Service-learning courses provide students a special way to get an education by mixing real-world experiences with academic concepts.
Catherine Howard, director of the Office of Community Programs, which houses the service-learning program, said service-learning courses give students good opportunities to make changes in their community.
“Service-learning courses help students identify the critical issues in the community and think about how they can make a contribution to right the wrong,” Howard said.
“Students get a better sense of who they are and what they can do to make their communities better,” she said. “Students also believe that a difference can be made through their actions.”
Students who take service-learning courses learn basic concepts and then get the chance to practice them.
“Our students learn the theory and practice it in the field, which helps them to develop self-assessment skills as lifelong learners,” Howard said. “Students obtain values that can foster civic duties.”
For this to occur, students volunteer with community partners to address the community-identified needs of individuals, organizations, schools and entities in the community. These include agencies such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Richmond City Public Schools, senior centers, the Fan Free Clinic and others.
Allison Wilder, associate professor of recreation, parks and sports management, taught a service-learning course on recreation leadership last fall.
“Service-learning has a different contrast from a typical lecture course,” Wilder said. ” Instructors are not just bound by the walls of the classroom. We carefully select projects that apply to real-world situations. This impacts our students in a real way because they take the theory and apply it to the real world.”
Howard said faculty members attend the Service-Learning Associate Program in the spring to help them follow the university’s criteria in the program and maintain quality and consistency in the classes.
“Our faculty members identify our community partners to help our students get the learning objectives for service work,” she said. “Our great faculty members help students seek civic-education while they provide the necessary skill development valuable for their career preparation.”
Anne Chandler, associate director of the honors program, said the faculty also work with teaching assistants who complete special training through the honors program.
“We train students through the Service-Learning Teaching Assistant Program to help them obtain leadership skills, which is a great experience to have,” she said. “It also helps them to establish a relationship with the academic world and the real world.”
Wilder said the students participate in service activities at least 15 hours in one semester-long class.
“They tell what works or not and how it could work through a different approach,” she said. “Students balance the workload with a tradeoff of what they do in the field and writing essays, which evens it out.”
Furthermore, Howard said once students get the bug, it helps them to find themselves and they volunteer more hours with the community partners to reach out or help with an issue that affects the community.
“This is a great method for students to gain career experience and network opportunities,” she said. “See it, talk about it and do something about it. That’s all the service-learning is about. It has a different feel to it.”
Service-learning courses are only offered during regular semesters, not during the holiday intersession or summer session.
Some departments, however, do not offer service-learning courses, and Howard said that’s a problem.
“We would want more departments to offer service-learning courses so that students can critically reflect on their citizen values and responsibilities,” she said.
For More information on service- learning, visit www.vcu.edu/ocp