Suchergebnisse

AbstractBoth service learning and simulations have been shown to positively impact student outcomes, but they are not often used together. This article examines how to effectively combine these active learning styles to reap the benefits of both. After examining a case in which the two were combined and the impact this approach had on student evaluations and learning outcomes, I discuss how such projects can be successfully executed in a variety of other classes.

One of the major selling points of service-learning courses is their potential to mutually benefit communities, universities, and students. Although a great deal of research reports numerous pedagogical and personal benefits for students—from improved grades and increased civic engagement to increased understanding and appreciation of diversity—there is relatively little research on the impact of service learning on the community. To understand when and how service-learning courses benefit the community, we conducted in-depth interviews with representatives of local community-based organizations that have worked with service learners. We report on the primary benefits and costs associated with service-learning courses. We identify three types of obstacles to successful service-learning courses: issues related to student conduct, poor fit between course and organizational objectives, and lack of communication between instructors and organizations. We develop practical guidelines for addressing these obstacles and for ensuring that service learning fulfills teaching and learning goals and provides valuable service to community-based organizations.

The Rock County 4-H Disaster Relief Committee raised $1,550 to aid tsunami victims in Sri Lanka and then turned its attention to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Thirty-one 4-H youth participated in a service learning trip to the South with the objectives of helping hurricane victims, learning about new cultures and achieving personal growth during three days of service projects in Louisiana and Mississippi. Their written reflections and other evaluative measures revealed they learned about southern culture, gained a greater appreciation for their lives, gained self confidence and developed a desire to help others more often. The trip was a valuable developmental experience for the youth, and information from the trip could be utilized to create similar experiences based on service learning. This article provides an overview of the trip and describes the evaluation methods used to measure learning and assess personal growth.

The U.S. Government has set a goal of reducing the prevalence of food insecurity to 6% or less by 2010. To achieve this goal, education and action are necessary. Youth in Oregon were introduced to the issue through the role playing simulation, Are You Hungry Tonight? The simulation was utilized with youth, adult volunteers, and youth development staff. Participants indicated increased understanding of people with limited resources, including: Financial pressures, emotional stresses and frustrations they face; Difficulty of improving one's situation; Difficult choices people make; Positive and negative impacts of community organizations. Simulation participants developed an understanding of hunger issues and empathy for people experiencing food insecurity. Participants were subsequently challenged to complete service learning projects that would help provide additional food resources for their communities. Providing education through the simulation set the stage for youth to participate fully in service learning projects to help alleviate hunger.

International Service Learning (ISL) borrows from the domains of service learning, study abroad, and international education to create a new pedagogy that adds new and unique value from this combination. It is a high-impact pedagogy with the potential to improve students' academic attainment, contribute to their personal growth, and develop global civic outcomes. This book focuses on conducting research on ISL, which includes developing and evaluating hypotheses about ISL outcomes and measuring its impact on students, faculty, and communities. The book argues that rigorous research is essentia

AbstractService‐learning, by its very nature, fosters young people's spiritual development, especially in experiencing a sense of interconnectedness with others and the rest of the world; opening one's heart; and expanding self‐inquiry and self‐knowledge.

Service-learning courses provide students the opportunity to apply and relate economic concepts and theories to real-world experiences within the community and to reflect on the relationship between theory and practice. One form of service-learning is student-based instruction, which involves college students teaching economics in the neighboring community, such as to high school students. The author provides a detailed application of the student-based instruction model of service-learning to an Economics of Race and Gender course at a liberal arts college. Upon completion of the project, students completed a survey about their service-learning experiences. The results indicated that the service-learning project enhanced student learning and created a more enriching course experience.

The urgent messages of good business include the importance of ethical management behaviors, focus on corporate citizenship, recognition of principled leadership, moral awareness, and participation in social change. This article describes the Service Learning Metaproject (a nested set of projects required of all students) and shows what students can accomplish to promote a better world. It addresses four measurable learning objectives: providing contact with divergent populations, making conscious moral decisions and committing to ethical action, deriving meaning from everyday activities, and developing adaptability and flexibility. It documents the achievement of these with undergraduate business students performing metaprojects that begin with service, lead to learning, and are followed by the development of a direct application. The conclusion is the implementation of that application. All the service learning projects this article describes required a Service Folio for student reflection on service experiences, relationships to readings, and concrete team project deliverables.

Service learning offers opportunities for both educational institutions and the community. To demonstrate the possibilities this pedagogy can offer, this article discusses a service learning experience partnering students with a hospice agency. Using mixed methodology, impact on students, patients, and staff are examined. Results indicate that students improved their attitudes toward the elderly, and death and dying; they also believed the experience caused personal and professional growth. Interviews with patients highlighted the importance of relationships and recognition, and staff identified benefits to students, patients, and the hospice agency. The conclusion is made that service learning is best perceived in a light of reciprocity and that this method of engagement offers opportunities for educators and practitioners. Finally, some tips are given for practitioners interested in developing such collaborations.

Negotiation is one of the most popular elective business courses offered across tertiary educational programs today. Yet, in many undergraduate and graduate programs, the "practice" of negotiation takes place solely through role-plays and simulations. The purpose of this article is to provide a "how to" template for negotiation instructors who are interested in extending their students' experiences beyond the sole use of in-class role-plays and simulations into the real world. The project described in this article is a semester-long, undergraduate service-learning group consulting project that has been used and refined over an 8-year period.

This paper introduces the relationship between program planning theory and service-learning in graduate education and the development of a relational program planning model for service-learning. A case will be made regarding the value of the relational program planning model for guiding and enabling more democratic forms of service-learning practice.