Designing an Effective Service-Learning Course and Meaningful Syllabus

1
Designing an Effective Service-Learning Course
and Meaningful Syllabus

• Maureen Rubin
• California State University, Northridge
• Innovative Educators Webinar
• October 24, 2009

2
Program Outline

• Is service-learning right for you?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• Plan weekly learning and service activities.
• Put them together in syllabus.
• Unique service-learning assignments

3
Is Service-Learning Right for You?

• It's not for every instructor and
• it's not for every course
• Consider
• Advantages and disadvantages, challenges and
  opportunities of the pedagogy, where it fits in
  students academic plan.

4
What Do You Want to Accomplish?

• Be very specific in identifying 1-3
  student-learning outcomes you want your students
  to accomplish by participating in the
  service-learning portion of the class.
• Make sure the service enhances the learning and
  is not extraneous to your student learning
  objectives.

5
Some things to consider

• Developmental appropriateness
• Group or individual work?
• Who selects community partner?
• What skills do students need/have?
• Everyone at same site at same time?
• Students choose from several options?

6

• 10 Sample Student Learning Outcomes

7
1. Help students understand course content

• Assist students in learning course content
  through the practical application of concepts
  learned in class Tax preparation

8
2. Promote social responsibility and civic
learning

• Help students understand concepts such as power
  differentials or privilege Electrical
  engineering (Lumens)
• Encourage students to probe problems for their
  symptoms or causes Environmental Health
  (Healthy Homes)

9
3. Increase understanding of the importance of
your discipline to society

• Transmit understanding that your discipline
  connects with life in the real world Interior
  Design (Design jury room)
• Help students to see practitioners in your
  discipline as activists and contributors to the
  public good Finance (Campus auxiliary investment)

10
4. Increase awareness of community

• Increase students knowledge of community issues,
  needs, strengths, problems and resources
  Sociology (gang prevention)
• Identify community-based public and private
  programs that provide assistance and advocacy
  Sociology (Yellow pages project)

11
5. Enhance commitment to service

• Improve students attitude to service Genetics
  (Special Olympics)

12
6. Promote Career Development

• Expose students to career opportunities to help
  them make career decisions --Freshman seminar

13
7. Develop self-awareness

• Expose them to options and points of view other
  than their own Journalism (Public relations
  practicum)

14
8. Increase sensitivity to diversity

• Help students understand the wealth of diversity
  in their community Art or computer programs

15
9. Develop communication skills

• Learn to collaborate and negotiate to resolve
  conflict JusticeCorps

16
10. Increase critical thinking

• Improve ability to think, apply information to
  problem solving and analyze information data and
  concepts Kinesiology

17

• Plan Weekly Learning and Service Activities

18
(No Transcript)
19
Plan Community Collaboration

• All at the same site at the same time
• Students choose from limited, pre-screened list.
  Community partners invited to come to first class
  to recruit and answer questions.
• Students select own site and write proposal.

20
Successful Courses

• Blend service and academic content
• Do not treat service-learning as an add-on, but
  as an integral part of each class
• Cross-fertilize assignments

21
Assignment and Outcomes Planner 300-level
Genetics course
Outcomes
Student Learning Objectives Service Objective What is Due Today?
Week 1 Increase awareness of community Assist population with genetic diseases
Content Lecture Topic Chromosomes Special Needs Populations Paperwork
Service Learning Lecture Link Why service-learning?
Reading Chapter 1 textbook Profiles of community sites Complete reading
Assignment Select partner Paperwork explaining partner selection
Additional Assignment
Reflection Write Journal Entry 1 and post on web Why did you pick this partner? Web journal posted and comments made
Exam
A s s I g nm e n t s
22
Do the same outline for every week

• Content Lecture
• Service-Learning Link Lecture
• Readings
• Content
• Service-Learning
• Assignment(s)
• At site
• For class
• Reflection

23
Syllabus Elements

• Course Information (Units, location, class
  number, meeting days and times)
• Instructor information (Office, phone, office
  hours, email, website, emergency information)
• Course Description include definition of
  service-learning

24
More Syllabus Elements

• Student learning objectives
• At the conclusion of this course, you will be
  able to
• Course content basic academic elements
• Student Performance Evaluation explain elements
  that will constitute grade

25
And Some More

• Grading Scale
• Daily plan
• Todays agenda
• Whats due today?
• Whats going to be due next week?
• Attendance policy
• Legal/ethical statements (Students with
  disabilities, plagiarism warning, tentative
  nature of syllabus).

