What is Service-Learning?

In recent years, more and more schools and teachers have been expanding upon student service activities with service-learning programs that link student volunteer service activity directly to academic coursework.

According to the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, service-learning:

• Is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of communities
• Is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program and the community
• Helps foster civic responsibility
• Is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students, or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled
• Provides structured time for students or participants to reflect on the service experience

Service-learning aims to build knowledge, character, and civic skills in young people by combining service to the community with academic learning. By directly linking service to the academic curriculum, service-learning creates a place for service that is integrated into a schools core mission: education. Instead of becoming one more burden on the already busy lives of teachers, families, and students, service-learning strives to make their lives easier by combining academic instruction with civic involvement.

A good service-learning program reinforces specific educational objectives - such as developing students presentation skills, teaching them how a bill becomes a law, or showing them how to translate a drawing from miniature to life-size - while also engaging students in meaningful and structured volunteering.

Likewise, an after-school or community-based program can be linked to classroom academic instruction when teachers collaborate with the organizations sponsoring the program. Over the last 10 years, community-based organizations that have long sponsored service programs, including the YMCA of the USA, Camp Fire USA, the United Cerebral Palsy Association, and the National 4-H Council, as well as newer organizations including the Points of Light Foundation and the Volunteer Center National Network, Youth Volunteer Corps of America, and America's Promise, have begun working with schools to support service-learning through their community programs. The goal of these partnerships is to provide an experience that enriches the classroom work of students, while also fostering civic responsibility and addressing real community needs.

CIVIC EDUCATION
Service can foster civic responsibility by giving young people responsibility for significant activities, encouraging interaction among people, and having students perform tasks that are important to community well-being. However, not all service and service-learning can be called civic education. In order for service to be an effective strategy for building civic engagement and participation in American democracy, civic and historical knowledge should be a part of the learning or training associated with the service the individuals perform. An effective civic engagement strategy might include three components:

1. Instruction in the fundamentals of democracy, including essential civic documents and history; civic and government processes; and instruction in civic skills, including respon-sibility, tolerance, public debate, making presentations, information-gathering, and analysis of current events
2. Meaningful community service activities
3. The effective linkage of the above through reflection and analysis

While civic education is most commonly a part of social studies or history, it can be incorporated in all service projects and through all curriculum areas. (For more information on civic education, go to the civic education links in the Tools and Resources section of this guide, the CD-ROM that accompanies it, or at www.usafreedomcorps.gov)

Although still in the early stages, studies suggests that schools with well-designed service and service-learning programs can provide a number of benefits for students, teachers, schools, after-school programs, and communities. These benefits, which have emerged from existing studies, deserve to be followed up with more rigorous research.

In 2000, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a long-time supporter of service-learning, appointed a National Commission on Service-Learning. The commission, cospon-sored by the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and chaired by former U.S. Senator John Glenn, spent a year studying the state of service-learning in the Nation's schools. The commission consisted of 18 education, government and community leaders. The commission's findings are included below. The findings took account of a study of K-12 school-based programs conducted between 1994 and 1997 to evaluate Learn and Serve America's service-learning programs and also included other program experience. For more details from the commission's report, go to www.learningindeed.org/slcommission. A summary of the Learn and Serve America report can be found at www.learnandserve.org/research.

The following is a summary of the Commission findings and other studies on potential service-learning effects:

