On Wednesday, March 14, 2012 Ohio Campus Compact led a full day pre-conference workshop on service-learning as part of the 5th Annual International Conflict-Resolution Education Conference which took place in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. This presentation introduced basic concepts of service-learning.

1. Service-Learning
What is service-learning and why
Dick Kinsley and Susan Studer King
Ohio Campus Compact
www.ohiocampuscompact.org

2. Participant Outcome:
sI have few answers and many more
questions. I am confused as ever,
but I believe that I am confused at
a higher level about more
important questions.

3. Experiential Education

4. Setting the Context
s Importance of service-learning
s Learning outcomes
s Different approaches to talking about
service-learning and civic engagement
s Resources on service-learning

5. What is service-learning?
Service-learning is a form of experiential education
characterized by all of the following:
 student participation in an organized service
activity
 participation in service activities connected to
specific learning outcomes
 participation in service activities that meet
identified community needs
 structured time for student reflection and
connection of the service experience to learning
(Abes,Jackson & Jones, 2002)

6. Service-Learning in the
Landscape of Higher Education
“Reform” literature emphasizes the
“engaged” institution and the
importance of developing citizenship
and civic participation in students.

7. Service-Learning in the
Landscape of Higher Education
Service-learning has the potential to address
some of the concerns raised by increasingly
critical public and private sectors.
The last 20+ years have seen decreased public
fiscal support for higher education and calls
for a higher education that is relevant and
connected to addressing the increasingly
complex needs of a constantly shifting
workforce and society.

8. Key Themes in Service-Learning
•Collaboration with the community (reciprocity)
•Importance of reflection
•Active learning (meaningful work)
•Development of a sense of caring
•Promotion of a sense of civic responsibility
•Impact societal problems
(O’Grady, 2000)

9. Strengths of Service-Learning
s Models good practice through the emphasis on
collaboration and reciprocity and the high value
placed on caring and commitment
s Promotes reflective thinking
s Increases self-knowledge, cognitive complexity,
knowledge of diverse others and communities
s Deepens commitments to the “common good”
which seek a more just, equitable world

10. Outcomes of Service-Learning
“Service, combined with learning,
adds value to each and transforms
both.”
(Honnet and Poulsen, 1989, p.1)

11. Outcomes of Service-Learning
s “Transformative potential”
s Ability to connect subject matter with “real-
life” experience: experiential learning
s Personal development, critical thinking,
sensitivity to diversity, and development of
citizenship
(Eyler and Giles, 1999; Jones,
2002)

12. Information about outcomes
research
Eyler and Giles (1999) process spanned six
years.
Two major studies:
- Survey of 1500 college students from 20
institutions with interviews of 66 students from 7
institutions
- Interviews with 67 students active in service-
learning from 6 institutions.
All results statistically significant of .05 level or
higher

13. What is learning?
Service-learning is embedded in a view of
learning as:
• Beginning with personal connections
• Useful as its core purpose
• Developmental and incremental
• Transformative
• Foundational to citizenship in a complex society

14. Major learning outcomes
Stereotyping and Tolerance outcomes
• More positive view of people with whom they
work
• Growing appreciation for difference: seeing
similarities through differences
• Increased capacity for tolerance
Related Program Characteristics:
Placement quality, reflection activity, application of
service and subject matter, diversity

15. Major learning outcomes
Personal Development outcomes
• Greater self-knowledge, spiritual growth, reward
in helping others
• Increased personal efficacy, increased relationship
between service-learning and career skill
development
Related Program Characteristics:
Placement quality, reflection activity, application of
service and subject matter, diversity

16. Major learning outcomes
Interpersonal Development outcomes
• Increased ability to work well with others
• Increased leadership skills
Related Program Characteristics:
Placement quality where students are challenged and
have appropriate opportunity to take responsibility
over work

17. Major learning outcomes
Community and College Connection
outcomes
• Increased connectedness to community
• Development of connectedness with peers
• Increased closeness of faculty-student
relationships
Related Program Characteristics:
Strong community voice, placement quality,
reflection, and application

18. Service-learning design matters!
• High quality placements matching students’
interests and developmental readiness with
opportunity for direct service
• Application/Connection between course subject
matter and issues raised by service experience
• Structured reflection in the form of writing and
discussion
• Diverse life experiences, view points, and ways of
knowing are integral to design
• Presence and validation of the wisdom of
community voice

19. The underside of service-learning
The complexities that emerge when
undergraduate students engage with ill-
structured, complex social issues in the
community service settings typically
associated with service-learning
courses

20. The underside of service-learning
Some students just “don’t get it”
Cannot see the connections between their
service work and the course content
Embark upon their service insincerely: severe
consequences for service site and class
(Jones, 2002)

21. Principles of Good Practice: Mintz
& Hesser (1996)
An effective program:
• engages people in responsible and challenging actions
for the common good,
• provides structured opportunities for people to reflect
critically on experience,
• articulates clear service and learning goals for
everyone involved,
• allows for those with needs to define needs,
• clarifies all partners’ responsibilities,
• matches service providers and needs while
recognizing changing circumstances,

22. Principles of Good Practice (con’t)
An effective program:
• expects genuine, active, and sustained
organizational commitment,
• includes training, supervision, monitoring,
support, recognition, and evaluation to meet
service and learning goals,
• expects that time commitment for service and
learning is flexible, appropriate, and in the best
interests of all involved; and
• is committed to participation by and with diverse
populations.
Mintz & Hesser, 1996, pp.41-44

23. “How will we know when we
get there?” said Alice. “Oh,”
said the Cat, “You will always
get somewhere if you don’t
care where you are going.”

24. Service-Learning and Civic
Engagement
Many lenses used to consider the following
questions:
• What? What is service-learning and civic
engagement?
• So What? What are the goals and desired
outcomes of service-learning and civic
engagement?
• Now What? Where do we go from here as
individuals, as a department, and as an
institution?

25. Civic Engagement: What kind of
citizen?
• Personally Responsible
• Participatory
• Justice-Oriented
Westheimer & Kahne, 2004

26. Service-Learning: What’s the point?
• Charity paradigm
• Project-based paradigm
• Social change paradigm
Morton (1995, 1999)

27. Service-Learning: What’s the point?
• Technical Conceptualization
• Cultural Conceptualization
• Political Conceptualization
• Post-Modern Conceptualization
Butin, 2005

28. Lenses matter….
• No lens is “perfect
• Important to see the “blindspots” in your own
lens in order to see other lenses
• Progress toward institutionalization can and
MUST work across different orientations,
frameworks, paradigms, etc.

29. “Education at its best – this profound human
transaction called teaching and learning – is
not just about getting information or getting
a job. Education is about healing and
wholeness. It is about empowerment,
liberation, transcendence, about renewing
the vitality of life. It is about finding and
claiming ourselves and our place in the
world.”
~ bell hooks

30. Resources
Ohio Campus Compact
http://www.ohiocampuscompact.org
National Campus Compact
http://www.compact.org
Service-Learning Clearinghouse
http://www.servicelearning.org
Community College National Center for Civic Engagement
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/engagement/