Community Service-Learning
“Community Service-Learning” or “Service-Learning” refers to a model of experiential learning that combines voluntary community service with classroom learning. Real-life experiences in the community are linked to academic content through processes of critical reflection such as journal writing, small group discussion, and the writing of analytical papers.
Community Service-Learning (CSL) has been shown to have positive effects on academic performance (including GPA, writing skills, critical thinking skills), values (e.g., commitment to activism and to promoting racial understanding), self-efficacy, leadership, choice of a service career, and plans to participate in service after graduation . CSL is a pedagogical model used extensively in the United States, but it is new to Canada.
The Learning Exchange and Community Service-Learning
The Learning Exchange’s Trek Program is helping to lay a foundation for the integration of CSL opportunities into courses at UBC. To date, UBC students have been volunteering in inner-city schools, at community centres, at drop-in centres for people with mental health diagnoses, in homeless shelters, hospices, and other settings. Preliminary evaluations of the outcomes of the Trek Program indicate that students are making a difference in the organizations and communities where they serve and students are learning about themselves and society. But experience in the program is also reinforcing the results of research done elsewhere—the opportunity for critical reflection is crucial to maximizing learning outcomes for students. These opportunities are best provided in the context of courses where academic credit is given for learning associated with community service.
The Learning Exchange is working to partner with the Faculties, with relevant UBC departments such as the VP Students, Student Development and TAG, and with community organizations to integrate more CSL opportunities into the curricula. Being located in a neighbourhood where the effects of social and economic dislocation are so obvious, the Learning Exchange is particularly interested in placing student volunteers in inner-city schools and community centres, where UBC students could enhance preventive programs related to literacy, sports and recreation, and arts and music.
For more information contact: trek.program@ubc.ca
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Resource Links
Service-Learning
Websites
Books
- Successful Service-Learning Programs: New Models of Excellence in Higher Education
Edward Zlotkowski, Editor
Anker Publishers, 1998
- Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?
Janet Eyler & Dwight Giles
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999
- Integrating Service-Learning & Multicultural Education in Colleges & Universities
Carolyn O’Grady, Editor
Lawrence Erlbaum Assocates Publishers, 2000
- Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Construction: A resource to assist faculty in the design, development, and construction of service-learning courses
Campus Compact, 2001
- Service-Learning: a Movement's Pioneers Reflect on Its Origin, Practice, and Future
Stanton, Timothy K, Dwight E. Giles, & Nadinne I. Cruz.
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999
- Community Service and Higher Learning : Explorations of the Caring Self
Robert A. Rhoads
State University of New York Press, 1997
- Service-Learning in Higher Education : Concepts and Practices
Barbara Jacoby
Jossey-Bass, 1996
- Democratic Education in an Age of Difference: Redefining Citizenship in Higher Education
Richard Guarasci, Grant H. Cornwell, G. Erlandson – Editors
Unknown. 1997?
Journals
- Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning
Jeffrey Howard, Editor
Ann Arbor, Michigan: OCSL Press
Community Based Learning
Resource list prepared by Begum Verjee, UBC Women's Students Office, 2002
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University Affairs
Educating Citizen Jane
Community Service-Learning, a teaching model that combines volunteer service with academic work, aims to instill in students a sense of citizenship and civic engagement.
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Contact
Learning Exchange
Trek Program
Tel: (604) 822-1943
E-mail: trek.program@ubc.ca |