The Learning Scientists

View Original

Weekly Digest #58: Service Learning: Further Readings and Resources

Last week, we had a blog post about Service Learning as an innovative and engaging teaching concept. Due to the vital interest in further information about this teaching strategy, we thought it would be a good idea to provide some more resources in this week’s digest.

1) Generator School Network, @nylcorg

On here you will find plenty of information about Service Learning and ways to implement it. Browse pages and pages of resources that can help you understand this teaching concept better.

Image from Pixabay

2) When Service Learning Doesn’t Really Serve by Ellen Wexler, @EllenWexler

Although there is a lot of positive things that can come out of Service Learning, Randy Stoecker argues that most Service Learning classes focus too much on the learning part and less so on the service part. In his book, “Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement”, he talks about this issue and in this blog post his main points are summarized in an interview. A good read to raise awareness for this issue.

Image from Pixabay

3) What is Service Learning or Community Engagement? by Joe Bandy at Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, @vandycft

After a brief overview on Service Learning is given, you will find different ways of implementing it in your classroom – depending on what you want to focus on. Different models are described and strategies on how to integrate Service Learning in an existing course are discussed.

4) What the Heck Is Service Learning? by Heather Wolpert-Gawron, @tweenteacher

The different components of Service Learning are described here in more detail as well as various assessment strategies. This concise and hands-on overview is useful to get started with Service Learning.

Image from Pixabay

5) Examples of Service-Learning Projects by University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

If you are interested in Service Learning, but need inspiration on what to do exactly check out this list of examples of Service Learning projects. Service Learning is feasible in pretty much any discipline and this list helps to come up with ideas.


Every Sunday, we pick a theme and provide a curated list of links. If you have a theme suggestion, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Occasionally we publish a guest digest, and If you'd like to propose a guest digest click here. Our 5 most recent digests can be found here:

Weekly Digest #53: Science Twitter in 2017

Weekly Digest #54: Is There An App For That? Studying 2.0

Weekly Digest #55: Avoiding "Alternate Facts"

Weekly Digest #56: Helping Students with E-mail Etiquette

Weekly Digest #57: Prepping for Finals - How to Make a Study/Revision Plan