Course-Based Service Learning

Articulate for students specific course objectives and how service/community based experiences will provide the text to fulfill them.
Specify the desired outcomes for students in terms of their service experience and its link to course content so that they can strive to meet them.
Develop ways to integrate course content across texts – keeping in mind that the community is one text.
Challenge students and yourself to learn together, to go beyond the text, to ask the deeper questions which emerge when we strive to work toward a more just society.
Ask for the support you need to make the learning experience successful in your course.

Is ongoing, with regular opportunities for guided and purposeful reflection from the outset of the course to the close of the semester.
Responds to the diversity of learning styles of students with multiple forms of written and oral reflection, individually and in small and large groups.
Is embedded in the assessment component of the course in order to communicate to students that connections between content and community service are valued.
Calls on open-ended questions that allow for creativity to surface, such as “How might this look different?”
Challenges each student to assess the knowledge, values, and skills he or she brings to the project.
Leaves some cognitive and topical issues open for ongoing discussion to encourage reflection between class sessions.

Assign grades to reflect the processing of students' experience and not the service hours alone.
Look for ways to evaluate analytical skills, communication skills, and critical thinking and judgment through paper, presentation, and discussion grades.
Create assignments that require students to integrate course content and service experience.
Consider asking service supervisors to submit student evaluation forms that may or may not contribute to students' course grade through incentive points.
As in any other course, students' final grades in a service-learning course should reflect academic development and skill application.