How Can I Integrate Service-Learning into an Existing Course?

How Can Service-Learning Enable Students to Learn Course Content?

Service-learning is certainly not appropriate for every course, but it can be effective in every discipline. Service-learning works well for students across a wide range of learning styles, from theoretical learners, who learn best through abstract conceptualization, to those who learn best from active, concrete experience. As with the design of any course, it is important to start with the desired learning outcomes: What do you want students to know or be able to do as a result of taking the course? What new awareness, knowledge, or skills do you want them to gain? Which learning outcomes for courses you are currently teaching are students least likely to achieve?

Service-learning assists students to learn complex subjects and to gain a deep understanding of fundamental principles that need to be applied later. It is particularly effective for achieving learning outcomes that involve:

• Synthesis and analysis of information to solve complex problems with multiple possible solutions
• Application of concepts and knowledge to practice in new contexts
• Effective oral, written, and visual communication
• Working collaboratively with others, especially across difference
• Exercise of well-reasoned judgment
• Taking ownership for learning
• Using a discipline's knowledge base to address social issues
• Developing the skills and habits of critical reflection
• Other outcomes that involve manipulating, relating, structuring, developing, interpreting, decision making, prioritizing, and like skills

Service-learning also motivates students to learn course content thoroughly and deeply. Acquiring knowledge for its own sake rarely motivates students to learn, and learning can only occur if the learner is engaged. Boredom and disengagement during lectures and other traditional activities both inside and outside the classroom are commonplace. Service-learning is, by its nature, active learning. Because it addresses real issues and needs, students are more likely to invest time and effort in their learning. Students engage with faculty, peers, and community members about substantive matters and discover the relevance of their learning through real-world experiences. Question 1.4 describes other benefits of service-learning for students.

When I introduce faculty members to service-learning, I find it helpful to compare the service experience to a text and describe how it can be integral to teaching and learning. In this analogy, the service experience is a potential text for a course. Faculty members select texts, or service experiences, that they believe to be most effective in enabling students to learn and apply course content. Service is certainly not a text in the traditional sense, given that it is “written” concurrently with the course. However, thinking of service as text has several practical benefits (Morton, 1996). First, it suggests that service is equivalent to traditional texts in learning potential and that both the service experience and other course materials are, in fact, course content. The text analogy also implies that faculty members decide which texts, or service experiences, are appropriate for the course and how much service, or “reading,” that students are required to do. Another consideration is whether the text, or service, is required or optional.

Faculty members assign “readings” (i.e., service experiences), determining whether to use complete texts (i.e., intensive service with a single organization) or an anthology (i.e., several short experiences with different organizations). In addition, they create structures for students to read, analyze, and discuss the text (Morton, 1996). The service-as-text analogy suggests that student evaluation and grading are not based on doing the service (i.e., reading the text), but rather on learning that students can demonstrate, integrate, and apply.

In the development of any course, most faculty members consider a wide range of possible texts and pedagogies and select those that are most likely to enable students to achieve the learning outcomes. This applies equally to service-learning. Neither service-learning nor any other pedagogy should be simply added to an existing course. In the process of integrating service-learning into an existing course, faculty members should seek to replace current texts and assignments with service experiences, or “texts,” that are more likely to facilitate student learning and achievement of course outcomes.

How can Service-Learning be Applied to the Humanities?

I see the Value of Service-Learning for the Social Sciences and Pre-Professional Courses, but What about STEM?

How does Service-Learning Work in Interdisciplinary Courses?

As is the case with reflection, faculty members often tell me that they understand how service-learning works in “other” disciplines, but that they do not see how it can work in their own. Not surprisingly, they often observe that service-learning is well established in the behavioral and social sciences, the health professions, education, and agriculture. This section provides specific but illustrative examples of how service-learning can work in disciplines that may initially seem inauspicious.

Although there are many examples of service-learning in writing courses at various levels, faculty in other areas of the traditional humanities often wonder about its applicability to disciplines such as philosophy, language, literature, art, music, and history. At a service-learning workshop that I recently facilitated, a faculty member in German literature stated that he could not imagine service-learning in the “pure” humanities and openly challenged me to show him how it could possibly “fit” into one of his courses. I asked him for an example of a course he teaches in which students are not sufficiently engaged or not achieving his desired learning outcomes to the degree that he believes they should. He told me that he teaches a general education course on German fairy tales, which focuses on their multiple and important roles as reflections of folk culture, as a form of national literature, as children's stories, as the subject of popular film adaptations, as the subjects of censorship that attempted to sanitize the tales by removing scenes of cruelty and violence, and as propaganda used by the Third Reich. He found it difficult to engage his students with the material, which they dismissed as puerile and trite.

