Ten Service-Learning Principles, continued

Yesterday, I shared the first five of the 10 Service-Learning Principles recommended for those considering teaching with that pedagogy. Today's post is dedicated to the remaining five.

6. Prepare Students for Learning from the Community

Students should be taught how to extract meaning from experiential learning activities before embarking on them in the community. Otherwise they may not get out of the experience what you or the community partner had intended nor be tied to the course content. Faculty should tale the time to train the students to engage in reflective listening, obtain feedback, make qualitative observations, and deep thinking. This could be accomplished via a simulation or role-play, for example.

7. Minimize the Distinction Between the Students’ Community Learning Role and Classroom Learning Role

In a typical classroom the instructor controls the agenda for each class meeting; it is more teacher-centered. This is not so much the case when students make the community their classroom; their learning becomes more student-centered. The pedagogy in the community is constructivist; the student plays an active role in his/her learning with little guidance from the instructor beyond the charge of completing the learning objectives that are part of the service project. It is the freedom to explore and make sense of the service project that produces learning that is relevant and important to the student and more likely to have a lasting impression/impact on him/her.

8. Rethink the Faculty Instructional Role

If faculty can become comfortable with the notion that SL projects are student-centered, constructivist, and an extension of the classroom the next step is to provide students more chances to be involved in the actual classroom setting, too. When multiple viewpoints or experiences are shared by students and professors alike a richer, deeper understanding is derived from the course; it also increases the likelihood that the course will have a life of its own and be different from class meeting to class meeting, semester to semester, and more.

9. Be Prepared for Variation in, and Some Loss of Control with, Student Learning Outcomes

Although students may be required to complete the same learning objectives during a service project, the professor cannot control all that the student’s experience and learn during the semester. Professors must be ready to allow students the freedom to personalize the meaning they get out of the service project and not judge one student’s experience and meaning to be better or worse than another student. Those things that are experienced via the students’ sensory mechanisms, above and beyond the learning objectives, should be reflected upon and shared openly in a friendly public forum without harsh criticism from the professor as irrelevant, unintended, off the mark, etc.

10. Maximize the Community Responsibility Orientation to the Course

While it is true that the learning that comes from a service assignment is personal, there should also be a conscious effort to reflect upon the shared experience among the students in an open forum thereby turning the classroom into a learning community. In doing so the professor connects the students to each other, the course materials, and the community which is the epitome of Service-Learning.

There are four more key principles that culinary arts and hospitality faculty should keep in mind when teaching via SL:

§ Start small.
§ Find SL colleagues that can serve as mentors or consultants.
§ Build in evaluation components from the beginning of course planning.
§ Community partners should be respected as colleagues that enter into a partnership that provides mutual benefits and learning opportunities for all.