{"id":9392,"date":"2016-02-23T12:39:24","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T18:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/?p=9390"},"modified":"2016-08-30T13:53:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T18:53:51","slug":"service-learning-and-student-buy-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/service-learning-and-student-buy-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Service Learning and Student “Buy-In.”"},"content":{"rendered":"
Having students decide on what type of community action they wish to engage in is a great way to generate that elusive \"buy-in.\" Student-designed community actions instill a sense of ownership in the project for students, and the learning outcomes for the course may become more deeply instilled, more effective, and longer-lasting. But even in the best-designed service-learning courses, the degree of student involvement, of student choice, in the shape and nature of the community action may be limited. Somewhat counterintuitively, as service-learning courses get refined after numerous semesters, the degree of student involvement in the design of the project may decline, the parameters of the action becoming more rigid and prescribed. This phenomenon presents a key conundrum in service-learning: As our courses strengthen over time and our relationships with community partners smooth, students may become more excluded from the thinking and the process that led to the initial design of the course. As each year we as teachers want for students to understand the purpose behind the actions we design, students become further removed from early days of the course, when our passion for causes melded seamlessly with the design of the project as it took shape.<\/div>\n
Students coming into a well-honed service-learning course may find an organized and efficient experience, with community partners who are familiar with the purpose of the course and who know exactly how to funnel service-learners into areas of greatest community need. As any of us who have built courses, and particularly have cultivated community relationships from the ground up, know, students in early versions of a course may have felt a great sense of excitement, but community sites may have been scenes of chaos, with partners busy doing good work, and students left feeling confused, under-utilized, or ineffective in contributing toward that work.<\/div>\n
Thus, it's important that we as teachers revisit our initial thinking behind a course each time that we teach it. I recall an early teaching experience (not service-learning) as a graduate teaching assistant, working under a brilliant mentor and teacher, in a literature class. My mentor had a keen sense of the purpose in the course, but I did not. And when I asked him one day what it was that he wanted students to take from the readings, he said that that was a question whose answer he hadn't thought about in a long time. Of course he knew the answer, and over the course the answer would become clear to students as well. But the point is, he hadn't thought about the answer at the outset, and thus hadn't elucidated it to either himself or the students. The purpose was there, just as it almost always is there in these courses that we put our hearts and minds into designing. But without active revisitation, the purpose can fade from its place of centrality. And with a successful service-learning course, the relation between the community action and the course content must be present throughout.<\/div>\n
While much literature on service-learning is written toward an audience of teachers, administrators, even community groups, there is less written toward an audience of college students on what service-learning means. One excellent text toward this end is by Christine M. Cress (et al), called Learning through Servi<\/div>\n

by Jeremy Tuman<\/p>\n

\"51wmrJ8Z+mL._SX365_BO1,204,203,200_\"<\/p>\n

Having students decide on what type of community action they wish to engage in is a great way to generate that elusive \"buy-in.\" Student-designed community actions instill a sense of ownership in the project for students, and the learning outcomes for the course may become more deeply instilled, more effective, and longer-lasting. But even in the best-designed service-learning courses, the degree of student involvement, of student choice, in the shape and nature of the community action may be limited. Somewhat counterintuitively, as service-learning courses get refined after numerous semesters, the degree of student involvement in the design of the project may decline, the parameters of the action becoming more rigid and prescribed. This phenomenon presents a key conundrum in service-learning: As our courses strengthen over time and our relationships with community partners smooth, students may become more excluded from the thinking and the process that led to the initial design of the course. As each year we as teachers want for students to understand the purpose behind the actions we design, students become further removed from early days of the course, when our passion for causes melded seamlessly with the design of the project as it took shape.<\/p>\n

Students coming into a well-honed service-learning course may find an organized and efficient experience, with community partners who are familiar with the purpose of the course and who know exactly how to funnel service-learners into areas of greatest community need. As any of us who have built courses, and particularly have cultivated community relationships from the ground up, know, students in early versions of a course may have felt a great sense of excitement, but community sites may have been scenes of chaos, with partners busy doing good work, and students left feeling confused, under-utilized, or ineffective in contributing toward that work.<\/p>\n

Thus, it's important that we as teachers revisit our initial thinking behind a course each time that we teach it. I recall an early teaching experience (not service-learning) as a graduate teaching assistant, working under a brilliant mentor and teacher, in a literature class. My mentor had a keen sense of the purpose in the course, but I did not. And when I asked him one day what it was that he wanted students to take from the readings, he said that that was a question whose answer he hadn't thought about in a long time. Of course he knew the answer, and over the course the answer would become clear to students as well. But the point is, he hadn't thought about the answer at the outset, and thus hadn't elucidated it to either himself or the students. The purpose was there<\/em>, just as it almost always is there<\/em> in these courses that we put our hearts and minds into designing. But without active revisitation, the purpose can fade from its place of centrality. And with a successful service-learning course, the relation between the community action and the course content must be present throughout.<\/p>\n

