What is Service-Learning?
Service-Learning is an approach to learning that connects academic coursework with community engagement. In service-learning courses, faculty and students deepen critical consciousness about our local and global communities as they partner in service with them and listen to diverse perspectives. Service-learning requires participants to engage in reading, reflection, and analysis that connect course content to the service experience.
Service opportunities are developed through collaboration among faculty, students, and individuals and organizations in the community. Service-learning goes beyond extracurricular community service; it involves participants in reading, reflection, and analysis. Service-learning helps deepen understanding of an academic subject by providing experiences that develop a wide range of skills, from cross-cultural awareness to critical thinking, problem solving, and leadership skills.
Service placements are designed to meet two criteria:
- to enhance the educational goals of a course, and
- to serve the public good by providing a needed service to individuals, organizations, schools, or other entities in the community.