Summit in Full Swing!

The first day of the Summit is in full swing. The morning master classes on Chocolate & Confectionaries, Artisan Cheese, Gullah Culture & History, and the Hog, the Whole Hog and Nothing but the Hog were well attended and those taking them said they enjoyed them and learned a great deal as a result.

The students of the Charleston Culinary Institute put on a great luncheon buffet with roast duck, wild rice, roasted vegetables, and assorted desserts; all washed down with the traditional southern sweet tea. Yum.

The Clemson panel in the afternoon was an opportunity for attendees to learn about the science that underpins what we do in culinary arts and ultimately hospitality education. The stand up presentations delivered thus far by Richard Ghiselli, John Antun, Colin Roche, and Michael Wray were well attended and provided new insights on teaching culinary arts and hospitality education. I am sure the presentations to follow by John Drysdale and Cynthia Deahle will also be excellent.

While writing this blog post there is also a master class on putting together a blog. I have granted them access to this blog and am asking that they share the sights and sounds of the Summit in their own words. I hope that you are looking as forward to their commentary as I am.

There is also a master class being taught right now on Cooking Southern BBQ and the aroma of smoked pork bbq and sauces is in the air. The best part is that the students in that class are preparing the food for this evening's opening reception that will be enjoyed by all in attendance! Yum!

Stay tuned, more on the Summit to come!

Your Classroom Awaits!

Michael Carmel, Jami Yanoski, and I (Mick La Lopa) have put the final touches on our plans to host our first Summit. To see final agenda remember to visit summit tab at http://www.fooded.org/. We have already met some of our attendees who have signed up to take morning master classes on Thursday including southern cooking, wild American shrimp, developing a curriculum around artisan breads, and sous vide. The afternoon classes will include the second half of the wild American shrimp class, exploring what makes for a great teacher, math made easy, and the farm to restaurant connection.

The day will culminate in a dine around at three top Charleston restaurants all within a block of the host hotel include Coast and Rue de Jean! The weather will also be perfect and expected to be in the high 60's and low 70's to help melt away your cabin fever if living in the great white northern parts of this great country of ours.

I will be sure to update members and others on the Summit happenings to provide a glimpse of the experience for those who could not attend this year and whet your appetite for the next one in beautiful Charleston, SC, at the state of the art Charleston Culinary Academy!

FELC Summit Dream Coming True in Charleston, SC

It is hard to believe that the dream of launching the Foodservice Educators Learning Community in July 2008 and hosting its first Summit is about to come true. Jami, Michael and I met today to make sure that this Summit will be one of the best that culinary arts and hospitality educators ever attended, especially with a budget friendly registration fee. We are working hard to make sure that registration will be a breeze, the master classes and sessions will be stellar, and the social functions will be a place where educators will join in an engaging conversation about how to challenge ourselves to be better teachers while enjoying great food and beverages supplied by sponsors and prepared by culinary students at the school and in the city. We also cannot thank our many sponsors enough for the role they played in making this dream come true; you can find them all listed on http://www.fooded.org/ under the sponsors tab.

As we had hoped, the city of Charleston is an excellent city to host our first Summit. The restaurants, bars, and shops that are a short walking distance from our host hotel, the Hampton Inn, in a mild coastal climate only add to the education and entertainment we hope to bring those in attendance. For example, Jami, Michael and I walked a short two blocks to enjoy an excellent sampling of tapas served up at Char! The dine around on Thursday night is expected to be another excellent dining experience and a chance for those who have joined our learning community to share their passion for fine food and quality teaching.

Throughout this week I will submit posts to the blog to share what is going on with those who were unable to join us this time and paint a picture of what our second annual Summit will be like next year in Charleston at the brand new culinary arts facility at Trident College. I am hoping that those taking the master class on blogging will also try their hand at adding posts to this blog, too.

Stay posted!

Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria

Lodging magazine reported that Ted Turner announced the world's first global sustainable tourism criteria at the IUCN World Conservation Congress held in Barcelona, Spain. The criteria establish a minimum requirement upon which any tourism business should pursue to be called sustainable. The Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria established the criteria, which is comprised of the Rainforest Alliance, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Foundation, and United Nations World Tourism Organization.

The criteria are available for review at: www.SustainableTourismCriteria.org. The four critical areas the criteria cover include: maximizing social and economic benefits to host communities, reducing negative impacts on the host communities culture, reducing ecological damage, and planning for sustainability. The program will provide greater benefits for all concerned in the not too distant future so keep checking their website.