26
Under Course Description

• The purpose of this course is to
• Match with University mission
• Meeting accreditation standards
• Build resumes
• Departmental curriculum goals
• Spell out learning objectives and how they are
  critical elements of college education

27
Definition of service-Learning

• A course-based, credit-bearing educational
  experience in which students participate in an
  organized service-learning activity that meets
  identified community needs and reflect on the
  service activity in such a way as to gain further
  understanding of course content, a broader
  appreciation of the discipline and an enhanced
  sense of civic responsibility. Bringle and
  Hatcher

28
Example - Grading

• Sample Elements
• Lecture/discussion exams and quizzes
• Attendance in class and at community site
• Community partners evaluation
• Peer evaluations
• Content papers
• Service-Learning journals
• Deliverable
• Oral presentation

29
Unique service-learning elements - Reflection
30
What Is Reflection?

• Planned activities designed to help students
  process their service experience in a thoughtful
  manner
• Integrate service into the heart of the course to
  promote desired learning outcomes
• The glue that ties the learning to the service
• Dynamic process that involves critical thinking,
  analysis, evaluation, problem solving, mediation
  and reasoning

31
What Does Current Research Say about It?

• The instructors ability to connect the
  community-based service experience to classroom
  activities and other graded assignments is the
  most important variable for successful
  service-learning.
• Intentional structured activities that offer
  students opportunities to examine and analyze
  their cognitive and affective learning
  (individually and/or in groups) are key.

32
What are the Essential Elements? The 5 Cs

• Connection feeling and thinking learning is
  not compartmentalized into college and community.
• Continuity- must occur before, during and after
  the service experience.
• Context should be used to solve problems with
  the tools, concepts and facts of the particular
  situation.
• Challenge - current perspectives must be examined
  and conflicts resolved.
• Coaching Students need emotional support, need
  to feel safe develop alternative explanations
  for experience and observations and question
  their original interpretations.
• 
  Eyler Giles (1999)

33
How Is It Done?

• Through specific activities designed to assist
  the student in processing the service-learning
  experience
• Many, many paths
• Journals
• Think pieces and creative expression
• Role playing
• Writing assignments

34
Structured Reflection Journals

• Journals that pose different questions throughout
  the semester (Eyler 2001)
• Journals that pose the same questions after each
  session
• Journals mixed with mini-analysis papers
  (Azusa-Pacific University, 1999)
• Three-part journals (observe, feel, connect)
• Journals tied to lecture and reading
• Interactive web- based journals with classmates
  or community partners

35

Think Pieces and Creative Expression

• Write a play
• Write a letter to yourself, seal it, leave it
  with instructor. At semesters end reread it and
  write about change
• Make a video
• Write a poem or song
• Compose a travelogue
• Write a letter to the editor, government agency,
  etc.
• Take photos
• Draw or paint a scene

36
Role Play

• Bring a community partner to class and have them
  create or reenact a typical or challenging
  service experience
• Divide students into groups and have each one act
  out a different roles played by various
  populations involved in service experience (i.e.
  service-recipients, agency staff, professor,
  government agency, student, etc.)

37
Writing Assignments

• Interpret quotes
• A cynical young person is almost the saddest
  sight to see because it means that he or she has
  gone from knowing nothing to believing in
  nothing.
• --Maya Angelou
• Community commentary
• Describe a scene in the community
• What story does it tell?
• What does it say about the community?
• What does this scene mean to you and why?
• If the scene were a painting, what title would
  you give it?

38
Bibliography

• Seifer, Serene and Connors, Kara,
  Community-Campus Partnerships for Health for
  Learn and Serve Americas National
  Service-Learning Clearinghouse Faculty Toolkit
  for Service-Learning in Higher Education.
• National Service Learning Clearinghouse