HU Serves – Service learning at Highlands, a High Impact Practice
Are you interested in implementing service learning in your course? The information here, created by a cohort of Highlands faculty, provides a guide to service learning, templates you can use, and examples of service learning courses at NMHU.
Service Learning projects have…
Introduction presentation HU Serves Workshop 1 PDF
Essential components – SevenElements document
- A strong connection between course content and service project
- Service activity/project requirements and time are clearly defined in the syllabus
- The learning from the project is assessed and is part of the overall course grade, and has a stated learning outcome as part of the course
- There is a reflection component for students to respond/reflect on their experience
- A community partner or partners have been identified and they have a specific need that will be aided by the student’s service.
- An evaluation process exists allowing students to evaluate their experience with the project and allowing the community partner to provide feedback on their satisfaction with the outcomes
Definition
Service-learning is a collaborative teaching and learning strategy designed to promote academic enhancement, personal growth, and civic learning. Students render meaningful service in community settings that present them with experiences related to academic material. Through guided reflection, students – individually and in groups – examine their experiences critically and articulate specific learning outcomes, thus enhancing the quality of their learning and of their service. Students, faculty, and community members all serve as co-educators, co-learners, co-servers, and co-generators of knowledge.
Pedagogy
- reflection
- studentBenefits
- CurriculumChange
- Recommended book: Introduction to Service-Learning Toolkit 2nd Ed. by Campus Compact (you can borrow this from CTE)
Implementation
- Dr. Smith Hawkins – recorded presentation on theory and implementation options for universities
PDF- SmithHawkinsPresentationImplementations - Introducing to your students criteriaSL
- Student Project sign up form StudentServiceForm
Creating your syllabus
- Presentation on Syllabus changes HU Serves Workshop Syllabus
- DevelopmentWorksheet
- Sample syllabus Biology BIOL 211 SP2018 syllabus CoreyRivas
- Biology course presentation Service Learning Project CoreyRivas
- Sample Syllabus Psychology Syllabus Culture and Mental Illness Spring 2018
Creating a Community Partnership
- Presentation on partnership essentials Workshop 3 HU Serves Partnerships
- standards-for-working-with-community-partners
- Service-Learning Partnership Agreement (1)
- PartnershipExpectation
Evaluation of project
A service learning project should be evaluated from all participants. Be sure to schedule a meeting with the community partner for their feedback and future fine-tuning. As the instructor, you should evaluate whether you feel the course objectives were met. Below is an evaluation for students:
Example Projects
- Ideas for many disciplines ServiceLearningExamples
Workshop presentations PDF files
- Overview and theory SmithHawkinsPresentationImplementations
- Pedagogy Workshop 1 HU Serves Workshop 1
- Syllabus Workshop 2 HU Serves Workshop Syllabus
- Community partnerships Workshop 3 Workshop 3 HU Serves Partnerships
Conclusion
If you are interested in implementing a service learning project, or would like your current project added to the information here, contact CTE at cte@nmhu.edu