Service Learning
Learn how you can leverage service learning, a high-effect size instructional strategy, to get students to apply their knowledge to new or novel situations. You'll get some ideas and see what others are doing in this area.
"In service learning, students learn educational standards through tackling real-life problems in their community" (source)
Outline for Today
- Introducing Service Learning
- Benefits
- Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
- Guest Co-Host: Andrea Keller
- Additional Resources
- Six Service Learning Opportunities
- Three Getting Started Tips
- Reflection
Introducing Service Learning (d=0.52)
"Service Learning is an educational approach where a student learns theories in the classroom and at the same time volunteers with an agency (usually a non-profit or social service group) and engages in reflection activities to deepen their understanding of what is being taught.
Definition: A teaching strategy that combines community service with learning from classroom instruction. Students engage in community service activities and apply the experience to personal and academic development. The aim is to benefit both the community and the learner.
Benefits
- Connects student learning with real-world experiences in the community
- Students gain practical skills
- Sets students up for lifelong involvement in community
"Service-learning projects reinforce SEL because they broaden perspectives, deepen social awareness and connect actions to the needs of communities" (Source: Scott Petri, EdSurge).
Introducing Guest Co-Host
Andrea Keller is a high school librarian in Irving ISD. She’s been a librarian for both elementary and middle school levels. Andrea is currently the secretary the Texas Association for School Librarians. She was recently named EdTech K-12 Magazine’s Top 30 K-12 IT Influencers.
When she is not working or reading she can be found leading teams for Destination ImagiNation, leading her two Girl Scout Troops, lifeguarding, or taking a break hanging out with her husband and dog.
She is also an active blogger and social media user. Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at @akbusybee, or find her on Facebook @beeinthebookends.
Want to view a copy of Andrea's presentation?
Click the image shown right when ready to see all the amazing tips for powerful service learning.
Crafting Service Learning Opportunities
Youth Service Day and Month
Global Youth Service Day is the largest youth service and civic action event in the world and the only one that celebrates and builds the capacity of all youth ages 5-25 to help our communities and democracy thrive by working together for the common good.
In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals. These goals have the power to create a better world by 2030, by ending poverty, fighting inequality and addressing the urgency of climate change.
Opportunity #3: Block by Block
Since 2012, UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Program) which is the UN program for sustainable cities, and the founders of Minecraft, have been collaborating on an innovative partnership in which Minecraft is used as a community participation tool for urban design of public spaces.
Block by Block is a global UN-run programme in which Minecraft is used as a community participation tool in the design of public spaces. (Learn more)
Opportunity #4: Civil Action Project (CAP)
Launched in 2009, CAP facilitates a transformative civic experience for students that weaves together intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional competencies (Source).
Create Your CAP Classroom in a Few Easy Steps
- Step Two. Enroll your students.
- Step Three. Teach the CAP lessons and assign the project.
Teach Lessons 1–3 to get your students ready to choose their issue and complete their CAP Proposal planners.
Teach Lessons 4 and 5 to prepare students to take civic actions and complete their Thinking It Through and Civic Action planners.
Supplemental Lessons are optional and anticipate topics that could help students as they work on their projects.
Download Webinar Presentations
Webinar 1: Get CAP Up and Running in Your Classroom
Webinar 2: The Project: Getting Your Students to Take Civic Action
Webinar 3: Showcasing Your Students Work: Culminating Activities and Assessment
Opportunity #5: Integrated Actions Civics Project
Developed between The UC Berkeley History Social Science Project and the Santa Clara and San Mateo county offices of education, this project offers tested strategies to support the integration of civic engagement into classrooms. (Source).
Teachers start by exploring a current issue that echoes a unit’s essential theme. Investigating the unit's content sheds light on the theme as students apply their analytical skills during their study.
Students then return to related current issues and apply what they've learned to form and express their conclusions in class, for example through Deliberative Discourse or Socratic Seminar, and/or out in their community or on social media.
Throughout this work, students develop their sense of self by exploring their identity, worldview and concepts of justice.
Opportunity #6: Educating for American Democracy
Offers an interactive roadmap for using an inquiry model when teaching civics and history. This work supplies essential questions to hook K-12 students in thematic instruction. (Source).
At the federal level, we spend approximately $50 per student per year on STEM fields and approximately $0.05 per student per year on civics. A lack of consensus about the substance of history and civics—what and how to teach—has been a major obstacle to maintaining excellence. The Educating for American Democracy (EAD) initiative provides tools to make civics and history a priority so that we as a country can rebuild our civic strength to meet the modern challenges we are facing.
The EAD initiative demonstrates that an ideologically, demographically, and professionally diverse group can agree about history and civics content, as well as pedagogy (Source).
Tip #1: Check with Local Universities
Connect with local universities. They may have suggestions about collaboration with community organizations offering service learning.
Texas ACE (Afterschool Centers on Education) provides no-cost activities before and after school and during summer for K–12 students in Title I schools. The program is federally funded through 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) and administered on the state level by TEA.
The Center for Community Engagement serves as The University of Texas at Austin’s central resource for those interested in volunteerism and service-learning throughout the UT and Austin communities.
We provide resources for anyone interested in getting more involved in the community, and our programs and services are designed for instructors, students, student organizations, campus departments, community partners, and local agencies.
Tip #2: Contact Local Non-Profits Near Campus
Tip #3: Mine ideas from the web
There are a lot of great ideas for service learning projects on the web. Here are a few websites with list of ideas you can adapt for your classroom use.
Reflection in the Chat
Take a moment to share in the chat how you might take advantage of Service Learning in YOUR teaching and learning situation.
- What's your biggest concern about Service Learning?
- What's your biggest hope for Service Learning?