I suggested that he might reframe his lecture course as a service-learning course in which students read and present skits based on fairy tales to students in a local elementary school in a nearby, low-income neighborhood. In this way, the children would receive enrichment that is not within the scope of their curriculum, and the service-learners would be able to observe the effects of the tales on the children and further enhance their own understanding of their relevance and power. Critical reflection could focus on such topics as the social roles of literature, the pros and cons of censorship, the enduring value of folk tales, and the manifestations of educational inequity in schools in poor neighborhoods. The German professor proceeded to introduce service-learning into his fairy tales course and later contacted me to tell me how satisfied he was with the results.

Integrating service-learning into courses in the STEM disciplines is both rewarding and challenging for faculty. STEM faculty who teach general education courses that are not designed for majors are more frequently turning to service-learning to motivate their students to learn by engaging them in active learning experiences that enable them to discover the relevance of course content to real-world issues. Another benefit of service-learning in STEM is increasing students' mathematical and scientific literacy so they can use their knowledge to understand public issues, policy development, and decisions as well as to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of information they see in the media and on the Internet. For students who seek to become professionals, faculty members, or researchers in STEM fields, faculty engage students in service-learning to deepen their understanding of the ethical, legal, democratic, and social dimensions of their disciplines.

In this composite, hypothetical example drawn from several microbiology courses offered at community colleges, the faculty member chose service-learning as a pedagogy because the introductory microbiology course had one of the lowest student attendance, success, and completion rates at the college. At the same time, the faculty member became concerned about water drainage and runoff into a lake located on the campus that was used extensively for a wide variety of activities by students and the general public. She engaged her introductory microbiology students over several semesters in service-learning activities related to the lake, which had not been tested to determine whether it was safe for human use for many years. The students learned sampling, testing, and laboratory techniques as they collected and analyzed water samples and documented their data. They also collected and identified plant and animal specimens from the lake. Students in subsequent classes then created a record of the species of existing flora and fauna that could be used as a baseline for comparison with future collections. After determining that the lake could support animals and plants, but was too contaminated to be safe for human use, the students produced written reports of their analyses, provided them to appropriate government and nonprofit organizations, and wrote letters to politicians and editors of influential publications supporting cleanup of the lake. Reflection topics included the role of citizens as stewards of the environment, the pros and cons of regulatory oversight of public spaces, and the prevalence of polluted bodies of water in poor communities as opposed to wealthier ones. Students' attendance, grades, and likelihood of completing the service-learning version of the course increased substantially.

In the STEM fields, as well as others in which consultation is a professional activity, service-learning enables students to learn and practice consultation skills while providing services to community organizations and other nonprofits that could not otherwise afford them. It is not much of a stretch to envision how students in graphic design, marketing, management, accounting, web development, and the like have much to offer to organizations in the nonprofit sector. However, students in writing and mathematics, at both introductory and advanced levels, can also engage in service-learning that enhances their learning and provides valuable services. Students in professional writing classes can assist nonprofit organizations with their many tasks that require high-quality expository writing, such as grant proposals, quarterly or annual reports, brochures, and website text. This work, which is time-consuming and requires intense concentration, is challenging for staff members to accomplish while serving clients and managing the daily tasks of running a nonprofit organization. Advanced math students in courses on topics like differential equations and mathematical modeling can apply such concepts to study a wide range of social issues, including population growth and overpopulation, over-harvesting of natural resources, the spread of diseases, and the effects of human interactions with other species. Students in these courses can then grapple with the interplay of mathematical modeling and government and corporate policymaking and offer the products of their work to state and federal government agencies that provide oversight, local and multinational corporations involved, and nonprofits that are concerned with the issues the students consider. Their reflection can focus on questions like why, even though modeling can predict climate change and the depletion of fish stocks, it is so difficult to get society to take protective action. Additional examples of service-learning reflection in courses across disciplines can be found in 2.5.

Service-learning is an excellent pedagogy for interdisciplinary courses, especially those focused on issues that are so broad and complex that they cannot be addressed through a single discipline, like sustainability, international area studies, and urban planning. In such courses, students may work in multidisciplinary teams, providing insights from their own disciplines while engaging the perspectives of other disciplines. For example, a course on Latino immigration could involve students in health education, nursing, Spanish, and law in assessing and addressing the needs of the immigrant community. Students in human development, kinesiology, engineering, and landscape architecture could work together in a course on humans and the built environment to design and construct a community garden and playground for a nearby neighborhood.

Is Service-Learning Appropriate for Academic Courses?

How much Service-Learning is Enough to Ensure Rigor?

How can I Incorporate Service-Learning into a Course While Still Covering All the Academic Content?

