PROPOSING SERVICE-LEARNING
IN
HIGHER EDUCATION: A FACULTY
DEVELOPMENT PRESENTATION
2009 University Honors Symposium
DuBois Center, NAU
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Session 2a 1:00 PM
Presenter: Hesham Elnagar
What is Service-Learning?

Service-learning is an experiential and active teaching and
learning pedagogy that fuses academic study with
collaborative service experiences through critical reflective
processes.
This presentation will address the following:

Context

Implementation

Issues and Challenges

Resources
Context:
Why at NAU? Why in my course?

Given the goals of Northern Arizona University and its strategic
planning strategies, service-learning can be fostered and welcomed
by various academic units to promote a liberal education.

Learner-centered, active, and experiential education

When thoughtfully integrated, service-learning works to achieve
learning goals and desired outcomes of both the university and
individual course- enhanced experiences for critical thinking,
reasoning skills, reflection, emotional intelligence, and practical
application.

Benefits include those for the student, faculty/instructor, community,
and university.
Context continued
The goals of the NAU Faculty Development Teaching Academy, listed below, directly align
with the goals and desires of service-learning.

Teaching & Learning: The Academy aims to advance teaching and learning practices that
support meaningful engagement and deep understanding by learners.
– Examples: All implementations of service-learning including, but not restricted to,
discipline-based service-learning, problem-based service-learning, service-learning
internships, capstone courses, and first-year courses.

Research & Teaching: The Academy aims to encourage integration of teaching and
research including the scholarship of teaching and learning.
– Example: Community-based service-learning research

Service & Learning: The Academy aims to foster teaching that enhances student learning
and stewardship through community involvement (campus, local, national, and global).
– Examples: All implementations of service learning including, but not restricted to,
classroom service-learning, international service-learning, and experiential servicelearning trips (http://www.partnersintheparks.org/)
Context continued
“The epistemology of servicelearning is a promising revolution
that has sparked an instructional
evolution where access and
success are equated with teaching
and learning practices that
effectively link students with each
other and with their communities
as critically engaged learners.”
- Cress’s Defining a Service-
Learning Pedagogy of Access
and Success p.2
Cress’ Tripartite form of service-learning.
Context continued
Service-learning can be
expressed from many
perspectives. This figure
displays a pedagogy that
includes a critical
integration of progressive
educational techniques with
both academic objectives
and community relations. It
uniquely incorporates a
range of ideas such as
internships, community
based research, service
fundamentals, engagement,
and academic focus.
Service-learning
Civic Courses
Internships
Essential Elements of Servicelearning, Adapted from Campus
Compact 1999.
Community
Service
Context Recommendations

Late Adopters
– Visit compact.org to familiarize oneself with the efforts and programs that use servicelearning.
– Review Campus Compact definitions of service-learning and the Presidents’
Declaration on the Civic Responsibility of Higher Education.
– Read and review Cress’ Defining a Service-Learning Pedagogy of Access and Success.

Mid Adopters
– Read and review Cress’ Defining a Service-Learning Pedagogy of Access and Success.
– Consider new perspectives to approach service-learning techniques in the classroom,
framed around learning outcomes.

Early Adopters
– Assess the relationships between your service-learning definition and its execution in
your course. Do the fundamentals match with the goals of the Teaching Academy?
Engage in dialogue addressing these questions and begin to compile recommendations
for future adopters.
Implementation: What and How?

Applications of service-learning
– Benefits for all those involved
– Nonrestrictive
– Creativity- multiple classroom setups and ways to create community partnerships
– New levels of engagement for community, instructor, student, and university

Any setup and level
– Seminar, research, first-year, senior capstone, independent study, internships,
problem based (favored in hard sciences), discipline based (favored in
humanities)

