This article highlights a teacher education program conceptual framework that integrates service learning. It first describes the national scene and offers details on the college, which is a mid-sized public college in rural upstate New York. The college's mission includes a call for broad experiential learning and community service as a way to…

Explains that service learning began as a way to help provide students with a better sense of civic and social responsibility, and has developed into a process enabling students to feel more connected with their communities. Lists benefits from enrollment in service-learning programs, including enhanced self-esteem, leadership abilities, spiritual…

Introduces a theme issue, discussing the journal's purposes and evolution, and reviewing historical landmarks related to service learning research. Reviews the articles within this issue, discussing planned next steps, and concludes with a call for service learning research efforts to broaden the knowledge and practice bases and further expand the…

Research emphasizes the impact of service learning on college students' development. Less evidence exists of its cognitive impact. To improve academic learning quality, researchers must identify intellectual outcomes best facilitated through service learning, create measures of these outcomes to embed into instructional processes, and conduct…

Discusses reasons for the lack of research on the community dimensions of service learning, noting that community-focused research is possible. Presents a four-dimensional model for doing research with community partners on the process and outcomes of community service learning, arguing that it should emphasize the community-university partnership…

Highlights three areas of research on the relationships between college service learning and citizenship. Discusses the need to: understand relationships between different approaches to service learning and conceptions of good citizenship; connect service learning research to scholarly issues and frameworks from related disciplines; and examine…

Advocates for studies designed to promote understanding of how service learning fits with the historical traditions and norms, key concerns and perspectives, and basic assumptions of the various academic disciplines. This agenda can only be successfully addressed by enlisting the active cooperation of national and regional disciplinary and…

Discusses the need to develop a comprehensive research agenda to build knowledge about service learning assessment and refine concepts of best practice for assessment, examining: what is known about the subject; principles of good practice for service learning assessment; what knowledge is needed to develop the research agenda; and how this agenda…

Examines the interplay between service learning policy and research, noting their impact on practice. Discusses traditional roles of research in policymaking, describing an alternative approach to understanding policy. Recommends that service learning practitioners and researchers make usable knowledge available to help clarify contested concepts…

Explores the rationale for establishing a national center for research on service learning, outlining various current issues and challenges in conducting service learning research and describing how the establishment of a national center can raise the standards and visibility of service learning research. Offers several suggestions about how the…

Discusses the concept of permeability as knowledge flow into and out of the classroom and applies it to three college courses taught by the author at Plymouth State College (New Hampshire). Experiential knowledge comes into the classroom through interviews, guest speakers, and panel presentations, and flows out through service-learning students…

Offers three strategies for overcoming the challenges of advancing and institutionalizing service learning at research universities. The strategies address making service learning integral to faculty research, the university mission, and the disciplines. (EV)

Presents the results of a national study designed to gain an understanding of the status of service-learning in teacher education programs. Concludes that although service-learning exists in the language and curriculum of the majority of teacher education programs - approximately 60 percent address the subject - it still resides largely on the…

Presents a model that combines research and service learning. The Community Based Research Institute is an interdisciplinary summer academic experience in which undergraduate students and community partners collaborate to meet a community-defined research need. Finds that students are less likely than faculty to recognize the connections between…

The classroom practices discussed in "Effective Second Language Writing" reflect various trends and methodologies; however, the underlying theme in this volume of the Classroom Practice Series is the need for clear and meaningful communication between ESL writers and their readers. While approaches differ, two core beliefs are constant: ESL…