In 2001, Jeffrey Howard advanced a set of principles for service-learning pedagogy that build on the Principles of Good Practice in Combining Service and Learning (Porter-Honnet & Poulsen, 1989). The second of these principles, which are reproduced in Exhibit 4.1, clearly states, “Do not compromise academic rigor” (Howard, 2001, p. 16). The principles strongly emphasize such academically rigorous practices as awarding academic credit for learning, not for service; explicitly stating learning objectives and criteria for selection of service sites; preparing students for learning from the community; and equating the value of community learning with classroom learning. As Howard admonishes, “Labeling community service as a ‘soft' learning stimulus reflects a gross misperception” (2001, p. 16). In fact, service-learners must master academic content as in traditional courses and also to apply it in community settings. They must also learn how to learn from community experiences that may be unstructured or ill-structured and to connect community-based learning with learning from other course materials and activities (Howard, 2001).

Faculty members often wonder how it is possible to integrate service-learning into a course and still cover all the necessary academic content. As mentioned in 4.1, service-learning should never be simply added on to an existing course. Service-learning should be selected as a pedagogy for a course because it is more likely to enable students to achieve at least some of the desired learning outcomes, including mastering course material and skills better than other pedagogies. For example, following the general expectation that students in a three-credit course should spend two to three hours studying and otherwise engaging with course content for every hour in class, service and reflection should factor into the approximately six to nine out-of-class hours that students should devote to the course.

Another frequently asked question is how much service is enough for a course to be designated as service-learning. There is no clear answer, just as there is no answer to the question of how many pages of reading or writing should be required for a traditional course. Regardless of duration or intensity, the important issue is that the service experience should be woven into the course together with other learning experiences—including lectures, readings, research, class discussions, problem solving, and various forms of reflection—so that the combination of experiences enables students to achieve the course learning outcomes.

No matter the number of service hours required, the addition of the community as a learning context should be thoughtfully selected, explicitly related to desired course outcomes, and thoroughly integrated into the course. As Howard observes, “requiring students to serve in any community-based organization as part of a service-learning course is tantamount to requiring students to read any book as part of a traditional course” (2001, p. 17). Likewise, students should engage in the kinds of service activities that are most likely to enable them to achieve the learning outcomes. For example, in a course on education policy, filing papers in a school office would not be an appropriate service activity, no matter how useful it may be to the school staff. Carefully structured critical reflection that intentionally connects the service experience with course content is a rigorous teaching and learning strategy and is the key to generating deep learning (Clayton & O'Steen, 2010). Chapter Two provides a thorough discussion of critical reflection as fundamental to high-quality service-learning.

Assessment and grading in service-learning courses should be as rigorous as in other academic courses. Just as students in traditional courses are not awarded grades or credit for reading the texts, service-learners do not receive grades or credits for simply doing the service. Rather, grades and credit are awarded for demonstration of learning. See 4.6 for further information.

What Forms does Curricular Service-Learning Take?

Should Service-Learning be Required or Optional?

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Various Forms of Service-Learning?

How is Service-Learning Integrated into the General Education Curriculum? The Major?

Whether the goal is to develop a new course or to reconstruct an existing course to include service-learning, there are several basic models of how it can be integrated into the curriculum. The models described below are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. However, identifying them and describing them individually makes it possible to highlight their purposes, challenges, and unique aspects. Within each of the models, courses can be offered in the general education curriculum or the major, and most of them can be either required or optional. They can be discipline-based or interdisciplinary. The service experience can occur near or far from the campus and can be domestic or international. In some cases, students select their service experience from a menu of options provided by the faculty member or the service-learning center, guided by criteria specified in the syllabus. In others, the required service experience is grounded in an ongoing partnership that the faculty member has developed with one or more community organizations. The service activities can be done individually or in teams and are based on course learning outcomes, community needs, and level of students' knowledge, skills, and experience. Course-based service-learning activities can include, but are certainly not limited to, direct client interaction, projects, consultation, and community-based research. The course can be on campus, online, or a combination of the two. The service-learning course models are presented below, together with advantages, disadvantages, and examples for each.

What are the Steps for Designing a New Service-Learning Course?

While some of the steps in developing a syllabus for a new service-learning course or to integrate service-learning into an existing course are similar to those in the development of any course, others are unique to service-learning. The brief overview that follows focuses specifically on service-learning and includes references to sections of this book that provide additional detail.

Step 1. State Your Desired Learning Outcomes.

It is important to use action verbs and concrete, measurable terms to state what students should know or be able to do as a result of taking the course, as well as what new awareness they should expect to gain. Clearly stated learning outcomes make it easier for students to understand why service-learning is an important focus of the course.

Step 2. Select the Learning Outcomes that are Best Addressed Through Service-Learning.

As noted in 4.1, service-learning is often the preferred pedagogy for outcomes involving application of knowledge and concepts in practice in new situations; analyzing, questioning, and reconsidering prior knowledge or beliefs; examining causality; understanding the effects of power and privilege on individuals and society; synthesis and analysis of information to solve complex problems that have multiple solutions; exercise of well-reasoned judgment; working collaboratively with others; and communicating effectively.

