Service Learning: Home

There are many benefits to incorporating Service-Learning into your academic courses as Service-Learning is a method of teaching and learning that enriches academic experiences and life-long learning by engaging students and faculty/staff in meaningful hands-on services in the community.

Key components to Service-Learning include:

• Connecting Service With Learning-Academically rigorous, meaningful service with a significant positive impact upon those involved.

• Reflection- Assessment of personal and community needs, reflection on participation, and evaluation of progress.

• Reciprocity-Both the student, faculty/staff and the community partner give and receive time, energy, knowledge and creativity.

• Critical Thinking- Involvement in situations conducive to creative, effective problem-solving.

• Social Responsibility-Expansion of student's, faculty/staff compassion, civic awareness, and desire to be engaged in the community.

• Experiential Learning- Use of direct experience and hands-on learning to develop skills useful in future careers, family life, and community involvement.

• Needs-Based- Project-based on community-identified needs.

*Content from Purdue University Libraries-2014

What it is...

• A pedagogy
• Enhances students understanding of the course learning goals
• A form of experiential education
• Meets community-identified needs
• Allows students to apply what they are learning in class in the community and learn while they are serving
• Focuses equally on learning and service
• Reciprocal and it benefits both the student and the service recipient
• Helps build partnerships between colleges and community-based organizations
• A dynamic educational strategy that combines community service with classroom instruction.  Students learn civic responsibility and become active in their communities while applying what they have learned in real-world situations
• A teaching and learning strategy that integrates community service with instruction and reflection
• Enriches the learning experience, teaches civic responsibility and strenghtens communities
• Links course content with community issues

What it isn't...

• Internships, externships, clinicals, or field studied which focus on learning rather than service
• Volunteerism which focuses on service and the service recipient but not on students and learning
• Guest speakers, because the emphasis is on listening rather than doing and reflecting and then applying to what has been learned in class
• Free or convenient labor
• One-sided, benefitting only the students or the community
• Work for pay
• An "add-on"
• A stand-alone, one-tme project that does not relate to the course learning goals

Jim Dan Hill Library-University of Wisconsin-Superior (2014)

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