The International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE)
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Moving from Thin to Thick Conceptions of Civic Engagement: Faculty Identity and Goals for Democratic Learning
Get PDFColleges and universities continue to respond to the call for a deepening of community-engaged research and teaching that contributes tangibly to the public good. Coupled with a new generation of scholars eschewing traditional markers of academic success, the authors set out to discover what faculty members at an urban university identify as priorities for teaching and research to advance democratic engagement. They collected quantitative and qualitative data from faculty members and their community partners. The study findings suggested that while community-engaged activity continues to grow and even thrive among an increasing number of faculty members, there remain three targeted areas needing improvement in order for democratically informed scholarship to better serve the public good: (1) The need to transform “thin” student learning goals into more robust, “thick” civic learning goals; (2) increasing what now is minimal, if existent, discussion of the political opportunities for and constraints to community work; and, (3) a fuller integration of faculty interests, personal and professional, with teaching and research priorities centering on democratic engagement
The Effects of Participation in Alternative Break: An Alumni Sample Study
Get PDFAlternative break experiences occur when college or university students choose freely to eschew typical break activities in order to engage in service with a group of peers under the guidance of peer-leaders in a community removed from their own. While researchers have identified some immediate benefits of participation in alternative break experience, less is known about their long-term impacts. This article examines the results of a study in which 147 college graduates were asked to reflect on their alternative break experiences. Respondents reported that these experiences had long-term (i.e., post-graduate) effects such as fostering lasting relationships and changing life perspectives
Out of the Armchair: About Community Impact
Get PDFThose of us who consider ourselves practitioner-scholars in our field are mostly preoccupied with facilitating learning and inquiry through community-engaged practice. It is hardly surprising then that our work to develop and steward collaborations with communities and organizations leads us to view outcomes through a lens that asks foremost and at times exclusively whether we have advanced knowledge and capacities among our students, our faculty and staff colleagues. We may also ask whether community-engaged practices have enhanced the programs our institutions treasure. Like me, I’m sure many of us frequently remind community partners, often to explain or excuse this inward focus, that we who do this work on college campuses are typically marginal and under resourced in our contexts. And that faculty colleagues who undertake that work are often unrewarded or at least under-valued for these particular efforts. Because that’s all true, and speaks to our preoccupation with these results, in part, as a matter of addressing our institutional contexts
How to Interconnect Universities with Nonprofit Organizations for Service-Learning: A German Approach
Get PDFThe article aims to foster faculty staff’s understanding of Civil Society and Nonprofit Organizations (NPO) as potential Service-Learning partners for universities. Sociological and economic descriptions of Civil Society and NPO characteristics in Germany are followed by proposals how faculty at German universities conceivably approaches civil society organizations. The results herein are comparable and applicable to the NPO sector in other countries with developed civil societies. The presented approaching strategies serve as inspirations for faculty staff and show the existing intertwining between universities and civil society. The article contributes to enable universities to realize the potentials of service-learning collaboration with nonprofit organizations
Indigenous Perspectives on Community Service-Learning in Higher Education: An Examination of the Kenyan Context
Get PDFoai:iarslce.journals.sfu.ca:article/252To understand community service-learning (CSL) in global contexts, an Indigenous perspective is needed to reflect the range of contextual and historical issues. Theoretical discussions of CSL generally reference theories of experiential and reflective learning; however, work in critical pedagogy and anti-colonial discourse can be utilized to generate a framework that embraces the breadth and depth of CSL in different regions. Extant research on CSL in Africa has found that student learning and development are influenced by pressures faced by the higher education system as well as historical and contextual issues encountered by students while engaged in CSL. As discussed in this article, incorporating an Indigenous perspective within existing theoretical frameworks can enable the development of models, pedagogical approaches, and practices that reflect needs of Kenyan communities. The authors present a rationale for further CSL research in Kenya to ensure culturally sensitive, theoretically sound, and non-exploitive CSL that fosters positive outcomes for students, partner organizations, communities, and higher education institutions.
Welcome to the Volume
Get PDFWelcome to the fifth volume of the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE), the annual, online, peer-reviewed publication of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), the premier network for scholars studying teaching, learning, and researching in community engagement and civic and public life. The purpose of IJRSLCE is to make available to educational practitioners, researchers, and policymakers current, high-quality research and theory on service-learning and campus-community engagement
Welcome to the Volume
No full textWelcome to the fourth volume of the International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE), the annual, online, peer-reviewed publication of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), the premier network for scholars studying teaching, learning, and research in civic and public life. The purpose of IJRSLCE is to make available to educational practitioners, researchers, and policy makers current highquality research and theory on service-learning and campus-community engagement
Groundbreaking Partnerships for Engaged Learning: A Review of "Service Learning, Information Literacy, and Libraries"
Get PDFReviewed in this article: Service Learning, Information Literacy, and Libraries. Edited by Jennifer Nutefall. Libraries Unlimited, Santa Barbara, CA. 2016. ISBN: 978-1440840913. 155 pages
Service-Learning as a Means to Promote Development of Social Responsibility Competency in a Department of Economics and Business (English translation)
No full textEl enfoque metodológico de Aprendizaje-Servicio ha sido utilizado desde el año 2009 por la Facultad de Economía y Negocios de la Universidad de Chile, para propiciar, por una parte, la vinculación de la formación profesional de sus estudiantes con problemáticas y desafíos reales del entorno, y por otra parte, el desarrollo de la competencia de Responsabilidad Social. El artículo tiene como finalidad presentar los resultados comparativos entre la percepción inicial y final de los estudiantes, que participan en cursos con enfoque de Aprendizaje-Servicio, respecto a su desempeño esperado y real de la competencia. Entre los principales resultados destaca que, los ítems del instrumento asociados a la recolección de información con socios comunitarios y la estimación de impactos económicos a pesar de mostrar una leve disminución esta no es estadísticamente significativa, el resto de los ítems presenta una leve disminución. Lo anterior, puede explicarse debido a que ciertos desempeños son mayormente abordados en el plan de formación, ratificando la necesidad de seguir fortaleciendo la institucionalización de la metodología, así como buscar nuevas formas y estrategias metodológicas para el desarrollo de la competencia de Responsabilidad Social en la formación de profesionales. Palabras Claves: Responsabilidad Social, Aprendizaje-Servicio, Competencias Genéricas, Educación Superior.
Partnering with Parteras: Multi-Collaborator International Service-Learning Project Impacts on Traditional Birth Attendants in Mexico
Get PDFMedical students are increasingly seeking global health service-learning opportunities; however, the impact of these interventions is often not assessed. In this article, the authors describe a model for global health service-learning programs as well as a pilot tool for assessing program impacts on populations traditionally difficult to evaluate. Specifically, a group of medical students from the United States, in collaboration with local health officials and a global NGO, successfully implemented a training program for parteras, or traditional birth attendants, in Mexico. The training included educational objectives from the Ministry of Health. A pilot assessment tool was developed which included oral pretest and posttest self-reported knowledge and task-specific ability in 12 program-specific categories. The assessment was administered in an effort to determine educational impact: parteras, who were receptive to students as teachers, reported increased knowledge and skill in all topics except nutrition and postpartum care. The results of the assessment suggest that undergraduate medical students, when collaborating with a facilitating organization, community-based healthcare workers, and local ministries of health, can improve lay birth attendants’ confidence in basic obstetric knowledge and skills through global service-learning. Moreover, creative assessments are required to understand impacts on difficult to access populations.