Step 3. Envision the Service Experience that will Serve as a Primary Course “Text.”

Before you approach potential community partners, you will want to think about the kind or kinds of service experiences that you believe will enable students to achieve the learning outcomes. Questions to ask yourself include: Will the service be required? If so, what alternatives will be available to students who cannot, or choose not to, do it? Will the service be direct, indirect, or nondirect? What is the nature of the service experience? Will there be more than one? Will there be one site or multiple sites? How much service will students do, how frequently, and how long?

Step 4. Select Other Course Content and Pedagogies.

Once the learning outcomes are at least in draft form, it is time to determine what combination of pedagogies and academic content best complements the service experience and aligns with the desired outcomes, given the level of the course and the backgrounds of the students. In addition to traditional academic content, course content for a service-learning course can encompass such diverse areas as the theory and practice of service-learning, the community and social contexts, relevant historical and theoretical perspectives, the needs to be addressed, the root causes of those needs, and the particular knowledge and skills that students will use in the service experience. Examples of other educational practices often used in service-learning courses are readings, research papers, class discussions and presentations, creative work, guest speakers, and many other forms of experiential learning, including case studies, problem-based learning, field trips, and simulations.

Step 5. Seek Potential Community Partner(s).

Once you have envisioned the service experiences that would be appropriate as text for your course, it is time to consider potential community partners. If there is a service-learning center or community-engagement point person on your campus, it is wise to start there. In some cases, the center or point person will be able to suggest likely partners and may prefer to make the first contact. Once a potential partner (or partners) has been identified, it is ideal to visit the community site, sending draft learning outcomes or a preliminary syllabus in advance. This will enable your potential partner to consider whether there is compatibility between your desired learning outcomes and how you plan to use the service experience as a course text on the one hand and the organization's mission, client populations, needs, schedule, number of service-learners sought, and the required level of student experience, knowledge, and skills, on the other. Working with one community partner on one activity or project is often easier to manage than working with multiple partners or projects. However, organizing more than one project or activity with a single partner or working with more than one partner may enable you to offer students more opportunities to fit the service experience into their schedules.

Step 6. Integrate Critical Reflection Thoroughly into the Course.

It is fundamental to integrate critical reflection throughout the course so that it intentionally fosters learning by serving as the bridge between the service and other content and experiences. You will need to consider these questions: When will reflection occur? Where? Through what mechanisms? At what intervals? What prompts will you provide to encourage deep reflection? How will you provide feedback? The what, why, and how of critical reflection are covered in depth in Chapter Two.

Step 7. Develop a Plan to Assess Student and Community Outcomes.

Assessment and evaluation in service-learning differs from traditional courses in that community perspectives must be addressed. Although this is the topic of 4.6, a summary of relevant questions is offered here: How will students demonstrate their learning? What will be your community partner's role in evaluating student achievement? At what points will you assess learning? How will you determine grades? How will you determine the degree of success of the service-learning from the community's perspective? How will you evaluate what could be improved as far as process and results?

Step 8. Address Logistical Issues.

As described in detail in 3.4 and 4.8, service-learning entails dealing with a bevy of logistical concerns. These may include obtaining the approvals necessary to teach the course, locating back-up service sites or projects, tools and materials, student orientation and training for specific work, liability and risk management, safety and security, transportation, and appropriate behavior at the community site. It is important to work out these logistical issues well in advance with your community partner or partners, engaging the assistance of the service-learning center, dean's office, public safety department, or campus legal staff, as appropriate.

How can I Assess Achievement of Student Learning Outcomes Through Service-Learning?

What is the Difference Between Assessment and Grading of Service-Learning?

How should Community Partners be Involved in Student Evaluation?

Faculty members should conduct assessment and grading in service-learning courses with the same degree of rigor as in other academic courses. However, in a faculty workshop I recently facilitated, one of the participants noted: “It's not as easy as giving a test!” As I emphasized in the discussion of academic rigor in 4.3, grades and credits are not awarded for doing the service, as they would not be awarded for doing the required reading. Rather, faculty members assess and grade the learning that students demonstrate. In service-learning, faculty assign grades to students based on the extent to which they can successfully evidence what they have learned from the community experience as well as readings, lectures, class participation, lab work, research papers, and other assignments. Service-learning faculty also evaluate how well students apply what they have learned in the particular community context. In addition, they assess the quality of the students' critical reflection and analysis of the connections between academic content and experiences.

