Service Learning: A Comprehensive Guide

Service-learning is an educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs. It is an inquiry-based, experiential learning approach that teaches curriculum-based objectives through meaningful service to the community.

Defining Service Learning

Service-learning is more complex than community service - students engage in meaningful opportunities to apply what they learn to issues that matter to them. 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.

The Corporation for National Service (CNS) uses the service-learning definition listed in the 1993 National and Community Service Trust Act. Service-learning combines service to the community with student learning in a way that improves both the student and the community.

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Key Components of Service-Learning

In addition, service learning involves investigation, preparation, action, and reflection. High-quality service learning goes beyond a requirement of minimum hours of service in a course. Research shows that service-learning experiences that incorporate the national standards and indicators result in positive academic, civic, and social-emotional outcomes.

Several key components define service-learning:

Academic Integration: Service learning activities are integrated into the curriculum, ensuring that students apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world situations.
Reflection: Students are encouraged to reflect on their service experiences through assignments, discussions, or journals. Reflection opportunities must be incorporated before, during, and after the service-learning experience. Reflection activities completed prior to the service-learning experience can focus on helping students anticipate what their service-learning experience will be like and what assumptions they are bringing into the situation. Reflection that occurs during and after the service-learning experience helps students understand the actual outcome of their experience in relation to their academic experiences.
Reciprocity: Service learning is not a one-way street; it should benefit both the students and the community. Thoughtful action means that the service that is being done is necessary and valuable to the community itself. Meaningful action benefits both the community and student in that both feel that the service makes a difference in a measurable way and is a productive use of time and resources.
Community Partnerships: Collaboration with community organizations and agencies is a crucial aspect of service learning. The strongest service-learning experiences occur when the service is meaningfully immersed in ongoing learning and is a natural part of the curriculum that extends into the community.

The IPARDC Process

Using the IPARDC process as the framework within which your students will design and carry out their service-learning experience, you will be able to blend instruction in core academic skills to intentionally achieve your intended goals.

You might find it helpful to split your unit into four parts:

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.

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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.)
Presentation: Have your students present their findings to the school, each other, and outside stakeholders.
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?

Benefits of Service-Learning

Service-learning can improve academic and social outcomes for students by providing them with opportunities to apply academic knowledge to real-world issues. Furthermore, service learning can develop civic and social responsibility and strengthen critical thinking skills.

Goals for a service-learning program typically relate to learning outcomes. Perhaps, like many institutions, you’ll find CAS’s six categories of learning outcomes (known as “domains”) inspirational for creating your service-learning goals.

Service learning shares many buzzwords with other high-impact practices. Service-learning can improve academic and social outcomes for students by providing them with opportunities to apply academic knowledge to real-world issues.

For starters, service learning is important because it connects student learning in the classroom with real-world experiences in the community. At a societal level, it is important for people to be involved and aware of their communities so they can assist each other and be more conscientious individuals. Finally, it instills the habit of performing a service for others.

Service-learning is an experiential learning pedagogy that moves students beyond the classroom to become active participants in their learning and develop civic knowledge and skills. Students who take service-learning courses work with local, national, and international non-profit and public organizations to deeply learn and practice course content by working on a real, community-identified need. Students learn the course material, get to work directly on an issue facing the community, and learn about their communities in the process.

Types of Service Activities

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.

Students in any discipline can participate. Service Learning involves almost any helping activity. As part of a service-learning course, students participate in direct, indirect, research-based, or advocacy-based service-learning projects (described below) on projects that address a multitude of issues.

Direct service includes tutoring, serving meals, working with patients, helping a refugee family, walking foster dogs, or participating in events at a nursing home. Involves student engagement with the client population on an interpersonal level. The engagement is performed at the site of service.
Indirect service is doing something behind the scenes to help, such as organizing a fundraising event, working in a resale shop, stocking a food pantry, collecting donations or planting trees to help the environment. Students fulfill a community need identified by a community partner without engagement with the client population.
Advocacy can take the form of students writing letters to government officials, demonstrating in a picket line or educating others about possible policy changes. A type of service where students create awareness or educate others on public topics that are of concern to the community partner and/or the greater community.
Research-based A type of service that involves collaboration with a community partner to conduct research that addresses community issues or needs. Partners may be nonprofit groups, government agencies or community leaders. A public service class that researches resources, stakeholders, and programs that support local families to help improve their socioeconomic status.

Examples of Service-Learning Projects

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.

The best way to understand the scope of service learning is to know some real-life examples and success stories implemented by higher ed institutions. Furthermore, some initiatives include spending time with different communities.

Assessment of Service-Learning

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.

Service Learning vs. Other Forms of Engagement

Volunteerism: Emphasis and beneficiary the receiver. Own free will without pay.
Service-Learning: Equally benefit and equal focus. Within academic course context.
Field Education: Co-Curricular related but not fully integrated, Maximize student learning.

Online Service-Learning

A lack of service-learning programs for online courses prompted the creation of e-service to provide experiential learning opportunities.

Potential Criticisms and Considerations

Service-learning has been the subject of debate throughout its history. It has been criticized for not generating useful skills, nor meaningful cultural or community knowledge, nor doing much for the community itself, and instead mostly inculcating communitarian political ideologies in students and focusing on the student's "good deeds.” Without deeper critical reflection the effect may be to maintain, rather than subvert, systems of community oppression. "Critical service-learning" claims to address some of these issues.

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