Service-learning: A Year in Review

my first service-learning adventure

There I am raking leaves for a local parish during grad school - my first service-learning assignment.  A classmate of mine had the task of organizing a campus-wide day of service and he had asked a number of us to help oversee service sites around town.  At the time I really didn't understand what service-learning was - I had volunteered in the past and this didn't seem any different.  Since then, service-learning has grown in Canada and I have a better appreciation of how a simple volunteer assignment can have a lasting impact.

In my current role I am working on developing a campus-wide service-learning framework and I have two years to complete this task.  As we head in to the winter break I thought I would take a moment and reflect on some of what happened during year one.  

Blog

First I started a new blog.  Putting my thoughts out into the world was not an easy first step - but I figured all the research and information I was gathering had to go somewhere, and honestly who reads manuals anymore?  In fact research done by Dr. Tricia Seifert and her team found that one of the last places faculty look for information on services for students is in handbooks (I think it's safe to say this trend may apply to other sources of information).

Service-learning Task Force

Each time I say "task-force" in my head I apply some dramatic inflection - it just seems to deserve it.  Seriously though, I had the pleasure of chairing a task force of highly engaged and highly motivated faculty and staff.  Together we worked to develop a service-learning definition and values statements that reflect the mission and goals of our institution.  We hope to use this as the foundation for our framework moving forward. 

Live-scribe Videos

Again, looking for new and creative ways to engage faculty I developed two live-scribe videos to try and demystify service-learning, distinguish it from other forms of experiential learning and hopefully make it seem easy? The process of making the videos was fun and it gave me a chance to be visually creative.  When it came time to record my voice I will admit there was a lengthy stand-off between me and the mic.  

Here is a preview of the first video to be launched in 2016:





Ontario CSL Network

We hosted the opening network meeting for the 2015 / 2016 school year where the focus of the morning discussion was in International Service-Learning.  We had a faculty member, Mary Lendway, share her expertise on planning and delivering a top-notch service experience for students overseas and we introduced our Global Citizenship Certificate.

In the afternoon we skyped with Dr. Alison Taylor and her team from the University of B.C. who are working on a Knowledge Synthesis Report; this report is looking at the history and current state of service-learning in Canada.   I was lucky enough to be asked to be one of the final reviewers of the report before the report was submitted for final print.

Student and Faculty Survey

The first question we asked ourselves was, do students even want more service-learning on campus? To find out we created and administered a student and faculty survey looking at attitudes towards service-learning.  We learned that 85% of students would like to see more service-learning, 79% felt it was important, and 88% would likely enroll in a service-learning course.  From the faculty we learned that about half of the faculty felt they had implemented service-learning and that the most common barriers included time and being unsure of how to get started.

Overall a very busy year.  I look forward to year two! A very special thank-you to all who have read the blog - I hope you have a wonderful, safe and happy holiday!

Melissa


 

Survey: Investigating student interest in curricular service-learning

This past October we conducted a survey investigating student interest in seeing more service-learning on campus.  The student survey was written to complement the faculty survey we conducted over the summer semester. 

Students were given the following definition of service-learning and were asked to indicate their interest in seeing more service-learning, and whether or not they felt this type of experiential learning was important:

Service-learning is when students volunteer, or work on a project for a local or international not-for profit community agency, for course credit.  Service-learning often includes a reflection component including journal entries, blogs or group discussions.

Examples of courses that include service-learning activities are: 

 
- Volunteering with a local or international community agency for course credit
- Working on a project with a local or international community agency
- Working on a group research project with a local or international agency
- A capstone project that includes working with a community agency

The second part of the survey asked students if they had participated in service-learning in the past and to indicate the course and the learning outcomes they felt they attained through the experience.  Although 38 students indicated they had participated in service-learning, many student comments led us to believe that they may have viewed their internships and co-ops as service-learning activities.  There were some students who were very clear on the definition as they had come from previous institutions with strong service-learning programs.  As a result, there may be some variability in the learning outcomes indicated by students. 