See you in Charleston, SC for the Summit!!!

FELC Summit Program Set!

The final program for the Foodservice Educators Learning Community (FELC) first annual Summit is now set. To see the list of master classes (and when they are taught), as well as see all the free classes you can attend as part of your registration, not to mention the Ultimate Teaching Competition, visit http://www.fooded.org/annualconf.html. We hope you will agree that our first annual Summit is one that will provide attendees with plenty of opportunities to learn ways to better teach culinary arts and hospitality education as part of our faculty learning community.

If interested, it is still not too late to register for the Summit and join all of those who have already registered to attend from as far away as Alaska.

Also note that for those who are unable to attend the first FELC Summit, we will be sharing the highlights of the event through the blog, and may get others who are in attendance to get involved, too.

See you in Charleston, South Carolina, real soon!

Mick, Michael, Jami

Camp Culinaire & Bake Shop Camp, June 23-25

The Hospitality Administration Program at Ivy Tech Community College, located in north Indianapolis, is offering two camps for high school juniors and seniors with an interest in the culinary industry on June 23 through 25th, 2009. Ivy Tech Community College offers the only ACF accredited program in the state of Indiana.

Camp Culinaire will offer high school students the option of participating at two levels along with a Bake Shop Camp, as explained below:

Camp Culinaire

LEVEL 1 (For incoming juniors or seniors with no prior learning experience in a high school culinary program) will be taught in the morning and teach students: Knife Skills, Chicken Fabrication, Cooking Techniques, Sauce & Soup Development, Organization & Productivity Skills, Cooking Demo by a Top Indy Chef

LEVEL 2 (For incoming juniors or seniors with one or more years experience in a high school culinary program) will be taught in the afternoon and teach students: Advanced Knife Skills, Stock & Sauce Development, Garde Manger Work, Meat Fabrication, Cooking Demo by a Top Indy Chef

Bake Shop Camp

The Bake Shop Camp offered in the morning to teach students: Yeast Breads, Pastries, Cakes & Wedding Cake Demo with leading Pastry Chef

The cost of the curriculum is $175 per student. The registration is a real bargain because it includes: Mercer knife tool kit/baking kit, Chef jacket, as well as a closing dinner for students and parents on Thursday evening.

A $100 deposit due by May 1, 2009 and the balance is due by June 1, 2009

For more information about the program or registration visit: www.ivytech.edu/indianapolis/events/campculinaire

Or call Chef Lauri Griffin at 317-921-4913

Space is limited so those interested are encouraged to promptly apply.

You Want to Make Your Teaching Labs Green?

Are you in pursuit of establishing the Green kitchen learning laboratory for your students? If so, the FELC has a special offer for its members. Our friends at Earth Alive, featured in the first-ever Green exhibit at the Chicago NRA, have agreed to offer big discounts on its green cleaning product, RapidAll, which is safe for the environment & human health, simple to use, and provide significant savings to end users of its patented microbial pH neutral cleaner.

For more details on this great offer visit the Members Area of www.fooded.org

Vault Guide to Culinary Careers

The book, Vault Guide to Culinary Careers, is now a resource that is available in print or as an on-line ebook for culinary arts and hospitality educators and administrators. The printed version is in paperback and retails for $29.95.

If you go to this link http://www.vault.com/store/book_preview.jsp?product_id=46645 you can read an excerpt from the book, or you can see a extended PDF excerpt.

For those who may want further information please contact the author, Bettina Fisher, by phone (718-909-9155) or e-mail her at: radish101@nyc.rr.com

February / March Issue of Innovate now available

Innovate (www.innovateonline.info) is published bimonthly as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft. You can subscribe to it for free and it is worth it given the wide range of articles it offers on education.

To get an idea of the contents of the February/March issue, it opens with Marc Prensky revisiting--and revising--the digital native/digital immigrant dichotomy he wrote in 2001. Patrick McGrail and Ewa McGrail then offer practical advice for students and educators attempting to comply with copyright law as they use Web 2.0 technology. The next two articles in the issue describe attempts to bring technology into the classroom, authored by Neelu Sinha, Laila Khreisat, and Kiron Sharma's. There is more.

Since the e-journal is sponsored by Microsoft, the Editor-in-Chief, James Morrison, encourages educators to submit manuscripts describing how they use Microsoft technology to enhance the educational experience of students. As an extra incentive, the senior authors of the top three papers published on Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/education/highered/technology.aspx prior to June 2009 will be invited to present their papers at the Microsoft Global Exchange summit in July 2009 (with expenses covered by Microsoft).