Assessment in service-learning courses can achieve several purposes. It can be used to provide formative and summative feedback to students so they can understand how they are progressing in the course and how they can improve their service and their learning. It can also provide feedback for the faculty member about how well students are learning that can lead to modifications in the syllabus and in teaching that can enhance student learning during the course and in subsequent courses. Scoring to reflect student learning on an assessment instrument such as a rubric measures how well the student has achieved one or more of the course learning outcomes and how effective the course has been at enabling students to achieve the outcomes. Evaluation, or grading, then, is the process of using an assessment instrument for the purpose of assigning grades for a particular learning activity or for the course. The assessment plan for a course should ideally include at least one of the methods described in 6.2. Unique elements of assessment in a service-learning course include evaluation of learning thorough reflection and the potential role of community partners. A discussion of how to assess and grade reflection and a simple, generic rubric for this purpose can be found in 2.3.

Community partners may want to have a role in evaluating the students' on-site work or the products of their work for the organization, such as websites, written materials, or research reports. Some community partners may be willing to participate in student evaluation only if their evaluations will be used in determining grades. Others will find that being part of evaluating students is too burdensome and will prefer to leave it to the faculty member. The key issue is to work this out with your community partner before finalizing the syllabus and grading scheme.

The grading plan for an introductory service-learning course in engineering might look like this:

• 25%: Student portfolio (including creation of a professional web page, homework assignments, and weekly journal)
• 20%: Biweekly quizzes
• 20%: Midterm examination
• 20%: Group community design project (10% for individual contribution, 10% group grade)
• 15%: Final examination

In this example, it is significant that the individual and group grades for students' participation in the design project are determined in consultation with the community partner.

In a nutrition course, the students study child nutrition and, at the request of the community partner, develop a series of mini-workshops for parents and a resource guide to healthy eating. The grading scheme consists of four elements:

• 15%: Active participation in class discussions
• 15%: Engaging research-based workshop presentation
• 30%: Carefully researched chapter for resource guide
• 40%: Weekly reflective journal

As with the engineering example, the community partner provides feedback on the workshops and chapters that the students produce.

It is helpful to gather both formative and summative feedback from students regarding the course itself. Service-learning faculty often ask students to reflect on various aspects of the course in their journals or in class, orally, by show of hands, or by jotting down their answers to quick questions at the end of class. Such questions might include: What was your biggest takeaway from today's class? What is puzzling you about today's class? What do you wish we had done today that we did not do? What big question still remains for you? Formative assessment can be used to make “mid-flight corrections” in a current course or to make refinements when teaching the same course or other service-learning courses in the future. Because standard course evaluations may not yield information specific to service-learning, faculty teaching service-learning courses may ask students to complete additional evaluations of the course and of their own learning at the end of the course. For example, some items that could be included in an end-of-course evaluation using a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree follow: The service-learning experience in this course helped me better understand the subject matter; I believe I would have learned more from this course if more time were spent in the classroom instead of at the community site; and Service-learning helped me to learn skills I can use in the workplace. A couple of examples of open-ended items are: One improvement I would make in this service-learning course is… ; The best thing about service-learning in this course for me was … .

As mentioned in 6.1, assessment data can be aggregated to demonstrate student achievement on the course or broader levels as well as to compare achievement in a service-learning course to a non-service-learning version of the same course. Using scores or grades for the purposes of assessment requires that grading be done consistently across sections or courses. This is challenging because faculty members are generally accustomed to, and value, discretion in grading their students' work. As a result, grade distribution is not very useful in determining the degree to which students across different sections or courses are achieving desired learning outcomes (Cartwright, Weiner, & Streamer-Veneruso, 2009).

Chapter Six on assessment and evaluation provides further information and many additional examples. Question 6.5 addresses assessment of service-learning from the community perspective.

Where can I get Help with Handling Logistical Issues?

How do I Keep Service-Learning Manageable?

What Approvals do I Need Before I can Teach a Service-Learning Course?

Faculty members who are considering teaching a service-learning course for the first time often tell me that they fear that the logistical issues and details will be overwhelming. This section covers the specific issues that faculty members may encounter as they develop and teach a service-learning course, together with the campus and local resources that are likely to be available to assist them. This chapter and the many print materials and websites it suggests for further information provide a solid starting point. If the campus has a service-learning center or point person, the best first step is to learn what services and assistance they can provide. Most centers also offer print and online information specifically developed for faculty at the particular institution, as well as individual consultation.

Curriculum development. In addition to resources specifically related to service-learning, many institutions also have a center for teaching and learning that offers workshops, webinars, and other faculty development opportunities, including faculty learning communities, mini-grants, and staff or peer consultation on various aspects of course development and teaching that may be applicable, even if they are not specific to service-learning. As far as course content, local officials and nonprofit leaders such as county volunteer coordinators and United Way staff members may be excellent sources of readings and speakers regarding the community, its history, demographics, assets, and needs.

Course approvals. Your department or dean's office can advise you of the approval process for new courses, as well as if there are ways to circumvent initiating a lengthy process by using an existing course number or another streamlining mechanism. The department, dean's, or provost's office may also be able to direct you to information about various course designation processes that may bring your course more visibility, such as those that denote a course as fulfilling a general education or major requirement. Service-learning course designation is addressed in 4.10.

