Benefits of Academic Service-Learning

Enhance your teaching effectiveness by:

• Developing powerful curricula that provide students with a “real world” context for theory and discipline-specific knowledge.
• Raising student awareness about current social issues as they relate to academic areas of interest.
• Engaging students in interactive classroom discussions that draw upon course material and invite new perspectives and personal experiences.
• Becoming a “facilitator” rather than a “giver” of knowledge.
•  Developing students’ critical thinking, writing and interpersonal communication skills.
• Helping students learn about the complexities of social injustices and systematic problems.

Advance your research by:

• Identifying new areas for investigation and publication, increasing opportunities for professional recognition and reward.
• Structuring activities to address larger questions related to instructional effectiveness and/or appropriate outreach models for specific populations.
• Measuring the effectiveness of service-learning and discussing the results in the context of broader subject matter.
• Presenting professional papers at state, regional and national conferences.
• Publishing findings in higher education publications or in applied academic journals, particularly those that report teaching innovations.
•  Submitting grants for external funding related to service-learning activities.

Serve the university and surrounding community by:

• Actively participating in the direct service and/or research projects that your students are doing.
• Offering your professional skills and expertise to the nonprofit agencies where your students are serving.
• Serving on the board of directors for the nonprofit agency with which you have partnered.
• Mentoring other faculty members on integrating service-learning into their courses.
• Making presentations to the faculty senate or academic departments about the impact of service-learning.