Course-based, service-learning, study-away opportunities for university students can result in transformational learning for students. Within the context of Mezirow's transformative learning theory (2008), this study explored university students' perceptions of a course-based, service-learning, study-away experience in a culture greatly different…

Background: In response to critics' charges that the liberal arts lack practical value, most colleges have incorporated service-learning in their curricula. Ideally, these service-learning activities not only benefit the community but also enhance the course's (a) pedagogical effectiveness as well as the students' (b) civic engagement and (c)…

We investigated whether participation in a university-based, service learning mentoring program could affect college students' learning about social inequities and the effects of poverty. The program we examined combined four critical components: (a) Mentor training, (b) mentoring youth on-site in their high-poverty environments, (c) mentors'…

This NCSS position statement is intended for all audiences who are committed to preparing students for active and engaged citizenship in the 21st century. This includes the general public, the elementary, middle, and high school communities, social studies supervisors and directors, higher education, and all educators, pre-Kindergarten through…

This article includes a review of the literature on personal epistemology and the reflective judgment model and applies these theoretical concepts to undergraduate students who engage in service-learning projects. The application will provide instructors with greater understanding of students' abilities and limitations in their…

Service-learning is a teaching strategy that offers students opportunities to learn both in the classroom and in the wider world. This pedagogical tool provides students with chances to directly interact with local agencies and effect change in the community. Thus, service-learning holds the potential to broaden and significantly enhance the…

By their very nature, courses that contain a community-based component invite opportunities for the practice of empathy, whereby students come to identify with their community partners (such as the low-income children they tutor, the elders they interview). In fact, the building of empathy through the cross-dialogue often catalyzed by such classes…

Family and consumer sciences (FCS) professionals can have a positive impact on the human condition of individuals and families living in poverty. However, to fully understand the issues of poverty, professionals need exposure to the issues and concentrated time to examine poverty through research, issue analysis, and reflection. This article…

To promote student engagement, professors must actively seek to create the conditions that foster engagement. Chickering and Gamson (1987) suggest that good practices in undergraduate education are ones that: encourage student-faculty contact, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, encourage active learning, provide students with…

A 2-credit service-learning biotechnology course designed as a general education elective for students of all majors and at all levels was offered as an 8-week, half-semester course. The course met for a total of 3 hours of lecture/discussion and 2 hours of service-learning workshop weekly, during which students participated in discussions about…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]