Community site identification. On campuses that have a service-learning center, there is likely to be a staff member who can provide assistance to faculty members seeking to initiate community partnerships. If this service is not available, perhaps the local United Way, volunteer office, or churches might be able to help. Campus chaplains, student affairs staff, and diversity officers may have relationships with local nonprofits. Social networking sites and word of mouth can also be effective means of identifying leads to potential community sites.

Liability and risk management. Service-learning centers routinely provide forms and guidance on these matters. If there is no center on the campus, faculty and staff who work with other programs that involve students in off-campus activities, such as student teaching, internships, field work, and athletics, could share their policies and procedures. The campus legal counsel should review any forms or procedures that you develop or modify based on those used in other off-campus programs.

Transportation. It is obviously best to select community sites that are walkable or accessible by campus or local public transportation. Alternatives include organizing student carpools, contacting campus security to see whether they might be willing to provide limited rides for service-learners, and offering students without their own transportation an on-campus service-learning option.

Security procedures. Some community sites, including K–12 schools, require service-learners and other volunteers to comply with security procedures, including fingerprinting, background checks, physical examinations, providing notarized statements, and obtaining photo identification cards. These procedures can be time-consuming and costly. Campus departments, such as health, security or police, registrar, or human resources, may have resources to assist you. Otherwise, local clinics, hospitals, or doctors in private practice might be able to provide examinations at low or no cost. Police stations may be able to waive the fingerprinting fee, and banks have been known to offer notary services at no charge to service-learners.

Costs. In addition to costs associated with security procedures, there may be other costs associated with the service the students will do. For example, some community organizations may provide tools and materials. In other situations, particularly when working with poor communities, it will be necessary to bring whatever materials are needed to the service site. Various campus offices may be able to contribute supplies and other in-kind resources. Students can also engage in fundraising activities like bake sales to raise money to purchase materials or to cover their travel expenses to sites distant from campus. Local transit services may be willing to allow service-learners to travel at no cost or at a low fare.

Reflection assistance. Designing and facilitating reflection can be challenging for faculty members who lack experience. There are likely to be student affairs staff members, graduate assistants, and undergraduate student leaders in such areas as leadership development, student activities, fraternity and sorority life, residence halls, and orientation who are experienced in reflection and group process and who may be willing to share resources with you or to facilitate one or more reflection sessions. Staff members in offices of diversity and inclusion are often skilled facilitators of intergroup dialogue and other forms of reflection.

Technology. Faculty wishing to consider e-service-learning, in which students do all or some of their service and reflection online, should consult instructional technology staff members for assistance. They can demonstrate the wide-ranging possibilities offered by the campus learning management system, as well as other faculty services they provide for videotaping lectures, connecting with community partners around the globe over the web, distance learning, and the like.

What are the Benefits of Service-Learning Course Designation?

What are the Criteria?

Many institutions have instituted policies and procedures for formal designation of service-learning courses. Designation of service-learning courses has several benefits, including clearly defining service-learning in the institutional context, ensuring that courses meet consistent standards of high-quality service-learning, and allowing for transcript notation. It also enables students to readily identify service-learning courses, which is useful whether they are seeking to fulfill a requirement, choose an engaging elective, or avoid adding the challenges of service-learning to an already heavy set of responsibilities. Faculty applying for tenure and promotion can benefit from institutional recognition of the rigor and value of service-learning courses.

Virtually all of the institutional criteria for service-learning designation are developed by faculty committees, approved by academic policy bodies, and based generally on the Wingspread principles for combining service and learning (Porter-Honnet & Poulsen, 1990) and specifically on the Principles of Good Practice for Service-Learning Pedagogy (Howard, 2001), which are reproduced as Exhibits 1.1 and 4.1, respectively. The criteria usually state that the syllabus must describe the direct and deliberate connections between the service experience and academic content, how reflection will occur, and that students will earn grades and credit for demonstrating learning rather than completing the service requirement. Course-designation criteria may or may not contain required minimums for the number of service hours, such as twenty per semester or five hours for each credit hour, or the percentage the service-learning component counts in the course grading scheme.

Once the criteria have been established, institutions must develop procedures for applying for and receiving course designation. Generally, faculty members are invited to submit applications, at specific times of the year or at any time, that include a draft syllabus and responses to questions, how the course complies with the principles of best service-learning practice, and the nature of the community partnerships involved. A committee that comprises faculty members, academic administrators, and service-learning center staff members generally reviews and approves or rejects applications, offering comments and suggestions for the applicant. It is also important to develop and administer a process to ensure that courses that have received the service-learning designation continue to meet the designation criteria as the faculty member modifies the syllabus over several semesters or if the course is assigned to another faculty member when the one who received the course designation stops teaching it. In these cases, as well at regular intervals, such as every three years, the faculty member should have to apply for renewal of the course designation.

