating service-learning into a new or existing course, you find it in this 20-Minute Mentor from Magna Publications.
Let’s start out by defining our terms. The definition of service-learning differentiates it from volunteering and old-fashioned community service.
It is true that there are many definitions about service-learning floating around, some since the 1970s. In fact, everyone reading this probably has one. But this definition is a solid working one, succinctly covering the distinctives:
Service-learning courses offer a combination of academic content, service experience, and critical reflection. To make service-learning successful, consider the following recommendations from Barbara Jacoby, Faculty Associate for Leadership and Community Service-Learning at the University of Maryland, College Park.
While it is easy to see how service-learning meshes with courses in the social sciences, public health and education, can it work equally well in other areas, such as the hard sciences and the humanities?
Yes. While service-learning is not appropriate for every course, it can and does work well in every discipline. No matter the discipline, research has shown that service-learning helps students identify and examine the “big questions” and the social context in which the disciplines are situated.
A biology class works with a local environmental organization to test water samples from the Chesapeake Bay. A graphics design class helps a non-profit organization build a new website. A childhood development class serves as mentors to at-risk students in an after-school program.