SBCEO Service Learning Regional Center

Service-Learning is a teaching methodology that combines the K-16 curriculum with service to the community. Senator John Glenn, Chair of the National Commission on Service-Learning explains, "Service-Learning is unique because it enables teachers to improve students’ academic performance, sense of civic responsibility, self-confidence, and workplace skills with a single teaching method. It links classroom lessons with real-life learning.”

Because they more easily understand their grade-level academic objectives in a context, students not only tend to learn faster and more comprehensively, they also learn that community is important. For example, a kindergarten class in Alameda County (see Online Teacher Course, below)--after a neighborhood site walk and discussing it at a meeting (remember, kindergarteners are still learning to just sit in place) decided to engage in an environmental project by helping out a local diner to retain more of its napkins. After several more meetings (with their teacher facilitating), they first counted the napkins taken in ordinary circumstances, then counted them after they applied artistically-designed notices that stated: "Please only take the napkins that you need." They noted the difference in napkins after three weeks.

Discussing this at yet another meeting, they discovered that they had, indeed, made a difference--as well as learning the one-to-one correspondence of numbers, the numbers themselves, the quantitative difference of numbers, the alphabet, that letters make words, that words make sentences, a little neighborhood sociology, a little differential statistics, and some applications of art--plus how to be actively involved in a meeting. Service-Learning is made available to students through the college level. The National Training Laboratories of Bethel, Maine (1998) determined that learning by “practice by doing” is 70% more effective than learning by straight instruction

The Five Elements of Service Learning

Core Curriculum
Integrates community service with students' core curriculum.
Service to the Community
Presents students with the opportunity to serve their classrooms, their schools, and their greater communities.
Student Voice
Engages every student as an active participant.
Civic Responsibility
Fosters civic responsibility and interaction among students and community members.
Reflection
Provides students with time for reflection.

For more information about service learning, click here.