Many examples of course designation criteria and procedures are available online. By searching for “service-learning course designation,” it is easy to find examples that are in place at institutions comparable to yours.

What are the Obstacles to Faculty Involvement?

What should an Institution Offer in the Way of Faculty Development for Service-Learning?

Staff and faculty members associated with service-learning centers and centers for teaching and learning often ask me how to motivate faculty members to adopt service-learning as a pedagogy and to continue their engagement with it over time. I believe that three forms of support are necessary: faculty development, assistance and incentives, and establishing policies that promote service-learning.

Faculty development. Like most people, faculty members are often hesitant to embrace something they do not know or understand. They are often confused about definitions of terms related to service-learning, community service, experiential learning, public service, and the like. Others may be intimidated by perceived obstacles, such as the challenge of teaching in a new way, not being able to cover required course content, lack of knowledge of the community and potential partners, and, of course, administrative and logistical issues.

In addition, faculty members in some disciplines, including STEM and the humanities, may be inclined to believe that service-learning is not relevant to their courses. Because such individuals may be unlikely to attend a workshop on service-learning, a good way to introduce it is to include service-learning in workshops on more general topics such as high-impact educational practices or experiential learning. Once their interest is piqued, faculty members need to know the fundamentals of service-learning course design. Those who are in the process of designing or teaching service-learning courses need opportunities to focus on specific aspects of service-learning, such as critical reflection, assessment and grading, working with community partners, handling student issues, managing logistics, and a host of other questions that may arise.

In addition to workshops, faculty members often appreciate the opportunity to interact with others who are teaching service-learning courses, both in their own disciplines and in others. There are many models of faculty learning communities, ranging from informal monthly brown-bag lunch meetings to structured service-learning faculty fellows programs that involve cohort members in workshops and regular meetings with an experienced facilitator. Some of these programs involve stipends, as described below.

In addition to campus-based faculty development initiatives, there are many online resources and meetings available through national, regional, and state organizations, such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Campus Compact, Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, and the New England Resource Center for Higher Education. More and more disciplinary associations are offering sessions at their conferences on service-learning and engaged scholarship. For-profit providers of faculty development, such as Magna Publications and Academic Impressions, offer webinars and other online and print resources related to service-learning.

Assistance and incentives. Once they are introduced to the concept and practice of service-learning, faculty members soon realize that developing and teaching a service-learning course is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Providing support and assistance to faculty members can make the difference in their deciding to try service-learning and to stay with it in the long run. Such support includes identifying potential community partners, supervising and monitoring student service, providing trained graduate or undergraduate teaching assistants, and offering guidance and assistance with reflection and logistical and administrative issues, such as transportation, liability and risk management, and security procedures. It is also worthwhile to assist faculty to recruit students to enroll in their service-learning courses, partly as a result of commitments they may have made to community partners.

In addition to support, incentives such as summer grants for developing a service-learning course, stipends for participating in a faculty learning community or fellows program, release from teaching a course or from administrative responsibilities, and sabbatical grants for engaged scholarship can enable faculty members to devote the time and effort required to develop and teach a service-learning course. Funds to attend national or regional conferences or institutes are also an attractive incentive.

Policies and practices that promote service-learning. There are several types of policies that institutions can put in place to support faculty engagement with service-learning. Clear definitions and guidelines for service-learning courses, including faculty-determined criteria for service-learning course designation, are helpful. Establishing a service-learning credit, or fourth-credit, option offers faculty members a gentle introduction to service-learning without having to develop an entire course.

Academic policymakers who recognize the value of service-learning can create an institutional climate that supports the development of new service-learning courses in both the major and the general educational curriculum. Because curriculum committees must approve courses before they can be taught, it is important to educate members of these committees about the academic rigor and pedagogical benefits of service-learning in order to eliminate unnecessary obstacles in the approval process. As institutions revise general educational curricula, establishing premises that encourage active learning and the public dimensions of scholarship facilitates the development of service-learning courses.

The most significant academic policy issues involve those related to appointment, promotion, and tenure. Faculty members in the tenure track, particularly at research institutions, have told me that they have been advised by their department chairs or mentors that they should not engage in service-learning until they have achieved tenure. Policies that specifically recognize service-learning in research, teaching, and service are essential for faculty to believe that their work will be valued in promotion and tenure, as described in the following question.

How should Service-Learning be Viewed Favorably in Faculty Appointments?

How should I Incorporate Service-Learning in My Portfolio?

What Institutional Promotion and Tenure Policies Support Service-Learning?