Focus and execution
– Research, theory, fieldwork
– Reflection- fundamental element to integrate ideas of learning and service
towards critical engage students’ thinking. Various methods of reflection- group
discussion, candid writings (sometimes called journaling), reflective essays
integrated with content, photo/video journaling, and directed writings.
Implementation continued
SERVICE
L
E
A
R
N
I
N
G
service
Robert Sigmon’s three
principles of servicelearning:
1) Those being served
control the services
provided.
2) Those being served
l
become better able to serve
e
and be served by their own
a
r
actions.
n
i
3) Those who serve also are
n
learners and have
g
significant control over
what is expected to be
learned.
Balances in Service-learning. Adapted from Sigmon’s Interpretations of Service-learning.
Implementation Recommendations

Late Adopters
– Review The Johnson Foundation’s Principles of Good Practice for Combining
Service and Learning.
– Review Howard’s Principles of Good Practice in Community Service-learning
Pedagogy.

Mid Adopters
– Review Howard’s Principles of Good Practice in Community Service-learning
Pedagogy.
– Review cross discipline syllabi at http://www.compact.org/category/syllabi/
– Apply experiences with new information to clarify goals.

Early Adopters
– Review cross discipline syllabi at http://www.compact.org/category/syllabi/
– Begin to compile materials from service-learning courses taught to begin a NAU
syllabi database for late and mid adopters.
Issues and Challenges

Integration- finding service collaborations that fit with learning and
student outcome goals, how to set-up service and learning experience,
what kinds of service, how much service

Collaboration- communication with community agency or business, safe
environment for students, equal relationship where needs of all involved
are understood,

Facilitation- use of reflection in and out of the classroom, students
assessed on learning not service

Ethical- requiring service, connecting to learning

Superficiality- affirming stereotypes, service and learning connection not
strong and understood
Issues and Challenges
Recommendations

Late Adopters
– Review service-learning handbooks, continue to compare sample syllabi, and
communicate with current instructors who use service-learning techniques.
– Establish clear collaborations where all parties are aware of each others’ needs.
– Remember students are not receiving credit or being assessed on their service, but
by the meaningful connections made in the course.

Mid Adopters
– Establish clear collaborations where all parties are aware of each others’ needs.
– Assess how collaborations effectively reach learning and service goals.
– Course evaluations, student surveys, community surveys

Early Adopters
– Assess how collaborations effectively reach learning and service goals.
– Course evaluations, student surveys, community surveys
– Contribute to database and offer suggestions to avoid future issues and challenges.
Spring 2009 Examples at NAU

PR 471C- Public Relations Projects and Campaigns
– Senior Capstone
– 16 junior and senior level students

HON 191- Seminar in Critical Reading and Writing
– Freshman Seminar
– 18 first-year Honors students

PRM 203H- Introduction to Whitewater Rafting
– Trip Experience
– 7 Honors students freshman-senior
Resources:
Useful Handbooks for all Adopters
The following handbooks include chapters, articles, course examples,
sample syllabi, recommendations, and sample forms which address
important service-learning questions and issues.





Introduction to Service-Learning Toolkit: Readings and Resources for Faculty (Second Edition)
by Campus Compact
– Available through DDS
Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum: A Resource Book for Service-Learning Faculty in All
Disciplines by Campus Compact
– Available through DDS
Combining Service and Learning in Higher Education by Maryann Gray
– Available at Cline Library
Evaluating Service-learning Activities & Programs by David A.
– Available at Cline Library
Higher Education Faculty Toolkit
– http://www.servicelearning.org/filemanager/download/HE_toolkit_with_worksheets.pdf
Resources:
Useful Websites

Campus Compact Faculty Resources
–

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
–

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/sl/resources.html
Maricopa County’s Journal for Civic Commitment
–

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mjcsl/
Maricopa County Service-learning Resources
–

http://www.compact.org/faculty/
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/sl/resources.html
Learn and Serve Service-learning Blog
–
http://servicelearningsolutions.blogspot.com/
Questions/Comments/ Concerns
For an online version of this presentation please go to
file:///Users/Hesham/Desktop/Thesis/Faculty%20Dev
pt.%20S-L%20online.htm
If you would like a completed copy of this thesis titled
Service-learning and Civic Engagement in
American Higher Education or more information on
service-learning please contact Hesham Elnagar at
HHE2@nau.edu