Service-Learning Australia

There are very many definitions of service-learning, but Service-Learning Australia defines it very simply as:

“Academic learning, linked to student-directed community service, enriched by intellectual enquiry and reflection.”

• “Academic learning” implies service-learning is part of the academic curriculum of a school or tertiary institution.
• “Student-direction” indicates that students have a central role in initiating, planning and performing their service-learning.
• “Community service” suggests that the focus is meaningful service to others.
• ”Enriched by intellectual enquiry and reflection” indicates that analysis is built into the process.  Students analyse themselves, their service experience, their community, their participation in that community and reflect on that participation.

Recent research  shows that good quality service-learning, which achieves powerful outcomes for students and their communities, incorporates not only academic learning, community service, student direction and intellectual enquiry and reflection, but has these additional elements:

• meaningful service that is personally relevant to participants – both those giving and receiving the service.
• understanding and respect for diversity
• partnerships that are collaborative, mutually beneficial and address community needs
• ongoing progress monitoring to assess the quality of implementation, progress towards meeting goals and ways in which the program can be improved and sustained.
• sufficient duration and intensity to address community needs and meet specified outcomes.

America’s National Commission on service-learning, summarises what service-learning is and what it is not.

Service-learning:

• links to academic content and standards
• involves young people in helping to determine and meet real, defined community needs
• includes on-going, meaningful reflection and analysis
• is reciprocal in nature, benefiting both the community and the service providers by combining a service experience with a learning experience
• can be used in any subject area so long as it is appropriate to learning goals
• works at all ages, even among young children

Service-learning is not:

• an episodic volunteer program
• an add-on to an existing school or tertiary curriculum
• the accumulation of a set number of community service hours in order to graduate.

There are three clear types of service in which students can be engaged: direct service, indirect service, advocacy and research.

Authentic service-learning experiences, while almost endlessly diverse, have some common characteristics.

Authentic service-learning experiences:

• Are positive, meaningful and real to the participants.
• Involve cooperative rather than competitive experiences and therefore promote skills associated with teamwork, community involvement and citizenship.
• Address complex problems in complex settings rather than simplified problems in isolation.
• Offer opportunities to engage in problem-solving by requiring participants to understand the specific context of their service-learning activity and community challenges, rather than only to draw upon generalized or abstract knowledge from a textbook.   As a result, 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.
• 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, service-learning is more likely to be personally meaningful to participants and to generate emotional consequences, to challenge values as well as ideas, and to support social, emotional and cognitive learning and development.

(Taken mostly from Eyler & Giles, Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?)

There are a number of different types of service programs – volunteerism, community service, service-learning, work experience and internship - each with its unique characteristics.  What differentiates them is where each lies on two continuums:

Benefit - between recipient and provider

Focus   - between service and learning.