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2. Add NOTE 0122 which provides students with a description of service learning.
Academic Service Learning Definition and Guidelines:
Academic Service Learning (community engagement) courses include an application of the course content in a real life setting for a portion of the class time. Required reflection on the experience promotes integration of the class material and an appreciation of community assets and needs.
Types of community projects:
- Broad (Students work on many different types of projects.)
- Narrow (All students work on the same or related projects with a single community partner.)
Amount of time spent on community project:
- Partial: Students participate in one or two short community engagement experiences to explore one or two learning goals in a course.
- Full: Semester-long projects in which students use the community engagement experience to explore major terms, key theories, hallmark writings, of course.)
(Adapted from, “Service as Text: Making the Metaphor Meaningful” Lori Varlotta, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, Fall 2000, pp 76-84.)
For a consultation on how to build a service-learning/community engagement component into a course please contact Sue Serra (serra@udel.edu) , Assistant Director of service learning for the Community Engagement Initiative.
Exemplary Service-Learning Syllabi
- Include service as an expressed goal
- Clearly describe how the service experience will be measured and what will be measured
- Describe the nature of the service placement and/or project
- Specify the roles and responsibilities of students in the placement and/or service project (e.g., transportation, time requirements, community contacts, etc.)
- Define the need(s) the service placement meets
- Specify how students will be expected to demonstrate what they have learned in the placement/project (journal, papers, presentations)
- Present course assignments that link the service placement and the course content
- Include a description of the reflective process
(Excerpted from Heffernan, Kerrissa. Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Construction. RI: Campus Compact, 2001, pp. 2-7, 9.)