James Morrison can be reached at: Morrison@UNC.EDU

Service-Learning Course Evaluation / Assessment

This post brings my series on Service-Learning to a close and has to do with course evaluations. To assess faculty on evaluating / assessing a Service-Learning course, the American Association for Higher Education Assessment Forum (1992) developed the following Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning. Service-Learning courses do, of course, have certain unique characteristics that must be taken into account. The most important consideration in evaluating a Service-Learning course is that all parties in the project must be assessed or evaluated including the students, community partner, and faculty involved in the project. As such, the following should be assessed or evaluated:

§ To what extent did the students achieve the learning objectives?

§ To what extent were service goals met?

§ How successful was the project for each student?

§ How successful was the project for the class as a whole?

§ How successful was the project for the community agency / organization?

§ How beneficial was the project to the service recipients?

§ How well did the course satisfy the instructor’s expectations / goals?

Techniques for course assessment / evaluation

Some of the assessment techniques include:

§ Small Group Instructional Diagnostic (SGID)

§ One Minute Papers

§ Informal Early Feedback (IEF)

§ Consultation with experienced members of your, or the nearest, faculty developement office

§ Checklist of student behaviors

§ Informal audit by another faculty member experienced in SL

§ Consultation with one of the SL Faculty Fellows

§ Standard Purdue course evaluation via school forms or PICES

§ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) whereby formalized research is conducted and ultimately made public concerning the effectiveness of the SL component of the course.

§ Benchmarking the course against those that constitute best practices in SL which are those that have been recognized or rewarded for exemplary use of the pedagogy, such as Purdue’s EPICS program.


I hope this series on Service-Learning has been helpful. For additional references on Service-Learning please visit the following:

Learning Goals and Objectives references found at:
http://students.berkeley.edu/calcorps/slcourse.html
http://www.ncsu.edu/fctl/Initiatives/Service-Learning/facultytraining/slobjectives/
http://www.adprima.com/verbs.htm
http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/desweb/RES/OBJECT.HTM
http://www.fiu.edu/~time4chg/Library/goals.html
http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art3_4.htm

Student Reflection references found at:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~slee/html/faculty.shtml#reflect
http://www.nyc.gov.sg/sl/sl_elements.html
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/jsl/fall96/0104.html

Assessment / Evaluation of Student Learning references found at:
http://www.northern.edu/ASLP/authentic.html

Assessing / Evaluating the Success of SL in Your Course
Assessment Forum. (1992). Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning. Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education.

Assessment / Evaluation of Student Learning in Service-Learning

Having already established the learning goals and objectives for the SL component of the course it is now time to develop appropriate ways in which to evaluate or assess student performance grade. Although traditional means may be used to evaluate the student’s performance on the learning objectives tied to the SL project, a more appropriate technique to use is Performance Based Assessment (PBA). In PBA, the student completes or demonstrates the same behavior that the assessor desires to measure. For example, if the behavior to be measured is writing, the student writes. Integrating students learning assessments and Service-Learning helps the students to:
§ See the connection between service activities and essential academic learning.
§ Understand the learning expectations before, during and after the service projects.
§ Achieve higher and/or non-cognitive levels of performance (e.g., affective).
§ More effectively assess themselves, peers and teachers.
§ Promotes and enhances student self-assessment abilities.
It helps educators to:
§ Provide greater academic value for service activities.
§ Focus curriculum and instructional design decisions toward quality student performance criteria.
§ Establish a pre-determined framework for assessing student learning before, during and after instruction.
It enables parents and community to:
§ More meaningfully assess individual student's abilities.

When assessing via PBA, the student completes or demonstrates the desired behavior in a real-life context in order to satisfy the learning objectives. For example, if students are taking a course on warehouse management, an authentic assessment could first consist of having them design and implement an accounting system for the local food bank to keep track of the foods brought in and dispensed to the poor, and so forth. The instructor and students could develop a set of criteria to ensure that the accounting system was one that was needed by the food bank. The food bank staff could also report back as to the quality of the new system once they have used it for a time to strengthen the authenticity of the project completed by the students.

So when assessing students via PBA (authentic assessment), be sure that the assessment:
§ Is task oriented
§ Is observable
§ Requires higher order thinking
§ Based on real-world tasks
§ Adequately covers the content taught
§ Needs interdisciplinary skills
§ Is meaningful to students
§ Is appropriate for all students

Tomorrow I will present the means by which to evaluate a SL course. If, at any time I am unclear or need more information, do not hesitate to e-mail me at mlalopa@fooded.org.

