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 student’s 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 student’s 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

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 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 • Today’s agenda • What’s due today? • What’s 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 instructor’s 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 C’s • 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 semester’s 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 America’s National Service-Learning Clearinghouse Faculty Toolkit for Service-Learning in Higher Education. • National Service Learning Clearinghouse