• Increased student engagement
  Students who participate in high quality service-learning programs can become more active learners. Service-learning allows students to make the critical connection between the knowledge they are acquiring in the classroom and its use in the real world. Through service-learning, students are taught to think critically, make key decisions, interact with others, and provide service that makes a difference both to themselves and the community. As a result, their school attendance and motivation to learn can increase.
• Improved academic achievement
  When teachers explicitly tie service activities to academic standards and learning objectives, students can show gains on measures of academic achievement, including standardized tests. Service-learning that includes environmental activities, for example, can help students apply math skills (e.g., measurement and problem solving) and science skills (e.g. prediction and knowledge of botany), if they are explicitly woven into the experience.
• Improved thinking skills and Resources
  Service-learning helps students improve their ability to analyze complex tasks, draw inferences from data, solve new problems, and make decisions. The degree to which improvements occur in these "higher order thinking skills" can depend on how well teachers get students to talk about and understand the service activities they are performing.
• Improved character
  Service-learning promotes responsibility, trustworthiness, and caring for others. Through service projects, students can learn not to let each other down or to disappoint those being served. Young people who participate in service-learning are the students who acquire an ethic of service, volunteer more frequently, and say they plan to continue to volunteer as they get older.
• Improved social behavior
  Young people who are active in service programs are less likely to engage in risky behaviors. For many young people, service-learning provides a venue in which they can be more successful than they have been in more traditional classroom settings. Service and service-learning can also reinforce the kinds of social behaviors that are crucial for success in the workforce.
• Stronger ties to schools, communities, and society
  Service-learning can give students a sense of belonging to and responsibility for their communities. For example, through service projects, young people often come to believe that they can make a difference in their schools, communities, and society. Some studies have established a strong connection between this sense of "efficacy" and academic achievement, as well as greater concern for personal health and well-being.
• Exposure to new careers
  Through service-learning, many students come into contact with adults in careers that would otherwise remain hidden to them. For example, students may meet social workers, scientists, park rangers, government workers, health workers, and others who work in community agencies. By assisting them and seeing how schoolwork relates to what they do, students can acquire higher or more varied career or job aspirations, along with a more realistic understanding of what is necessary to attain them.
• Positive school environments
  Where service-learning is practiced school-wide, program experience shows that teachers can feel reinvigorated, dialogue on teaching and learning can be stimulated, and the school climate can improve. In fact, many teachers become advocates for incorporating more service into the curriculum. Service programs have also been associated with reduced negative student behaviors and disciplinary referrals, as well as dropout rates.
• Stronger community groups
  When young people form early connections with community groups through service activities, the groups themselves are often the beneficiaries. Young people can infuse a charity or civic group with energy and inspiration; become members of the volunteer force, staff, or board; help build awareness of the group's mission throughout the community; and help an organization garner positive press and media attention.
• Increased community support for schools
  Community members who work with the young people engaged in service activities frequently say they come to view youth differently, seeing them as assets who contribute to the community in positive ways. Public support for schools can grow as a result of student involvement in community activities.

The benefits described here do not come about without careful attention to the design and implementation of service and service-learning projects. In particular, teachers, principals, and community group leadersmust tie the service to particular educational goals and learning standards; facilitate discussion of and reflection on the service and civic principles involved; and give students real choices in the planning, implementation, and assessment of the projects.

CHARACTER EDUCATION
Character education helps young people to know, care about, and act upon core ethical values such as fairness, honesty, compassion, responsibility, and respect for self and others. While parents and other family members have the primary responsibility for nurturing their children's character, schools, religious institutions, and community-based youth service programs can support and emphasize values through character education. Character education can be provided in a variety of ways, including civics classes that emphasize constitutional principles and the responsibilities of citizenship; school wide projects on ethics and character; student government; and other extracurricular activities. Volunteer service is a frequent feature of character education programs. It helps young people to practice the values of compassion, caring, cooperation, responsibility and citizenship through meaningful service to others in the community. For more information on character education, go to the character education links in the Tools and Resources section of this guide, the CD-ROM that accompanies it, or at www.usafreedomcorps.gov.

LEARN AND SERVE AMERICA
Learn and Serve America is a program of the federal Corporation for National and Community Service. Established in 1993, Learn and Serve America's goal is to provide young people with opportunities to serve America through service-learning. The program supports the creation or expansion of service and service-learning programs in schools, community-based organizations, and higher education. It also works to enhance the quality of those programs and link practitioners in the field to resources to help improve their practice.

Learn and Serve America provides training and technical assistance to its grantees and the public through the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse and the National Service-Learning Training and Technical Assistance Program. It supports studies of service-learning and works with other educational organizations to increase awareness of the value of service-learning and demonstrate how it complements other educational reform efforts. Its network of grantees at the state and local levels are linked together so they can share ideas and curricula and provide feedback and solutions to issues they face in their programs. Its web site can be found at www.learnandserve.org.

Examples of Service-Learning in Action

Service-learning programs can take many forms. They may take place during the school day, after school, on weekends, and/or during the summer. They may involve a single class or youth group, several classes, the whole school, or an entire school district. In Ohio, service-learning is organized on a statewide level.

What most of these programs have in common is that they began with one good idea and grew to become complex projects involving many people. The following are some examples of school-based and community-based programs that demonstrate the diversity of service-learning programs and projects. The CD-ROM that accompanies this guide and www.servicelearning.org offer additional examples of service-learning.