Please see the info-graphic below for more results from our survey!

Assessing Reflection: Assignment Rubrics

Various tools exist for the assessment of reflection activities such as journals, group presentations and written assignments.  Differences in tools reflect what it is that is being assessed, for example there are rubrics for assessing the level of reflection (how deeply a student thinks about their experience), the type of reflection (reflecting on their experience versus a course concept), and for the stage at which a student is reflecting (developmentally how far along the reflection continuum the student sits). 

Alternatively, some faculty choose to assess reflection assignments based on the learning outcome they are focused on developing, such as: critical thinking, intercultural communication, and / or civic engagement.  

To make choosing an assessment tool easy, several rubrics have been designed based on theory and research.  You can find links to these tools below as well as a list of some research articles that inform these rubrics. 

For Everything Rubrics:

Centre for Teaching and Learning, Humber College 

Rubrics specific to reflection assignments:

http://www.compact.org/wp-content/uploads/resources/downloads/SL_Reflect_Form2.pdf

https://assessment.trinity.duke.edu/documents/SLAssessmentRubric.pdf

https://vp.studentlife.uiowa.edu/assets/Using-Reflection-for-Assessment.pdf

http://www.tnstate.edu/servicelearning/documents/reflectionrubric-1.pdf

https://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/Academics/EduHumanServ/Education/Reflective_Practice_Rubric.pdf

https://www.lsuagcenter.com/NR/rdonlyres/00E160C6-9557-41ED-A675-EB7CEB02049E/58019/Rubric.pdf

http://course1.winona.edu/shatfield/air/reflectionrubric-1.pdf

http://uncw.edu/eteal/resources/documents/CriticalReflectionScoringRubric.pdf

DEAL Model of reflection (based on Ash and Clayton, 2009):

Part I: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51a00182e4b00ebfe3c66f62/t/522645cbe4b05edb50d791a6/1378239947935/DEAL+Model+for+Critical+Reflection.pdf

Part II: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51a00182e4b00ebfe3c66f62/t/522646cee4b032f22536a824/1378240206745/DEAL+Model+CT+and+Bloom+rubric+excerpts.pdf

Other rubrics (from the American Association of Colleges and Universities: 

Civic Engagement: http://www.aacu.org/civic-engagement-value-rubric

Intercultural-knowledge: http://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/intercultural-knowledge

Critical Thinking Value: http://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/critical-thinking

Scholarly Articles on Assessing Reflection:

Many of the articles below offer grading rubrics based on their research and adaptations of these rubrics can be found in many of the sample rubrics above.

Structuring reflection assignments:

Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2004). The articulated learning: An approach to guided reflection and assessment. Innovative Higher Education, 29(2), 137-154

Correia, M. G., & Bleicher, R. E. (2008). Making connections to teach reflection. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 41-49.

Molee, L. M., Henry, M. E., Sessa, V. I., & McKinney-Prupis, E. R. (2010). Assessing learning in service-learning courses through critical reflection. Journal of Experiential Education, 33(3), 239-257.

Criteria for assessing reflection:

Williams, R. M., & Sundelin, G. (2000). Assessing the reliability of grading reflective journal writing. Journal of Physical Therapy Education, 14(2), 23-26

Assessing the quality / Level of reflection:

Marchel, C. A. (2004). Evaluating reflection and sociocultural awareness in service learning classes. Teaching of Psychology, 31(2), 120-123.

Kember, D., Jones, A., Loke, A., McKay, J., Sinclair, K., Tse, H., . . . Yeung, E. (1999). Determining the level of reflective thinking from students' written journals using a coding scheme based on the work of Mezirow. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 18(1), 18-30.

Assessing depth of learning and critical thinking:

Molee, L. M., Henry, M. E., Sessa, V. I., & McKinney-Prupis, E. R. (2010). Assessing learning in service-learning courses through critical reflection. Journal of Experiential Education, 33(3), 239-257.