Community Service & Volunteerism

According to the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993:

Community-Based Learning (also referred to as Service-Learning):

Is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of communities Is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program and the community
Helps foster civic responsibility
Is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students, or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled
And provides structured time for students or participants to reflect on the service experience

As taken from the National Youth Leadership Council website:

Picking up trash by a riverbank is [community] service.

Studying water samples under a microscope is learning.

When students collect and analyze water samples and the local pollution control agency uses the findings to clean up a river … that is [community-based] service-learning.

[Community-based] service-learning is an educational method that entwines the threads of experiential learning and community service. It meets educational objectives through real-world experiences, while tapping youths as resources to benefit their schools and communities.

Guided by teachers and community leaders, young people address real community needs by planning and executing service projects that are carefully tied to curricula. This hands-on learning enhances comprehension, academic achievement, citizenship, and character development, often reaching students who haven't responded to traditional educational models.

[Community-based] service-learning is education in action: developing critical-thinking and problem-solving skills; taking on real issues such as hunger, homelessness, and diversity; and valuing people of all ages as citizens with talents to offer.

What Community-Based Learning is NOT:

A program done through a volunteer clearinghouse
An add-on to an existing course curriculum
An assigned punishment by the courts or by school administrators
One-sided: benefiting only students or only the community

What Community-Based Learning Experiences ARE:

(Taken mostly from Eyler and Giles, Where is the Learning in Service-Learning, 1999 and www.servicelearning.org).

They are positive, meaningful and real to the participants.
They involve cooperative rather than competitive experiences and thus promote skills associated with teamwork and community involvement and citizenship.
They address complex problems in complex settings rather than simplified problems in isolation.
They offer opportunities to engage in problem-solving by requiring participants to gain knowledge of the specific context of their community-based learning/ service-learning activity and community challenges, rather than only to draw upon generalized or abstract knowledge such as might come from a textbook. As a result, community-based learning/ service-learning offers powerful opportunities to acquire the habits of critical thinking; i.e. the ability to identify the most important questions or issues within a real-world situation.
They promote deeper learning because the results are immediate and uncontrived. There are no "right answers" in the back of the book.
As a consequence of this immediacy of experience, community-based learning/ service-learning is more likely to be personally meaningful to participants and to generate emotional consequences, to challenge values as well as ideas, and hence to support social, emotional and cognitive learning and development.

Why is Community-Based Learning Important?

As stated on the Corporation for National & Community Service's website:

"A national study of Learn and Serve America programs suggests that effective [community-based learning] service-learning programs improve academic grades, increase attendance in school, and develop personal and social responsibility. Whether the goal is academic improvement, personal development, or both, students learn critical thinking, communication, teamwork, civic responsibility, mathematical reasoning, problem solving, public speaking, vocational skills, computer skills, scientific method, research skills, and analysis."