Two Related Myths About Costs and Faculty in Higher Ed

I will continue the series on Service-Learning in a couple of days. Given the intense focus on today's financial crisis that is forcing everyone, everywhere to make their case to remain gainfully employed I thought I would share an e-mail I was sent from Gary Rhoades, General Secretary, of the American Association of University Professors. Although education is a part of the economy that as a whole seems to be adding jobs as people seek to retool themselves to land the jobs that will come available as we climb out of this recession, it is still important for teachers in higher education to remember their value by debunking two myths.

Myth 1: Tuition increases are driven by increases in faculty costs.
Myth 2: Faculty are the labor cost in higher education.

In debunking these widely held myths we must clarify three basic points:

1) You can’t blame faculty salaries for increases in tuition and costs. Faculty salary increases have been well below increases in tuition and well below increases in senior administrators’ salaries, which have increased disproportionately. Adjusted for inflation, tuition increases between 1989 and 2005 averaged about 6 percent a year; between 2002 and 2006, tuition at public universities increased by over 29 percent. From 1999–2000 to 2007–08, the yearly increase in overall average faculty salary ranged from 2.1 to 3.8 percent; adjusted for inflation, faculty salaries either decreased or increased less than 1 percent in six of those years (see table A in the 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession). Between 1995–96 and 2005–06, presidential salaries increased by 35 percent, adjusted for inflation, compared to 5 percent for average faculty salaries (figure 3, 2006-07 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession from 2005-06 to 2007-08, the two-year increase in senior administrators’ salaries outpaced both inflation and the increase in average salary for full professors (figures 1 and 2, 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).

2) You can’t blame increases in faculty numbers for increased tuition and costs. Full-time tenure-track faculty numbers have increased at a far slower rate than have numbers of other professionals and administrators.Between 1976 and 2005, full-time tenure-track positions in the United States increased by only 17 percent, compared to a 281 percent increase in nonfaculty professionals and a 101 percent increase in administrators (see figure 3 in the 2007–08 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession).

3) Spending on instruction has declined in all sectors of higher education, while spending on administrative costs has increased. Between 1995 and 2006, overall spending increased, but the share of instruction was down in all sectors (for example, in public master’s institutions it was down from 53.9 to 50.8 percent; in private master’s institutions it was down from 45.0 to 43.0 percent). The share of student services increased (from 9.9 to 10.9 percent in public master’s institutions and from 13.9 to 15.6 percent in private master’s institutions), as did that of administration and other support (from 36.2 to 38.2 percent and from 41.1 to 41.4 percent, respectively). (See figure 8, Trends in College Spending.)

Hope this helps in case someone with a budget axe looks your way.

Student Refection Question Tips and Samples

As I indicated in the last post, student reflection is a key element of SL. It can take place at the beginning to have students begin to reflect on what is to be learned from the service. It can be done in the middle to reflect on the project to that point. It can be done at the end. Some even advocate doing it continuously throughout the course of the semester. The choice is up to you to do what you feel is best for your students as long as you regularly monitor the students’ feelings and opinions about the SL project.


Just keep in mind that the objective of reflection is to draw out and reinforce student learning. It should require students to use critical thinking skills to learn from their service experience. It can also help students to analyze core concepts of your course, evaluate their service experiences and form opinions in the context of the curricula or learning objectives. Keep these tips in mind when structuring reflection activities:

§ Be clear about goals and expectations regarding reflection.

§ Get students to write in journals while performing the service to be able to collect their thoughts at the end when self-reflecting.

§ Give the students specific questions to answer at occasional or strategic points during the semester.

§ Build a team to ensure safe space for youth to do group reflection.

§ Find time to allow everyone to share and verbalize their feelings even if its takes time.

§ Allow ample time for reflection, even a few extra seconds can help most people to organize their thoughts. Having students write first, then share, helps those less-inclined to join in the discussion.

§ The best reflection is not necessarily always planned reflection, be flexible and prepared to capitalize on "teachable moments."

§ Directly relate reflection to service being done.

§ Reflection should occur continuously.

A series of questions that can be used to select when constructing reflection questions for your students includes some of the following that were developed by Marcy H. Schnitzer, Placement Coordinator, at The Service-Learning Center at Virginia Tech.