While much literature on service-learning is written toward an audience of teachers, administrators, even community groups, there is less written toward an audience of college students on what service-learning means. One excellent text toward this end is by Christine M. Cress (et al), called Learning through Serving<\/em>. I've included a section of this book as a link here<\/a>. The book speaks plainly to students about key concepts in service-learning including notions of civic responsibility, reciprocity, global citizenship, and how service-learning differs from volunteerism and other forms of community engagement. Assigning this text or one like it at the beginning of a course might prompt us to revisit our thinking behind the design and purpose of the course from all those years ago. And the more of this information that we share with students, the better chance we have of getting that \"buy-in\" that we so covet and is so crucial to the success of our course. As a teacher of rhetoric and composition, I stress the importance of clear thinking to my students and the reciprocal relationship between clear thinking and clear writing. As a service-learning teacher, my students may benefit from me applying this idea to myself and to the course, and to sharing the results at the outset.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having students decide on what type of community action they wish to engage in is a great way to generate that elusive \"buy-in.\" Student-designed community actions instill a sense of ownership in the project for students, and the learning outcomes for the course may become more deeply instilled, more effective, and longer-lasting. But even in ...continue reading \"Service Learning and Student “Buy-In.”\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[176,282,308],"class_list":{"0":"post-9392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-service","7":"tag-instructional-continuity","8":"tag-service-learning","9":"tag-teaching-learning","10":"h-entry","11":"hentry","12":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82MQk-2ru","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12789,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/attitude-adjustment\/","url_meta":{"origin":9392,"position":0},"title":"Attitude Adjustment","author":"Jeremy Tuman","date":"September 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing in the\u00a0Journal of Service Learning in Higher Education\u00a0in January of 2018, Dr. T. Andrew Carswell of Gannon University, a Catholic university in Erie, Pennsylvania, describes a research project undertaken to discover the capacity of service-learning courses to change student attitudes about poverty. His premise is that we know through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Service Learning Lynx"","block_context":{"text":"Service Learning Lynx","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/service\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/olllllldddd-main-704x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/olllllldddd-main-704x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/olllllldddd-main-704x400.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/olllllldddd-main-704x400.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13530,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/rewarding-and-enlightening\/","url_meta":{"origin":9392,"position":1},"title":"Rewarding and Enlightening.","author":"Jeremy Tuman","date":"March 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A surprising success story has emerged at Xavier this semester in a service-learning course, and this time it's my course! Both the surprise and the success have come on several levels. The successes have been not just the level of student engagement in the community work, but the degree of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/jeremy.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13014,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/critical-versus-traditional-service-learning\/","url_meta":{"origin":9392,"position":2},"title":"Critical Versus Traditional Service-Learning","author":"Jeremy Tuman","date":"January 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent article in the\u00a0Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education\u00a0makes an interesting case about differences in efficacy between \"traditional\" and \"critical\" service learning courses. In the article, authors Debra A. Harkins, Kathryn Kozak, and Sukanya Ray, of Suffolk University, draw on past definitions to distinguish between the two models. Traditional\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Service Learning\"","block_context":{"text":"Service Learning","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/tag\/service-learning\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Unknown.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Unknown.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Unknown.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14489,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/service-learning-a-renewal\/","url_meta":{"origin":9392,"position":3},"title":"Service Learning: A Renewal","author":"Lisa Schulte-Gipson","date":"October 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to all who attended the recent Service Learning (SL)workshop. Your willingness to take the time out of your busy schedules to learn more about this important endeavor is greatly appreciated. The workshop was entitled Service Learning: A Renewalas we (CAT-FD and CSI [the Center for Student Involvement]) are focused\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/EFuuRG4WoAYYvQC.jpg-large.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14369,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/the-path-to-service-learning\/","url_meta":{"origin":9392,"position":4},"title":"The Path to Service Learning","author":"Lisa Schulte-Gipson","date":"September 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"As I sit in my CAT-FD office I wonder what to focus on for my first blog. An idea finally comes to me \u2013 how did I \u201cget here.\u201d Not physically, but what stirred my interest in the Faculty in Residence \u2013 Service Learning position. 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How do we help our students graduate and how do we help them graduate on time? Several studies have concluded that Service-Learning contributes to student retention. In a recent study of Tulane students, Gallini\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Service Learning Lynx"","block_context":{"text":"Service Learning Lynx","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/service\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10107,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9392\/revisions\/10107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}