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Creating powerful learning environments beyond the classroom

Change - May 1, 2004

Continued from page 4.

Another form of beyond-the-classroom educational experience for students has exploded recently--service learning. The past several years have seen an increase in the number of service learning opportunities; an increase in service learning classes taught on campus; and growing campus support for faculty members' involvement in service learning.

As Barbara Jacoby wrote in 1996, "Service learning is a long way from the center of the academic center stage in higher education, but it is moving in that direction with increasing speed." A 2000 survey on service learning by Campus Compact found that students at colleges and universities belonging to Campus Compact performed a total of 17 million hours of service. The total number of students participating in service rose from 688,000 in 1999 to 712,000 in 2000, an increase of 24,000 students in one year.

As Adrianna J. Kezar noted in 2002, "Service learning has burgeoned and has captured the attention of educators, politicians, and students as a way to develop skills for democratic life.... Service learning is part of the formal academic curriculum."

Service learning engages faculty in new and creative ways. A communications faculty member at Maryland took a group of students to Ground Zero as a service project and to pay homage to the volunteers. A new faculty member, on his first service learning project at Maryland, realized that his group's "Christmas in April" project would be short of the needed supplies. He went to a local nursery with students and personally purchased the remaining plants and shrubs that were needed.

Service learning activities also offer much-needed assistance to local organizations and give students valuable skills and expertise. In fact, Janet Eyler and Dwight Gile Jr.'s comprehensive study in 1999 listed several important likely outcomes of serving learning for the students involved:

* Increased sense of citizenship (values, skills, efficacy, and commitment to social responsibility);

* Development of stronger analytical and problem-solving skills;

* Enhanced personal development (self-knowledge, spiritual growth, finding reward in helping others);

* Increased leadership skills;

* Greater cultural awareness and tolerance;

* Enhanced social development skills;

* Improved interpersonal development (working with others, communication skills).

Barbara Jacoby also has suggested that students involved in service learning may earn higher GPA's and experience increased self-esteem, increased moral sensitivity and reasoning abilities, and enhanced ethical development.

To help make meaning out of the students' experiences, many campuses increasingly have integrated service learning into their coursework. A 2002 survey by Campus Compact found that member campuses offered an average of slightly more than 30 courses that combined service with academic learning, compared with 27 courses per campus in 2001.

As Keith Morton has pointed out, there are two different types of service learning academic courses: those designed to assist students in reflecting on and learning from service in which they are already engaged (service-centered courses), and those that have discipline and content objectives that can be more effectively reached by the inclusion of service (content-centered courses).

The Beyond the Classroom courses at Maryland are designed to help guide students through an important part of their college career, the transition from college students to successful alumni. By participating in the program and taking the companion course, students can benefit from the conceptual framework needed to maximize their experiential learning and also have an opportunity to discuss the issues that arise during the semester with peers in similar experiential learning activities.

The new skills are learned in context, reflected upon, and integrated into the student's personal repertoire to enhance future practice. Some of the most effective teachers can be non-professors. One student commented that her work with her supervisor, a Legislative Fellow in the Senate, was invaluable. "She made a concerted effort to give me substantive work that would provide me with significant learning about the operations of the Senate," the student said.

According to the student, "She introduced me to many of the senior staff members and invited me to sit in on meetings where I was able to get a better understanding of the subject at hand. My knowledge of Congress that had previously been primarily from books and coursework was replaced with hands-on real experiences."

Some of the most powerful stories I have heard about learning beyond the classroom have come from students and faculty who have participated in experiential learning activities. One student who was a pre-med major did a semester-long service project at a local elementary school as an after-school tutor. Following the semester of service she decided to continue to major in biology but to get a teaching certificate instead, because she thought she would be able to serve more people as a teacher.

During a recent session reflecting on a service project that took students to a District of Columbia homeless shelter, the staff heard students talk openly for the first time about privilege, class, and race. The common reaction among students, the staff said, was that "I never thought about 'those people' before." Students were surprised at the humanness of homeless people and the fact that they did not fit the stereotypes presented in the media. In the eyes and hearts of these students, the homeless became real people for the first time.

CONCLUSION

Students in our program at Maryland and similar programs at other campuses ultimately come to share the intellectual responsibility for their learning. Students help "captain their own ship," as Maynard Mack, director of the Honors Program at Maryland, puts it. The faculty members and instructors challenge students to conceptualize a situation or problem such as inappropriate behavior or language in the workplace and discuss how to respond to it. They help students consider how well they fit into particular organizations, as well as other quality of life issues. And they help students reflect on their work and enhance or modify their current behavior.

Providing students with a connected view of learning that integrates their real world experiences with classroom lectures and discussion can create a powerful learning environment. One student recently summed up the problem with other types of community service: "As a premed student, so far I've done a laundry list of extracurricular activities to 'train' me in the medical field. However, I think there has been something very important missing in my pursuits. In a way, I've forgotten why I initially wanted to become a physician: to help those in need," she said.

"With all the pressure that comes with medical school admission, I have become so preoccupied with getting the best award or best job, I have neglected to enrich myself with service learning. I have done community service, but I took it as something to add to a resume, not as something to learn from. In order to heal, compassion is a necessary precondition. Medicine for the body is little more than a placebo if the soul is unwell."

Undergraduate research opportunities, internships, and service learning all are aimed at doing what critics of higher education often insist campuses should do--give students the knowledge and the skills that will help them become effective workers and concerned, knowledgeable citizens after they graduate.

Knowing that they must perform in a highly competitive job market and wanting to get the most out of the time and money they have put into earning their college degrees, students are embracing the opportunities to meld campus and off-campus experiences into a cohesive educational whole. Faculty members continue to play an important part, but increasingly so do community leaders, social-service workers, supervisors in businesses and government agencies, lawyers, health-care workers, and a wide range of other professionals working in our increasingly diversified economy and complex world.

RESOURCES

* Bransford, J.D., and N.J. Vye, "A Perspective on Cognitive Research and Its Implications for Instruction," in L. Resnick. and L. E. Klofer (Eds.), "Toward the Thinking Curriculum: Current Cognitive Research," Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1989.

* Brown, S.C., "Connecting to the Institutional Mission: Career Centers and the Development of Wisdom," Journal of Career Planning and Employment, 2003.

* CampusCompact, 2002, www.compact.org/newscc/stats2000/

* Campus Compact, 2002, www.compact.org/

* FMPro?-db=news_.fp3&-format=newsccdetail.html&serial==115&-Find

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