ServiceLearning

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Service-Learning
Texas Center for Service-Learning
Region 14 ESC
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Everybody can be greatbecause anybody can
serve. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
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Service-Learning is . . .

• a teaching and learning approach that
  integrates community service with academic study
  to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility,
  and strengthen communities.
• National Commission on Service-Learning

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Service-Learning Impacts

• STUDENTS
• Personal Growth
• Social Growth
• Academic Growth
• Workforce Preparation

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Service-Learning Impacts

• SCHOOLS
• Decreased absenteeism
• Decreased disciplinary referrals
• Improved student achievement
• Strengthened community support
• Increased collaborative decision-making

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Service-Learning Impacts

• COMMUNITY PARTNERS
• Increased volunteer hours
• Increased community support
• Improved public relations
• Supported organizational goals
• Increased resources

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Service-Learning Impacts

• COMMUNITIES
• Addresses real community issues/problems
• Mobilizes youth as a resource
• Develops engaged, productive citizens
• Develops next generation leaders
• Develops an ethic of service and commitment to
  the community
• Provides training for the future workforce

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The Service-Learning Cycle
Now What?
So What?
What?
(Adapted from James Pamela Toole, Compass
Institute and National Youth Leadership Council,
1991 Revised 1993, 1999.)
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Service-Learning Cycle

• Develop Student Community Ownership
• Identify a Community Issue or Concern
• Decide on a Project
• Plan Prepare
• Perform Meaningful Service
• Make Observations
• Analyze, Problem-solve
• Evaluate for New Understanding
• Develop a New Application

WHAT?
R E F L E C T I O N
SO WHAT?
NOW WHAT?
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Service-Learning is . . .S.T.A.R.S.

• S tudent Leadership
• T houghtful Service
• A uthentic Learning
• R eflective Practice
• S ubstantive Partnerships

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A youth owned program enables all different types
of young people to shift from one type of
leadership to another as they seek and create
roles that are of interest to them. You dont get
that with an adult-driven model. Judy Jepson,
National Leader Schools Conference, 2000
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Guiding Student Involvement

• Use effective group techniques,
• Agree on ground rules for dialogue.
• Recognize that projects must address real
  community problems/issues AND meet curriculum
  requirements.
• Use a decision-making mechanism appropriate for
  the task.
• Use age-appropriate tasks and processes.

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Thoughtful Service

• Addresses a real community problem or issue
• Is challenging and engaging
• Is about the dignity and growth of the giver and
  the receiver
• Is best discovered by EXPERIENCING, not by being
  told.
• Is direct, indirect, or advocacy

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Assessing the Community

• Brainstorming
• Visual Scans
• Photo Narratives
• Newspaper Reviews
• Surveys
• Neighborhood Mapping
• Community Agencies

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Preparing for Service

• Identifying a problem/issue
• Writing questions for agencies
• Finding a service site
• Developing ideas for projects
• Addressing legal issues
• Receiving appropriate training

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All learning is related to action. Learning never
occurs through passive study alone.
Peter Senge
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Authentic Learning

• applies standards for construction of knowledge,
  disciplined inquiry, and value beyond the school
  to the mix of activities and interactions that
  facilitate and assess the intellectual quality of
  student learning.

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The Learning Pyramid
National Training Laboratories - Bethel, ME
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Standards for Authentic Learning

• Construction of Knowledge
• Disciplined Inquiry
• Value Beyond the School
• Newman and Wehlage, 1995

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Four Premises about Learning

• Individuals create knowledge by reflecting on
  their past physical and mental actions and on
  their current knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
• Knowledge is an evolving conversation with ones
  environment, oneself, and others.
• For learning to occur, learners must see the
  relevance of the knowledge and the skill in their
  lives.
• Instruction does not cause learning.
• Robert Garmston, The Adaptive School

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T.E.K.S.

• Students will use a problem-solving process to
  identify a problem, gather information, list and
  consider options, consider advantages and
  disadvantages, choose and implement a solution,
  and evaluate the effectiveness of that solution.

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Fusing Service Curriculum

• Problem or Issue-Based
• Could the classroom learning be applied to
  provide a service or to help solve a real concern
  in the school or community?
• Product or Performance-Based
• Could the results of the students learning
  be contributed or presented to someone?
• Education-Based
• Could the students teach what they learned
  to others?

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STARTING WITHTHE CURRICULUM

• When am I ever going to use this?
• Or
• How can the knowledge skills learned be applied
  to meet needs in the real world?

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STARTING WITHTHE SERVICE

• Whats the problem/issue?
• What service addresses the problem/issue?
• What knowledge and skills can be learned in
  addressing the problem/issue?

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Authentic Assessment

• Choose knowledge and skills to be
• assessed
• Determine purpose of assessment
• Formative or Summative
• Determine who will assess
• Supervisor, teacher, peer, self
• Select a method of assessment
• Observations, Products, Portfolios, Interviews
• Develop criteria for assessment
• Rubric, Checklist, etc

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Its not what happens to you that makes the
differenceits what you do with what happens
that makes the difference.
Aldus Huxley
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Pay attention to the questions you need to ask,
not the answers you want to hear. Leonard
Hirsch
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Reflection. . .

