Although service learning has gone a long way since the time when, until the mid-1980, it was practically unknown as a pedagogical practice beyond a closed circle of practitioners, in many higher education institutions it still remains a domain of few faculty interested in integrating service learning in their disciplines. While experimenting with…

This essay shows the range to complexity for assessing academic service learning experiences. Corso recommends that instructors understand expectations for cognition, affective response, and communication competence as they place students into academic service learning experiences and as they assess learning outcomes within such contexts. Corso…

Many educators consider the final year of high school to be a "vast wasteland," an epidemic of disengagement. Although high schools across the country have struggled with senioritis, responses to the problem have largely fallen into vertical acceleration, in which schools typically offer an array of AP courses or dual enrollment…

The director of a small career academy of the arts in a public high school reflects on the conflicting demands to establish a college-preparatory program adhering to state standards and to facilitate the personal growth, artistic discovery, and democratic empowerment of teens. By narrating experiences that go to the heart of philosophical discord,…

Following the devastation of hurricane Katrina, a university located in the southeastern United States created a service-learning program. This program was established so that physical education teacher education (PETE) students could provide physical activities to children living in a temporary, government-funded housing community. The purpose of…

There is an emerging body of literature advocating a "critical" approach to community service learning with an explicit social justice aim. A social change orientation, working to redistribute power, and developing authentic relationships are most often cited in the literature as points of departure from traditional service-learning. This…

The importance of engaging students in science and helping them to become informed citizens has been highlighted by many groups invested in science education. This report describes a project that furthers both academic and civic goals through the integration of a service learning component into an undergraduate course. This nonmajors class covers…

The purpose of this study was to determine methods for and barriers to including students with disabilities in high school service learning programs (HSSLPs) with non-disabled peers. Focus groups were conducted with adult stakeholders at five schools nominated as having exemplary inclusive HSSLPs and at least 3 years experience implementing such…

Knowledge of learners' assets beyond the traditional structure of school can provide preservice teachers with essential gateways to connecting learners with the content to be studied, and with forming beneficial social relationships that can enhance learning. This article describes ways that preservice teachers responded to community-based…

Service-learning, an increasingly popular pedagogical strategy in higher education, has been largely ignored in the scholarship of literature teaching. Because political and social activities are inextricably linked with aesthetic and intellectual activities, literary texts and community service can work in complementary ways to inform students'…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which organizational infrastructure and institutional leadership facilitated or hindered institutionalizing service learning as pedagogy at a small health professions college. Through interviews and content and discourse analysis, we found that data supported the notion that service learning…

Statistics in the Community (STATCOM) is a student-run statistical consulting program that has been serving its local community since 2001. Directed and staffed by graduate students from Purdue University's Department of Statistics, it provides professional consulting services to governmental and nonprofit groups free of charge. Students work in…

Adult volunteers who work as experiential educators in Public Achievement (PA) told us about their experiences, and we contrasted these with the stated aims of Public Achievement, young peoples' experiences, and what it is like to be an adult volunteer. PA coaches reflected that there was a significant disjuncture between the official aims of PA…

Researchers have described "service learning" as an ideal way to integrate experiential education into coursework while meeting community needs and imbuing students with civic responsibility. They have advocated service learning in business as a method to implement course concepts and increase student understanding of the external environment. In…

This paper discusses how the researcher examined learning and teaching over the course of a year, in the course titled: TH 460 Storytelling and Ethnographic Theatre. Discussion revolves around how the course was conceptualized, the procedures and protocols created, engagement and collaborations developed, learnings and outcomes experienced by…