1. What have you been doing as part of your service?
2. Does what you are or have been doing meet your expectations about your service
experience? If so, how?
3. What are or have been the most satisfying parts of your service experience?
4. What are or have been the most difficult parts of your service experience?
5. What are or have you been learning? Why is your service needed?
6. How is your service relevant to the readings and discussions in class?
7. What have you learned or what are you learning from your service experience?
8. Do you feel that service makes a difference? If so, how?
9. Now what? What should others do about it? What are you going to do about it?
10. How will this service experience be valuable to you in the future?
11. If you were trying to get more student or community involvement in your project, how would you present the project to them? What would you say to them to make them want to get involved?
12. If you could provide a future service-learning student with one piece of advice, what would it be?

I hope that the post dedicated to student reflection to those teaching with SL or thinking about it. In the next series of posts dedicated to SL I will give insights on student assessment.

Student Reflection: Key to Service-Learning

I think the one thing that truly distinguishes SL from other pedagogies is the student reflection component. There is no point in teaching via SL if the student experiences are not captured as part of the learning to determine whether or not it was in sync with the learning goals and objectives of the course. In effect, the reflection component of an SL class is the point at which everyone learns if the project was both educational and rewarding for the students and the community partner -- which is the point of teaching with this pedagogy.

In a very general sense, student reflection on the SL project can occur through speaking, writing, activities, and/or the use of multimedia & performing arts. (http://www.humboldt.edu/~slee/html/faculty.shtml#reflect)

Speaking examples include class discussions, small group discussions, oral reports and presentations, testimony before policy-making bodies, teaching material to younger students, public speaking, or one-on-one meetings.

Writing examples include essays, research papers, journals and learning logs, guides for future volunteers and participants, self-evaluations, or published articles.

Activities examples include planning future projects, simulation and role playing games, recognition and celebration, recruiting peers, or training other students.

Multimedia & Performing Arts examples include scrap books, web pages; paintings, drawings, and collages; music, theater, and dance presentations; or photo, slide, and video essays.

In Monday's post I will share some tips to consider when structuring reflection activities as well as provide a series of sample questions that can be used to help you construct reflection questions for your students.

Tips for Establishing a Strong Relationship with Community Partners

Before moving on to the next step of designing an SL course, I would like to offer up some tips to follow to build strong relationships with Community Partners so that the student project will go a lot smoother. If there is not a good relationship with the chosen partners the students will suffer the consequences and the desired learning objectives will not be accomplished meaning a miserable experience for all concerned. Consider doing the following:

1. Know something about the agency or organization before meeting with those who may be interested in doing a SL project.

2. Go to the meeting with some idea about how the agency and your course could successfully form a partnership.

3. Meet agency or organization partners at their offices as often as you invite them to yours.

4. Always be sure to ask the agency or organization what their current needs are – don’t assume that they are necessarily in a position to create a partnership at the exact moment you are suggesting.

5. Be flexible. SL projects do not take place in a controlled environment like the classroom; because they take place in the community situations may arise where the initial plan of action has to be modified or revised to ultimately complete the project.

6. Value the experiences and knowledge of community partners. Consult with them and invite them to be part of classroom discussions and reflections.

7. Refrain from considering the community as your laboratory – it is the place where you live as well. The laboratory mentality suggests superiority of the university system and reinforces a server-recipient paradigm.

8. Communicate with your agency or organization partner regularly during the planning process as well as during and after the course.

9. Be up front in the commitment you can and are willing to make to the agency or organization. Do not promise long-term partnerships if a semester is all you can truly commit to at the moment. You might want to portray it as a “pilot” to give yourself clear option to end the partnership at end of the semester.

10. Make efforts to know the agency or organization inside and out. Spend time volunteering there so that you can get to know the assets of the staff and clientele.

11. Do not be afraid to ask questions.

12. Remember reciprocity, mutuality, and asset-based community building.

13. Celebrate achievements and relationships together at the end of the project.

14. Have fun and be ready to both teach and learn.

In tomorrow's post I will cover what is arguably the most important aspect of any SL course -- student reflection!

Selecting a Community Partner

On the last post concerning teaching with SL I covered the establishment of learning goals and course objectives specific to the pedagogy. In this post I will cover the issue of connecting your course to a community partner. Indeed it is not possible to teach via SL if there is not a partner in the community for you and your students to work with to the benefit of both. Some good questions to find answers to when selecting a community partner include:

1. Do the goals of the agency or organization fit with the learning goals and objectives in the course?

2. Does the agency or organization have reasonable expectations of the students?

3. Is the project one that challenges but not overwhelms the students?

4. Has the agency or organization done any projects with other faculty on campus? If so, what effect will this have on your project?