• a cluster of skills, involving observation,
  asking questions, and putting facts, ideas, and
  experiences together to add new meaning to them
  all. Learning to learn in this way, and
  instilling the practice as a habit, can allow
  program experiences to live on in the students
  lives in new experiences and new learning.
• Dan Conrad and Diane Hedin

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Outcomes of Reflection

• Academic Learning
• Personal Development
• Program Improvement

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Reflection should be . . .

• Continuous, ongoing
• Connecting
• -Knowledge and skills
• -Service experience with curriculum
• Challenging - urging students to stretch their
  thinking and analysis
• Contextualized - applied to real life

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Facilitating Reflection

• Suspend judgment
• Seek alternatives
• Keep an open mind
• Seek frameworks and underlying rationale for
  behaviors
• Seek various views perspectives
• Learn to function in ambiguity, uncertainty,
  complexity, variety

• Consider consequences
• Understand linear vs. relational thinking
• Think analytically
• Move from concrete experience to abstract
• Foster the courage to have different ideas
• Emphasize inquiry as a tool of learning

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Recognition

• Is a reflective practice
• Creates a positive, motivating learning
  environment
• Provides closure
• Is on-going
• Should include a variety of techniques

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Recognition Techniques

• Perfunctory, Formal - focuses on a specific award
• Informal - praise given for a job well done as
  part of the daily routine
• From outside guests or political figures at a
  concluding event
• Celebration of service by doing service
• Systematic - Includes all techniques across the
  program

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Ideas for Recognition

• Letters
• Phone calls
• Presentations
• Press releases broadcast coverage
• Award ceremonies
• Public performances
• Bulletin Boards of memos, photos, progress toward
  goals

• Decorate student lockers
• Surprise occasions
• Recognition luncheons, dinners, picnics
• Group day off events
• Certificates
• Scholarships
• State-wide service fairs
• Visual performing arts

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Rules of Recognition

• Match the recognition or celebration to the
  person.
• Match the recognition to the achievement.
• Be timely and specific

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Evaluation

• Project Evaluation
• Reflective analysis by all participants
• Challenges/Successes
• Changes/Improvements
• Tip Sheets
• Program Evaluation
• Compare Outcomes to Goals
• Negotiate new strategies/goals

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It takes a whole village to raise a
child. African proverb
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Collaboration

• A relationship
• A process
• A commitment

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Collaboration is . . .

• a mutually beneficial and well-defined
  relationship entered into by two or more
  organizations to achieve results they are more
  likely to achieve together than alone.
• Michael Winer and Karen Ray, 1994

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Collaboration is . . .

• the process by which several agencies,
  organizations, or individuals make a formal
  sustained commitment to work together to
  accomplish a shared mission.

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Collaboration is . . .

• a commitment to participate in shared
  decision-making and allocation of resources
  related to activities responding to mutually
  identified goals.

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If I am not for myself,who is for me?If I am
only for myself,who am I?If not now,
when? Rabbi Hillel
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Possible Partners

• Students
• Teachers and School/district staff
• Nonprofit organizations
• Government Agencies
• Businesses
• Parents and other community members

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Guidelines for Collaboration

• Common vision purpose
• Inclusion
• Shared Resources
• Shared Leadership decision-making
• Mutually determined goals objectives

• Clear roles tasks
• Ongoing, effective communication
• Tangible outcomes
• Documentation Evaluation
• Recognition

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Keys to Collaborative Success

• Begin by listening
• Create an ongoing process
• Share leadership and responsibility broadly
• Provide choices
• Dont ignore the obstacles
• Avoid jargon
• Communicate productively

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Norms for Collaboration

• Pausing
• Paraphrasing
• Probing
• Putting ideas on the table
• Paying attention to self and others
• Presuming positive presuppositions
• Pursuing a balance between advocacy and inquiry

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Conflict is working through a difference of
opinion. Fighting is the avoidance of
conflict. Leonard Hirsch
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SUSTAINABILITY Requires

• A vision shared by all stakeholders
• Leadership
• Training technical assistance for all
  participants
• Health Wellness

• Documentation
• Public Relations/Marketing
• Funding Resource Development
• Evaluation
• Recognition

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Ways of Sustaining

• Cross-age or Peer Mentoring/Tutoring
• Sponsorship by Local Business
• Partnering with local service organizations or
  other streams of service
• Grant Writing for Funding
• Building into campus/district plan
• Ongoing staff development
• Links to federal or state programs

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National Service Partners

• AmeriCorps
• AmeriCorpsVISTA
• AmeriCorpsNCCC
• Senior Corps
• Learn Serve America

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What Can Schools Do?

• Develop administrative support
• Provide ongoing staff development to support
  service-learning methodology
• Develop collaborative partnerships
• Support student initiative in learning
• Provide opportunities for teachers to plan and
  learn together.

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What can C.B.O.s do?

• Create TEKS-based curriculum
• Develop service-learning opportunities/ideas
• Consider students/youth as resources
• Collaborate on proposal/grant writing
• Be an ongoing partner to schools
• Provide training
• Create supportive internal external policies
  for service-learning

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What Does TxCSL do?

• Professional Development
• Implementation training, advanced workshops,
  customized services
• Technical Assistance Capacity Building
• phone, e-mail, peer mentoring, web site,
  National Service-Learning Leader Schools
• Products Services
• Video series, web-site, calendar of events,
  state conference, school-based grants.