Service-Learning in One Class

Sixth grade students in one classroom began a program designed to teach active citizenship and participatory skills by polling classmates, family, and neighbors about problems in their community that could be corrected with public policy. The group decided to improve a two-lane road shared by cars, trucks, walkers, skaters, and bikers.

Students measured the road, conducted traffic surveys, questioned drivers and pedestrians, and photographed problem areas. Finally, they proposed a pedestrian bridge and path. They designed a path with a highway engineer, prepared testimony and documentation, and appeared before a meeting of county commissioners to present their plan and request materials and equipment. The students pledged to raise the necessary $4,500. The county commissioners voted unanimously to authorize the construction of a gravel path.

Not satisfied with gravel, the students approached a construction company that agreed to donate and install asphalt. Construction was completed with the help of the Conservation Corps, and the path was dedicated in less than a year from its conception on November 1, 2001.

Service-Learning Organized by Community Organizations in After-School Hours

Middle school students working with their local YMCA shop for and deliver groceries to homebound seniors twice a month through a program called the Grocery Connection. The project builds consistent relationships between seniors and young people. Youth in the program examine issues related to health and nutrition, as well as the economics and processes of agriculture and food production. The program expanded to include a partnership with a local school in which teachers incorporate service-learning activities that focus on food and nutrition into a variety of subjects, including geography.

Whole School of District-Wide Service-Learning

One school district has been honored for its efforts to link service, character development, and civic education across all schools and grade levels. Every teacher in the district involves students in service and service-learning.

Many of the district's schools have been given special recognition, including one program featured below. Other programs in the district involve first graders in an ongoing reciprocal relationship with a local senior center that involves tutoring and reading, and fourth graders in adopting and preserving local wetlands as a part of a yearlong science curriculum.

At one district high school, service-learning and civics education are strongly inter-connected. For example, every freshman takes an integrated civics-English course that engages students in actively exploring the question: "What are the rights and responsibilities of a citizen in a just society?" The English and civics components meet on alternating days in an extended block over an entire year. In English, the themes discussed in civics are explored through literature. For the first half of the year, civics students study the structure of and rationale behind our democratic system of government. During the second half, they study the conditions that gave rise to dictatorship in Germany and, eventually, the Holocaust. The juxtaposition of these themes allows students to weigh the benefits of our system of government, recognizing the value of individual freedom and limited government. At the same time, students recognize that these values are never guaranteed, that a just society can "easily be lost, but never fully won." Democracy, the students learn, is an ongoing struggle, kept alive and vital by an active and informed citizenry that recognizes the rights of others and is empowered to effect change.

For the service component of the course, every ninth grade student develops his own community service-learning project. In the fall, while studying national, state, and local government, students identify various community needs and consider the extent to which these levels of government effectively address these needs. Students are encouraged to focus on one need that matters to them. In the winter, they design a project that will address this need. In the spring, they carry out their project.

The projects that the students develop are varied, but they all have connections to their course work. Students who developed an arts awareness dance performance for elementary students partnered with elementary principals and teachers as well as the local Arts Alliance. Others planted flowers and cleaned up around an elementary school, partnering with the building principal and grounds keeper. Students who organized a canned-food drive joined forces with both the local food pantry and a supermarket, where they held the drive. The teacher keeps track of these relationships so that the following years' classes can use and build upon the networks that have been created.

Statewide Service-Learning

While every state has many service-learning programs, and most states have strong statewide networks of service-learning schools, teachers, and students, only one state has developed a project designed to link together the entire state in a common goal - the Ohio Bicentennial Service-Learning Schools Project. In 2003, Ohio will be celebrating its bicentennial, and the Ohio Bicentennial Service-Learning Schools Project will offer Ohio students the opportunity to participate actively in the creation of a bicentennial legacy. The Project expects to enlist one middle and/or high school in each of Ohio's 88 counties, designating them "Ohio Bicentennial Service-Learning Schools."

The project engages students in three service-learning activities tied to the school's current course materials and objectives:

PRESERVING THE PAST: Students will perform research and interviews to arrive at a characterization of their county and community. Each school's work will be collected into a historical account of Ohio written by its school children, which will be presented to the Ohio State Legislature.

ENRICHING THE PRESENT: Students will partner with others to conduct a countywide needs assessment to explore and identify a local need. Then project partners will design and implement a project to address the targeted issue.

SHAPING THE FUTURE: Students will create a service-learning project designed to enhance their county's future.