Service Learning FAQ

At Truman State University, we define service-learning as a teaching methodology that utilizes community service to help students gain a deeper understanding of course content, acquire new knowledge and engage in civic activity.  Service-learning provides a practical setting for our students to integrate the theoretical knowledge they gain in the classroom with community service.

Characteristics of Service-Learning

·         Community service serves as the vehicle for the achievement of specific academic goals and objectives.

·         It provides structured time for students to reflect on their service and learning experiences through a mix of writing, reading, speaking, listening, and creating in small and large groups and individual work.

·         It fosters the development of those "intangibles"- empathy, personal values, beliefs, awareness, self-esteem, self-confidence, social-responsibility, and helps to promote a sense of caring for others.

·         It is based on a reciprocal relationship in which the service reinforces and strengthens the learning, and the learning reinforces and strengthens the service.

·         Credit is awarded for learning - college-level learning - and not for a requisite number of service hours.  

• Service-learning uses community service as the vehicle for the attainment of students' academic goals and objectives.
• Community service fills a need in the community through volunteer efforts. Service-learning also fills the need, but it uses that need as a foundation to examine ourselves, our society, and our future. Further, service-learning provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations.
• It identifies in advance, and tracks, specific learning objectives and goals (as well as the intangible ones).
• Students perform a valuable, significant, and necessary service which has real consequence in the community.
• The goal of the service is to empower students and those being served.
• The needs of the community dictate the service being provided.

Liability is always an important issue to consider and is especially important for service-learning.  Sending students into the community to engage in service inevitably poses a certain level of risk, but we take as many precautions as we can to ensure that our students are safe.

• There is an inherent assumption of risk for which all students are responsible. All volunteers and service-learners should be fully informed, in advance, of any possible risks associated with the activity and they must knowingly consent to undertake such risks.
• The Service-Learning Coordinator will exercise due care in attempt to foresee potential dangers to students and take necessary precautions to avoid them.
• All service-learners must sign a waiver of liability.
• All project facilitators must sign an agreement that he/she will consider the students' best interest and welfare at all times.
• All community agencies must sign an agreement that they will consider the students' best interest and welfare at all times.  

Please refer to the Facilitator Checklist found in "Truman-Specific Resources" under the Faculty Resources tab for a complete list of duties.

·         Consents to be Project Facilitator. 

·         Submits a Project Proposal or helps student groups submit one.

·         Sets learning objectives and outlines project in the syllabus.

·         Guides/fosters in-class reflection.

·         Submits a Project Review or helps student groups submit one.

·         Gives final letter grade.  

·         Determines community needs for project ideas.

·         Increases awareness and understanding of service-learning
in the University and general communities.

·         Develops partnerships with community agencies.

·         Organizes and facilitates the documentation process of each project.

·         Monitors the projects and helps with problem-solving.

·         Assists with publicity for the projects.

·         Evaluations (pre- and post-service survey)

Essentially three things can happen when students get involved in community service. First, and foremost, students can learn something about themselves, their community, and about pressing social issues. Secondly, students can learn nothing. A group can go out and feed the homeless and remain unaffected by the whole affair. Lastly, students can learn the wrong lesson - prejudices and stereotypes can be reinforced or created through unexamined and poorly planned service outings.

10 Questions Away from Better Service Projects - There are many rewards and dividends earned through a well-planned and implemented community service project (team-building, unique learning opportunities, meeting real needs in the community, bridge-building on- and off-campus, and, of course, good publicity).  When thinking about your service-learning project and developing the Project Proposal, ask yourself or your group these questions:

1. Will students be excited about the project? Have you built in a 'fun' or social component?
2. Does the project offer opportunities for student leadership development, real learning, sharing, and friendship?
3. Have you set aside time for orientation, reflection, and evaluation?
4. Will the service be challenging, meaningful, valuable, and necessary?
5. Is there enough work for everyone to do? Is the formula balanced? (Volunteers / Task hours = Results)
6. Is it "Do-Able?"- Is the project within the resources (time, people, money, and expertise) of you, your group, or your volunteers? Is any special training, paperwork, medical checks, fees, or background checks needed first?
7. Will it conflict with any other groups or events on campus? Any possible opposition?
8. Is there a potential to build coalitions with other campus groups? Will it be open to, or will you tap into, diverse student populations?
9. Do we have a clear entrance and exit strategy, understand our volunteer roles and responsibilities, and are we prepared for what we will experience? Do we need a short orientation before the project? 
10. Is it safe? Have you exercised due care in attempt to foresee any potential dangers and taken the necessary precautions? Do we have waivers for everyone? Did you consult your advisor and/or university attorney? Have you done a site-visit?

The goal is to blend service and learning so that the service reinforces, improves and strengthens the learning, and the learning reinforces, improves and strengthens the service. The pedagogy of service-learning, at its best, produces a greater impact than either could have produced separately.

The Service-Learning Coordinator has developed a number of useful tools to assist faculty and/or student groups in integrating a service-learning project into the course.  These tools can be found in "Truman-Specific Resources" under the Faculty Resources tab.  It is advisable to meet with the Service-Learning Coordinator to discuss the goals of the course and the project fully before you begin to map everything out. 

We also have examples of syllabi and reflection activities used in previous service-learning projects by other faculty at Truman.  These documents can be accessed under the Past Projects tab and by clicking on the title of a project.

A process by which service-learners think critically about their experiences. Reflection can happen through writing, speaking, listening, and reading about the service experiences.  Reflection is important because learning happens through a mix of theory and practice, thought and action, observation and interaction. It allows students to learn from themselves.

·         Journals should be snapshots filled with sights, sounds, smells, concerns, insights, doubts, fears, and critical questions about issues, people, and, most importantly, yourself.

·         Honesty is the most important ingredient to successful journals.

·         A journal is not a work log of tasks, events, times and dates.

·         Write freely. Grammar/spelling should not be stressed in your writing until the final draft.

·         Write an entry after each visit. If you can't write a full entry, jot down random thoughts, images ,etc.

·         which you can come back to a day or two later and expand into a colorful verbal picture.

      Structuring Your Writing:

·         Use the journal as a time to meditate on what you've seen, felt, and experienced, and which aspects of the volunteer experience continues to excite, trouble, impress, or unnerve you.

·         Don't simply answer the questions listed below, but use the questions as a diving board to leap from into a clear or murky pool of thought. Use the questions to keep your writing/"swimming" focused.

·         Final journals need to be edited for proper grammar and spelling.

   The Three Levels of Reflection

      ·        The Mirror (A clear reflection of the Self)
Who am I? What are my values? What have I learned about myself through this experience? Do I have more/less understanding or empathy than I did before volunteering? In what ways, if any, has your sense of self, your values, your sense of "community," your willingness to serve others, and your self-confidence/self-esteem been impacted or altered through this experience? Have your motivations for volunteering changed? In what ways? How has this experience challenged stereotypes or prejudices you have/had? Any realizations, insights, or especially strong lessons learned or half-glimpsed? Will these experiences change the way you act or think in the future? Have you given enough, opened up enough, cared enough? How have you  challenged yourself, your ideals, your philosophies, your concept of life or of the way you live?

·         The Microscope (Makes the small experience large)

What happened? Describe your experience. What would you change about this

situation if you were in charge? What have you learned about this agency, these

people, or the community? Was there a moment of failure, success, indecision,

doubt, humor, frustration, happiness, sadness? Do you feel your actions had any

impact? What more needs to be done? Does this experience compliment or

contrast with what you're learning in class? How? Has learning through

experience taught you more, less, or the same as the class? In what ways?

·         The Binoculars (Makes what appears distant, appear closer)

From your service experience, are you able to identify any underlying or

overarching issues which influence the problem? What could be done to change

the situation? How will this alter your future behaviors/attitudes/and career? How

is the issue/agency you're serving impacted by what is going on in the larger

political/social sphere? What does the future hold? What can be done?