Service Learning

Service-Learning is the process of integrating volunteer community service combined with active guided reflection into the curriculum to enhance and enrich student learning of course material.

It builds on a tradition of activism and volunteerism which was popular in the sixties but greatly subsided during the seventies and eighties. The tradition of volunteer service saw a rebirth in the late eighties as cultural, educational, and civic leaders challenged higher education to fulfill its historic mission to promote civic responsibility. Many colleges accepted this challenge and created a support network (Campus Compact) to develop and promote service-learning as a pedagogical strategy. Service-Learning is now a national movement and is utilized in the majority of colleges and universities in the United States.

The philosophical antecedent and academic parent of service-learning is experiential learning. As in all types of experiential learning such as cooperative education, internships, and field placements, service-learning directly engages the learner in the phenomena being studied with the hope that richer learning will result. The critical difference and distinguishing characteristic of service-learning is its twofold emphasis on both enriching student learning and revitalizing the community.

To accomplish this, effective service-learning initiatives involve students in course-relevant activities which address the real human, safety, educational, and environmental needs of the community. Students' course materials such as texts, lectures, discussions, an reflection inform their service, and the service experience is brought back to the classroom to inform the academic dialogue and the quest for knowledge. This reciprocal process is based on the logical continuity between experience and knowledge.

The pedagogy of service-learning represents a substantial change from the traditional lecture driven, content based, and faculty centered curriculum. Despite the fact that research has shown that we remember only 10% of what we hear, 15% of what we see, and a mere 20% of what we see and hear, these remain the basic sense modalities stimulated in most educational experiences. Service-Learning strategies recognize that we retain 60% of what we do, 80% of what we do with active guided reflection, and 90% of what we teach or give to others. It views education as a process of living, not a preparation for life. It also rejects the notion that students are empty vessels waiting to be filled. In a culture characterized by information overload, effective teaching must encourage information processing as well as accumulation. In a complex society, it is almost impossible to determine what information will be necessary to solve particular problems. All too often, the content students learn in class is obsolete by the time they finished their degree. With this in mind, it seems much more important to "light the fire than to fill the bucket.

Service-Learning does this by providing students with real-life, meaningful experiences which by their very nature force critical thinking. In service, students encounter events which conflict with their assumptions. They deal with issues or incidents which challenge their competency or understanding. These experiences create perplexity or dissonance, which is often the beginning of learning.

In service-learning courses, real life comes tumbling into the classroom as students' service experiences provide the content for purposeful dialogue leading to real understanding of academic concepts. Unlike most pedagogues which are deductive, relying on presenting theory and then encouraging application to specifics, service-learning is more inductive, using experience provided by students to lead to conceptual or theoretical understanding.

Service-Learning is best understood in the context of a continuous learning cycle where meaning is created through concrete experience, reflection or assimilation, abstract conceptualization or theory building, and active experimentation or problem solving.

Dean of Instruction/Academic Enrichment
Global Studies, Fast Track
Carole Lester, PhD.
E-Mail: CLester@dcccd.edu
Fax: 972-238-6290
Phone: 972-238-6110

Coordinator of Service Learning
Karon Yeager
E-Mail: kby8442@dcccd.edu
Room: B227A
Fax: 972-238-6290
Phone: 972-238-6975

Academic Enrichment
Room: B227
E-Mail: RLD8325@dcccd.edu
Fax: 972-238-6290
Phone: 972-238-6223