Much progress has been made at all types of institutions over the last several years in implementing changes to faculty reward policies that enable faculty members to achieve tenure and promotion based, in part, on their service-learning and engaged scholarship. Guidelines have been developed and promulgated for peer and institutional review of engaged scholarship that meets disciplinary criteria for academic rigor and engages and benefits the community (Stanton, Connolly, Howard, & Litvak, 2013). Criteria for evaluating service-learning as a component of teaching in the tenure process might specify that the faculty member's service-learning teaching contributions relate to the area of scholarship, are responsive to community needs, are designed to have a lasting impact, are carried out in partnership with the community, and engage students in critical reflection that relates to academic content and deepens their understanding of active citizenship (Stanton, Connolly, Howard, & Litvak, 2013).

In addition, guidelines for faculty members to use in highlighting their work with service-learning as teaching, research, and service are also emerging. These include documenting the positive effects service-learning has had on scholarship and teaching, highlighting a new or revised service-learning class as innovative teaching, making presentations and writing articles based on benefits to students and communities from service-learning courses and service-learning as pedagogy, including excerpts (with permission) from student reflections, and soliciting letters from students and community partners about the positive impacts of the faculty member's service-learning work (University of Missouri–St. Louis, 2013). The definition of faculty service is also becoming broader to include service to local communities as well as service to the institution and the discipline.

The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN), convened by Campus Compact, has produced the Engaged Scholarship Toolkit for Research Universities, based on the premise that, although research universities may be lagging behind other types of institutions in their community-based work, “research universities are in an admirable position to advance community engaged scholarship; indeed this may be their contribution to the community engagement movement with the greatest potential” (Stanton, Connolly, Howard, & Litvak, 2013). This comprehensive resource provides tools and guidance for faculty at research universities (that are also relevant and useful for faculty at all institutions) to document engaged scholarship for reward and promotion and to enable the assessment of engaged scholarship by peer and other institutional reviewers for reward and promotion (Stanton, Connolly, Howard, & Litvak, 2013).

The Engaged Scholarship Consortium, the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, and several other organizations that are listed in 9.3 offer workshops and conferences, guidance for individual faculty members in preparing their dossiers for tenure and promotion, and support for colleges and universities in building strong campus-community partnerships that are anchored in rigorous engaged scholarship.

As institutions embrace high-impact educational practices, recruitment criteria for new faculty members are increasingly favorable to service-learning and engaged scholarship. The provost of an urban university I recently consulted with told me that sustained community partnerships that provide research opportunities, together with support for engaged scholarship and service-learning, are important because prospective faculty members who visit the campus ask about them. Further discussion of promotion and tenure issues related to the future of service-learning are discussed in 9.3.

What is an Engaged Department?

What is the Role of the Department in Sustaining Service-Learning Over Time?

In the first chapter of The Engaged Department Toolkit, the authors state that it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the academic department as a focus of service-learning: “… neglecting the department more or less guarantees that the engagement efforts of all but a small number of unusually independent, secure, and/or already marginalized faculty members will not last long” (Battistoni, Gelmon, Saltmarsh, Wergin, & Zlotkowski, 2003). An engaged department takes a department-level approach to integrating, expanding, and deepening community engagement by utilizing service-learning broadly and deeply as a pedagogy to achieve desired learning outcomes; sustaining authentic, mutually beneficial partnerships with communities or community-based organizations; and supporting community-based research by faculty and students.

In an engaged department, service-learning is integral to the curriculum in one or more ways. Service-learning may be required in first-year seminars, capstone courses, and other courses in the major as well as in general education courses offered to all students. In an engaged department, courses designated as service-learning are offered regularly and may be taught by different faculty members. In other situations, a service-learning course taught by a single faculty member who goes on sabbatical or leaves the institution is likely not to be offered, and the community partnership is usually suspended or ended.

Engaged department faculty members are rewarded through the tenure and promotion process for research, teaching, and service that make significant contributions to both the discipline and the community. Students engage with the community through course-based service and research activities and through department-based student organizations. Community partnerships may involve the entire department rather than a single faculty member and are often formalized through memorandums of understanding or other written agreements.

An example of how a service-learning course can lead to an engaged department is the Department of Behavioral and Community Health at the University of Maryland. In the mid-1990s, a faculty member in what was then the Department of Health Education began to engage his students in a community-based research project in the City of Seat Pleasant, Maryland, where more than 90 percent of the residents are African American, approximately 20 percent with incomes below the poverty level. He and his students met with city officials and residents and planned and conducted a community health survey. The students and the faculty member analyzed and reported the data to community leaders and members, which led to subsequent courses in which students conducted a series of health screenings and educational programs to address the issues identified in the survey. The department and the city negotiated and signed a memorandum of understanding, and other university departments, schools, county and state government offices, businesses, churches, and community organizations have joined the City of Seat Pleasant–University of Maryland College Park Health Partnership (University of Maryland, 2013).