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Successful service learning: the inside track.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Provides an overview of what service learning is, the vision and benefits of service learning, keys to successfully implement a service learning project into course curriculum, and describes an example course designed to prepare students to participate effectively in civic life and to address community needs.

Introduction

In his August 24, 2002 letter to fellow Americans, President George Bush, has called on all Americans to dedicate at least two years of their lives to serve others. This letter was a follow-up to his January plea to foster a culture of service, citizenship, civic participation, and responsibility in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In cooperation with the USA Freedom Corps, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Points of Light Foundation, a guidebook for engaging America's students in a lifelong habit of service titled Students in Service to America was written. In addition, the guidebook offers information on bringing service to the classroom and tools and resources that are available for implementing service learning projects.

What is Service Learning?

From the Commission on National and Community Service (now the Corporation for National and Community Service) and as defined by the National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), service learning is "a method under which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs and that are coordinated in collaboration with the school and the community." It works to weave the campus and civic cultures of the college community into dialogue about the needs and resources of both cultures by integrating community service into the curriculum. Service learning, as a form of education, is a key to the formation of ethical and civic-minded individuals. It offers to students an opportunity to learn and serve in a variety of organizational settings. Service learning is widely recognized as a key component of the curriculum, because service is understood as crucial to build civic skills and enhance character (Giles and Eyler, 1994; Mabry, 1998).

Service Learning Vision

The service learning's vision is to change higher education by responding to the student's need for a connection between what he or she learns and how that can make a difference in the world (Boyer, November 1990). Its mission is to connect the resources of the college to social, civic and ethical problems in a community. Advocates of service requirements are saying that...

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