Reimagining Service-Learning: Deepening the Impact of This High-Impact Practice

Abstract

Background: Service-learning has historically been seen as a high-impact practice that empowers undergraduates to develop essential learning outcomes. Most service-learning discussed within the literature occurs as a required element of a credit-bearing academic course. Purpose: This study explored what happens when service-learning is reimagined to be disconnected from a specific course and credit hours, and available via application to all undergraduates regardless of the liberal arts/science major or year in the college. Methodology/Approach: HyperRESEARCH was used to identify themes and categories from 45 sets of weekly reflections submitted by 36 participants engaged in reimagined service-learning projects across five semesters. Findings/Conclusions: Key findings reveal that not only do undergraduates develop essential learning outcomes as delineated in the existing literature, but in many cases, their understandings, and abilities to execute these skills, are deepened when service-learning is reimagined. Findings also reveal that undergraduates may experience service-learning differently depending upon year in college. Implications: Results from this study suggest that practitioners should investigate ways to reimagine service-learning, with specific emphasis placed on the differential ways college students at various stages in their undergraduate career experience, and learn from, service-learning.

NUMB3Rs Revisited: Long-Term Impacts of Reimagining Service Learning

“…While calls for research into the long-term effects of service-learning abound (e.g., Anderson et al, 2019;Coyer et al, 2019), most studies examining the impact of service-learning on undergraduates focus on short-term effects, examining outcomes from the period of time during, or immediately following, the experience. A few exceptional studies, however, illustrate the potentiality of longitudinal examinations of the more distal effects of service learning.…”

“…None of these articles reported on long-term effects of service learning. Two, however, did indicate that future research exploring the impact of service learning, beyond their undergraduate experiences, is warranted (Anderson et al, 2019;Coyer et al, 2019).…”

“…Projects lasted an average 9 weeks across a 15-week semester. The settings for these projects, and descriptions of the materials designed, are described elsewhere (Anderson et al, 2019). These projects were deemed to be service learning as they incorporated the traditional service-learning goals of involvement in real-world community-based problemsolving, structured participation in community-based projects, engagement with community partners, and learning through action and reflection.…”

Contextualising Service Learning for Vietnamese Higher Education

“…A second example was, Gemmel and Clayton (2009) defined that the conceptualisation in the Canadian context allowed service learning to be used "in any discipline, department, program, course, or activity" (p. 9) as long as it was appropriate to the instance and fit between identified goals and the design of the process. A third example was a programme designed for students from many disciplines to work together under a service learning project that required interdisciplinary knowledge and this project did not relate to any specific course (Anderson et al, 2019).…”

“…Unlike traditional practice where course-based work has been regarded as a prerequisite criterion for organising a service learning programme, the United States service learning programme studied by Anderson et al (2019) was disconnected from a specific course and credit hours. The project was offered to students from all disciplines, and the study found that students still developed essential learning outcomes and made connections to their courses, to non-course elements of the programme, and to the literature.…”