5. If the students need specialized skills, who will do the training?

6. Is the agency or organization willing to become involved in assessing and evaluating students?

7. Is this an agency or organization that the students will like to work with on the project?

8. What type of service does the agency or organization perform?

9. What skills or qualities can students develop as a result of working with the agency or organization?

10. Who will supervise students outside of the classroom when working on the project?

Tomorrow I will share some tips on how to establish a good working relationship with a community partner so that the SL project is a success for all concerned.

FELC Welcomes Chef Revival as Sponsor

I will continue the series on Service-Learning tomorrow. I wanted to welcome Chef Revival as a sponsor of our new learning community. Chef Revival has been a long time supporter of culinary arts and hospitality education. We have enjoyed working with everyone at Chef Revival over the years and happy that relationship will continue with our new learning community. Please visit their website to find out the myriad of ways they support the efforts of those preparing the next generation of chefs and hospitality managers at:

http://www.chefrevival.com/

Planning to Teach a Course via Service-Learning

The type of SL course I will advocate in the remainder of this series is the one established Purdue's Service Engagement Advisory Board that states it should be …”integral to higher level learning objectives and connected directly to course content such that learning can be identified, charted, supported, and assessed….In the Service Learning pedagogy, Service or Learning is not the goal. Rather it is Service and Learning; they are not separate.”

1. Establishing Learning Goals and Objectives

It should come as no surprise to you that a course that is taught with a SL requirement begins as it does with any course you have taught with establishing learning goals and objectives.

Learning goals and outcomes are broad statements that identify the general educational accomplishments or outcomes you want students to possess when the course is completed.
Some examples of SL learning goals include:

1. To better prepare students for their careers / continuing education

2. To enhance student learning by joining theory with experience and thought with action.

3. To fill unmet needs in the community through direct service this is meaningful and necessary.

4. To give student greater responsibility for their learning.

5. To help students know how to get things done!
(See more examples at: www.fiu.edu/~time4chg/Library/goals.html)

Separate from goals and outcomes, is the development of learning objective that are geared toward SL. Learning objectives should be written to so that it is clear as to what is expected of students during or after completing the SL project. They also put the faculty member in a position to properly assess or evaluate student performance on each of the objectives. Some of the action verbs that can be included in a stated learning objective include list, identify, state, describe, define, solve, compare and contrast, evaluate, operate as found in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

(Benjamin S. Bloom (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Company, Inc.)

Examples of SL Learning Objectives

1. Students will evaluate their own commitment to making meaningful contributions in their communities, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of their roles as citizens.

2. Students will identify course concepts as they emerge in the "real world" and compare what they are learning in the classroom to what they observe and/or experience in the context of their service activities.

3. Students will work with students in other disciplines to prepare and defend a proposed nonprofit foodbank.

Tomorrow, I will provide ideas on how to select a community partner to help you reach the learning goals and objectives for a course taught via SL.

Rationale for Developing Service-Learning Course

I hope you have all recovered from your chosen Super Bowl celebration. I would like to pick up on the series devoted to teaching via Service-Learning (SL) with this post. Now that we have defined the concept and covered the 10 key principles, I would like to offer up the rationale for developing a course that uses this teaching pedagogy.

Please note that when teaching via Service-Learning (it should not be thought of as an add-on. It should be blended into the course as you would when assembling traditional learning goals and objectives that are consistent with the description and contents of the course. Having said that, if you can answer “Yes” to the following questions this pedagogy might be right for you:

1. Do you have sound reasons for using SL in your course?

2. Are you willing to incorporate the 10 key SL principles into the project that students will be required to complete as part of your course?

3. Are you prepared to deal with the challenges that result when engaging students in their learning?

4. Do you believe that incorporating social or civic responsibility in your course will enhance student learning?

5. Do you have an idea in mind as to what students should learn as a result of doing a service-learning project to enhance course content, develop new skills, etc.?

6. Are you prepared to deal with the challenges or problems students may encounter with the community partner when trying to complete the project?

7. Is this the only pedagogy that could be used to accomplish the learning goals or objectives you had in mind instead of service-learning?

8. Are you prepared to devote more, or a different kind, of time to teaching the course you intend to teach via SL than you have spent in the past?

9. Are the benefits intended to benefit the student and community partner equally?

10. Would you be willing to share your experience of teaching via SL with others?

For those who answered "yes" to each of the aforementioned questions the series on SL will continue to share the steps to integrate this pedagogy into your teaching.