Suchergebnisse

How might a service-learning course help child language brokers (Tse, 1996) minimize negative effects and maximize the cognitive and academic benefits of language brokering? This question is answered with data from an ethnographic case study of a high school service-learning course in translation and interpreting. Heritage speakers of Spanish and less commonly taught languages serve as volunteer interpreters at local schools while learning the skills, habits and ethics of professional interpreting in this course. The theoretical lens of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977; 2006) is used to analyze how this curriculum affects students. This article also contributes to evolving definitions of service-learning for heritage language speakers, arguing that language brokering that students do for their families and communities should be seen as a pre-existing "service" that can be utilized in the prepare-act-reflect cycle of service-learning. Analysis of the data shows that this cycle is key to supporting students in building the confidence and skills to pursue careers in professional interpreting and helping them manage their family interpreting experiences. Students demonstrated increased self-efficacy perceptions in terms of interpreting, academic achievement and general life events, although the role that service-learning played in the latter two outcomes is still unclear.

This chapter provides a framework for intentionally designing service‐learning experiences that contribute to leadership competency development of students. Assessment of leadership competency development is also addressed.

ABSTRACTExperiential learning is a growing practice in higher education today. Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs use experiential learning to expose students to application and reinforcement of academic theories and concepts. This most often is accomplished through a required internship. This article argues for the addition of service learning requirements to MPA curricula. A complementary relationship between internship and service learning requirements yields four primary benefits: (1) further involvement of pre-service and in-service students in experiential-learning activities; (2) additional exposure to real-life application of course concepts; (3) better and more targeted classroom reinforcement mechanisms; and (4) additional community benefit. Complementarity between internship and service learning requirements allows the best of each experiential-learning approach to augment the other. We contend that this produces better-prepared MPA graduates by exposing them to a more diverse set of immersive learning opportunities and application scenarios.

This chapter provides a theoretical orientation to the intersections of the theory and practice of leadership and service‐learning. It articulates a set of values to guide leadership educators in their service‐learning practice. The authors advocate a critical approach that fosters social justice.

In addition to enhancing language skills of their students, instructors of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) learners seek to address the social and emotional needs of their students yet are challenged to do so only in a classroom setting. Service-learning (SL) offers the authentic opportunities in which learners can employ their language skills and evaluate how these abilities are valued outside of the classroom setting. In addition to encouraging deep grounding of the course material, SL promotes learners' general abilities in critical thinking, self-awareness, knowledge, tolerance, and compassion (Eyler & Giles, 1999). We add to the emerging literature of SL with SHL populations (e.g., Trujillo, 2009; Martínez, 2010; Leeman, Rabin & Román-Mendoza, 2011; Petrov, 2013) and find that SL is a powerful tool to not only connect SHL learners to their identity, the Spanish language, and the community, but also to validate the high level of cultural and linguistic skills that SHL students already possess and to spur the development of more skills. Moreover, integrating SL in SHL courses aids learners in developing their knowledge of the Spanish language and of course material far and beyond what could be accomplished in the classroom alone and allows the community to provide students with valuable knowledge, skills and insights as well.

As service‐learning has moved from the margins to the mainstream of education, programs once led by students are now coordinated by administrators, faculty, or leadership development staff. This chapter calls for the return of student‐led service.

This article presents findings on the effects of completing service-learning on Spanish heritage language students in an intermediate-high service-learning course, Practicum in Spanish in the Community. The results from this study indicate that the involvement of heritage speakers in their own heritage community can have a transformative impact on personal and social identity and therefore support strong in-group identification and reduce any negative impact of minority-language education. The authors also argue the importance of working with the local Latino community as a career pathway that allows students to come to recognize the role of languages and cultures in that community. Both of these conclusions point to the integral part of service-learning in a more globalized Spanish undergraduate curriculum. The results also indicate that the heritage language students perceived an improvement in speaking and listening, along with an awareness of their Spanish language deficiencies.

Anxiety about statistics may impede new scholars from developing quantitative research skills and from sharing those skills in service-learning, internship, and work settings. Using an interpretive case study design with a convenience sample of one emerging student leader in a collaborative university-community service-learning research project, we explored the question "How did the career path of a quantitatively skilled researcher develop?" Data collected over a 3-and-a-half-year period included 7 semi-structured interviews with the student during her master's and doctoral program and interviews with 3 mentors, 2 peers, and 2 community partners, as well as observations and documents. A constant comparison analysis method identified emerging themes: the role of mentors in building skills, building trust, and modeling risk taking. The results suggest strategies for increasing the number of new researchers who can bring quantitative research skills and career readiness to their respective fields.