"Witnessing the struggles and challenges that many of our community members endure can be a real eye-opener for students, and can yield good subject matter for story-telling and news reporting.  With the service learning approach, the emphasis is on the process as well as the product, and the process the student goes through can be transformational."

Community Impact:

By exposing students to community issues and asking them to describe them, they discover techniques for focusing attention on the issues which may be in need of change. Students realize there are opportunities to create change when they interact with members of the community that they ordinarily would not have.

Under-funded non-profit agencies are found in the community. Social issues need attention. Under-resourced populations that could be networked and assisted often do not get access to the services that they need. Publicizing the problems, connecting the services, and heightening awareness through community interaction are all needs of the community that these courses seek to improve upon.

Student Impact:

In my courses, adding a service learning component has resulted in students learning course material by producing content that can be used as a useful product, which can be used for communicating a message in a variety of areas; news, marketing, advertising, documenting other programs, classes or non-profit agencies, etc. I feel strongly about encouraging students to get off-campus and out into the community to observe how under-resourced community members from different socio-economic backgrounds are living. Witnessing the struggles and challenges that many of our community members endure can be a real eye-opener for students, and can yield good subject matter for story-telling and news reporting. Traditionally, assignments were designed to help students learn technical and aesthetic processes only. The overall goal for these courses is to encourage students to become socially analytical and develop higher level thinking skills while learning the techniques of documenting stories through photography and audio recording.

The class is also designed to result in opportunities for students to have their work published. It will also result in a body of work, including a portfolio, that can be used when applying for work in the future. Having been published is often a “foot in the door” advantage which, along with a diploma and a transcript, results in a more experienced applicant.

Partnership with other Faculty Leaders:

I rely on referrals from other faculty who are working in the areas that my students are assigned to cover. Those faculty members are much more familiar with the dynamics in those situations and can provide insight as to what kinds of details and other issues that the students, may need to consider before they consider covering the story. In addition, those faculty and staff that are involved in the story can provide insightful sound recordings that can serve as sound bites in their presentations.

Personal Benefits of Teaching Service Learning:

Incorporating service learning into a course curriculum has made my courses more memorable and valuable, and increased my effectiveness as an instructor. The process generates much more attention to the plight of underserved community members, and myself and other faculty can find themselves in situations where we are afforded publishing opportunities to describe this process.

"International Service-Learning experiences immediately challenge students into transformative shifts because everything about the ways we safely navigate the world of intellectualizing and the ways we view ourselves is displaced--my role and self included. " 

Community Impact:

Besides the intangible benefits of personal and intellectual growth, these opportunities demonstrate how capable our students are of negotiating the world to future graduate programs, internships and employers.  And, the bonds these students make with each other, their community partners and faculty are meaningful and lasting. 

“Service learning is a necessary component of any education. I am glad that we are able to provide so many service learning opportunities to our students. I am very confident that these opportunities result in more professional, more compassionate, and more creative students and alumni.”  

Community Impact:

These Service Learning courses improve the UA community by providing diverse and immense opportunities to students. These experiences elevate the learning experience and better equip our students for their professional practice. Service learning courses allow our students to provide many, many hours of service to the community, and our students further the reach of community agencies in ways that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.

Student Impact:

The service learning experience is a wonderful opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills being taught in the classroom. The field experience allows students to be completely immersed in the practice environment.

One great reward that I love to watch unfold for students is the building of knowledge, skills, and confidence. By the end of each semester, students have experienced tremendous growth. Often, students will get to their final evaluation and realize all that they have accomplished. They are delighted and often surprised! When students are at their field placements, they are fully experiencing that world. This really expedites learning and builds confidence.  

My Role as a Faculty Leader:

As a field liaison in a field seminar course, I provide instruction and support to my field students. I guide the processing in class so that students are able to express difficult experiences, receive support, and identify affirming commonalties with peers. I also interject with useful information, resources, or ideas for improving practice. I also provide off-site supervision to field interns each semester. In this capacity, I meet at least once a week with students to discuss their field experiences, to challenge them in new directions, and to provide a layer of support as they navigate their field environment. 

Personal Benefits of Teaching Service Learning:

Being involved in this type of learning course definitely allows me to use my practice skills in different ways. Field interactions - with both the students and the community - allow me to maintain and add to my network of collaborative colleagues and agencies. 

"Service-learning takes students outside the walls of their classroom into community spaces where they might not have otherwise gone, and they learn from the people and places they encounter, instead of just the teacher and textbooks." 

Community Impact:

It strengthens faculty-student relationships, and student-student relationships, provides more meaningful learning experiences for students, and creates a space for students to develop personally as well as academically. 

Student Impact:

Service-learning takes students outside the walls of their classroom into community spaces where they might not have otherwise gone, and they learn from the people and places they encounter, instead of just the teacher and textbooks.

The lines between teacher and learner are often blurred in this way: not only do students learn from community members in addition to the instructor—they learn from their peers as they interact outside the classroom, and they also have the opportunity to step into the role of teacher, sharing with the community and bringing knowledge and insight back into the classroom for other students and the instructor.   

Students also begin to see themselves as part of a community larger than their University, a citizen with valuable contributions to make. 

My Role as a Faculty Leader:

Through carefully chosen readings, writing, and reflection activities, I guide students toward making connections between course concepts and their shadowing and service experiences. For instance, one student shadowing a pediatrician was better able to understand William Carlos Williams’ short story “The Use of Force” after observing her doctor deal with stubborn adolescents offering monosyllabic answers while playing on their cellphones. Students placed at the Veteran’s Hospital for their service make connections between their work with veterans and our conversations about Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony and post-traumatic stress disorder. Students who shadow in community clinics or pass out food and supplies at mobile outreach programs learn about problems they did not know existed in their communities, and become focused on the contributions they can make to help address those problems, now and as future physicians. 

Career Development through Service Learning:

I have presented my service-learning models at conferences, and currently am working on an article that describes a model and learning outcomes in a Southern Women’s Literature service-learning course I taught.

I was also recently involved in an effort to secure grant funding related to formalizing service-learning on campus.

Just like my students, I engage more deeply with the material I teach, and connect more with my students and the people and places in the community I live in, which makes me a better teacher and a better person! 

"My students are expected to do something, create a lesson, marketing plan, and make a business decision.  Service learning is about doing.  I find that you really don’t know what marketing is until you have to make budget decisions, decide who your target market is, and decide how your will address your target."

Finding Purpose in Service Learning:

What I find the most fulfilling is seeing students realize they can do it.  They can read about their field in a book or article, learn something new and then execute an aspect of that learning for the greater good of a community or organization. 

My Role as Faculty Leader:

Planning is probably my biggest job then I just need to get out of the way.  I am amazed what a motivated student(s) can accomplish. Usually, the more I stay out of their way the better the project result.  My main role after planning is to serve as a consultant to my student groups, a protector of my student’s time and energy, and a liaison to community organizations who want to partner. 

What I've Learned from Teaching Service Learning:

After being involved the first time with Belize, service learning completely changed my view of teaching.  I used to try to control everything my students did from class attendance to reading and writing.  Now I find that the more I put on them the better they do.  I still need to set parameters, but I have to learn to let the students work with in those parameters.  I it challenges my control issues every day! I struggle, for sure, but I feel I am a better teacher because of it.  At least it makes me want to be a better teacher.