Service learning has gained traction in higher education as an accepted pedagogical model, but practitioners question the types of learning outcomes that emerge from it. How does service learning contribute to student growth, particularly in the area of critical consciousness development? This study investigates how service-learning experiences impact the ways in which students think about issues of Inequality, Social Justice, and Power & Privilege. Qualitative data collected from 17 service learning courses were coded within these three major themes, and then further categorized within each major theme as statements that reflect Cognitive Recognition, Perspective Taking, or Student Agency.

This paper presents a case example highlighting a community-based undergraduate research program designed and implemented through the lens of critical research approaches. While the primary purpose of the research program was to provide students with an intensive opportunity to design and conduct in research in collaboration with a community-based nonprofit organizational, the case demonstrates that when the high-impact educational practice of undergraduate research is implemented with attention towards teaching critical research approaches, students acquire knowledge and skills beyond that of the anticipated learning outcomes. Specifically emphasized are the unintended student learning outcomes of knowledge and skill development related to nonprofit organizational structure and function. Further, the case provides support for the utilization of undergraduate research programs to effectively augment traditional classroom education within undergraduate nonprofit and philanthropic studies.

The study presents an analysis of Polya’s problem-solving strategy used in the training processes of quantitative reasoning competence in students of the Universidad Simón Bolívar, San José de Cúcuta, Colombia. The research was based on a descriptive design and had an intentional sample of 58 students who were studying the sciences and general competencies elective. For the collection of information, a diagnostic test (pre-test) and a final test (post-test) were applied, in order to check the incidence of the applied strategy. The results showed a significant improvement in the final results obtained by the students in each of the processes formed: interpretation, representation and modeling, and argumentation.

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