This academic service learning initiative enabled teacher education candidates to create research-based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children's books. Each project included a detailed parent or caregiver letter, which provides an overview of the family literacy activity; materials and props; step-by-step procedures;…

Experiential learning (EL) has become essential for graduate students to meet the demanding nature of professional environments, equipping them with skills in leadership, problem solving, and civic consciousness. Community based learning (CBL), as an identified EL strategy, involves a collaborative learning model emphasizing group membership and…

Merrimack College is a midsized Catholic Augustinian College pursuing its historical service-based commitments while shifting priorities toward research. With limited time and resources, these two aims can create tension at institutional and faculty levels. This single institutional case study shares the work of faculty and College leadership to…

Drawing on a multiyear local research project on the affordable housing crisis, this article outlines a pedagogical approach we call Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research, or CISER. The CISER model brings together three key groups of actors--undergraduate students, university researchers, and community organizations--drawing on and…

Interest in the implementation of service-learning (SL) in university courses in psychology has risen in recent years. SL allows the students not only to read and talk about social problems, but also to act upon them and thus to learn from practice as well. The aim of this work is to present the service-learning experienced in psychology courses…

The power of intentional and reflective experience in international service-learning, internships, and other pathways, effectively inspires and prepares students for next-generation global leadership. Service-learning often includes cross-cultural engagement which is particularly powerful.

When Emily Crosette, joined H2O for Life as a high school student, she never dreamed that it would be the impetus for her future educational and career goals. Crossette majored in civil and environmental engineering and minored in environmental science at Lafayette College and is now completing her PhD in environmental engineering at the…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the advantages of combining place-as-text curriculum with an oral history collection to act as catalysts for transformational learning. These experiential and service learning practices complement each other to enrich the encounters students are afforded. First, the nature and procedures of place-as-text and…

The recently adopted TEKS for English I-IV that will be implemented in 2020-2021 require students to write for a variety of purposes and audiences, to practice the writing process, and to engage in reflective writing. These standards can be difficult to meet when literacy instruction is confined to classroom borders, where students often write…

The chances of lightning striking twice are infinitesimal, at best. What are the odds, in middle age, of being struck with a jarring bolt of figurative lightning, then a few months later being an eyewitness as the same sizzle in the sky jolts a group of students--those decision-makers of tomorrow? The author describes two experiences that proved…

There has been an increasing interest in exploring the transformational possibilities of experiential learning approaches like service learning, across post-secondary education, including geography. At the same time, scholars caution that such initiatives can entrench neoliberalism, white supremacy and other power structures and call for…

Service-learning courses provide students with practical opportunities to enhance their learning and development in the field, along with getting students engaged in different communities and settings. However, there are still many challenges to designing and offering effective service-learning courses, such as requiring all students to…

This article explores a student's expectations and the lived realities of a two-week service learning trip to Honduras. Originally, her expectations were critical and cynical. But through a series of journal entries she made during the program, she shows how her expectations were transformed by the actual experience and how she achieved her own…

Reflection is an essential part of students' critically reflective development within experiential-learning contexts; it is arguably even more important when working cross-culturally. This paper reports from a national, arts-based service-learning project in which students in creative arts, media and journalism, and preservice teachers worked with…

A growing body of research has found community service learning to have a positive effect upon participating college students' civic development; however, far less scholarship has considered the impact of particular components of a community service learning program. This article presents two preliminary but promising strategies for enhancing the…