Service-Learning Australia

Service goals must be achievable.

When deciding on a service goal, it is essential to think about whether it will be achievable, considering the time and resources available to your students.  For example, students in a primary school were concerned about pollution in a nearby stream.  For a number of reasons, the teacher thought it would be very difficult for students to have a significant impact on the level of pollution, so the students instead focused on educating the local community about polluting the stream.  The need they were addressing was not primarily the polluted stream, but a public that was uneducated about pollution in the stream.  As their “baseline”, students measured community awareness of pollution in the stream and the actions the public took to reduce this pollution before their project.  They then conducted a public education campaign for the community, businesses along the stream and the local council.  They finally measured public awareness after their campaign.

Service-learning is pedagogy.

It is a method for achieving curriculum outcomes.  Look at the number of curriculum outcomes that will be achieved by your students in their service activity.  Involve your students - discuss the learning goals and the way in which the service activities can help them achieve these goals. Then identify curriculum outcomes that may not be achieved through service-learning – these will need a more traditional approach.  Also be prepared to take advantage of the many, unexpected “teaching opportunities” that will occur during the project.

There are very simple templates to help you identify curriculum outcomes that can be achieved through the service-learning projects that your students have chosen.  These are “Embedding TTT Projects into Key Learning Areas” and “Embedding TTT Projects into the Curriculum”.  These templates are in both the “Getting Started” section of this Module and the “TTT Templates” Section of the “TTT Module”.

Examples of a similar need, but different service activities.

In the following two cases, the need in the school community was very similar:  a need for an improved level of school maintenance.  Each group of students decided on very different projects to address this community need.   In each project students achieved their service goals and their learning goals.

• The majority of students in one school wanted to reduce the level of vandalism in the school.
• The majority of students in another school wanted to improve the standard of the boys’ and girls’ toilet blocks.
  
  

The majority of students in one school wanted to reduce the level of vandalism in the school. The students:

• researched the reasons people vandalise property and ways in which to reduce vandalism
• wrote to the local police and specialist security firms inviting them to come to the school to be interviewed.
• developed a budget and conducted fund raising activities to buy some more powerful lights for the school.
• designed and wrote a brochure and conducted a letter-box drop of the neighbourhood
• put information on the school web site.

Curriculum outcomes were achieved, students were engaged in their studies – and the level of vandalism in the school greatly reduced.

The majority of students in another school wanted to improve the standard of the boys’ and girls’ toilet blocks. The students:

• invited an indigenous artist into the school and developed designs for murals
• voted on the design to be used
• assessed the cost of materials needed and developed a budget.
• wrote to a local hardware store asking if they could get paint at wholesale cost
• planned and conducted fund-raising activities
• painted the walls of the toilet
• developed a set of hygiene guidelines for the kindergarten students.

Curriculum outcomes were achieved, students were proud of what they had done and continued to maintain their toilet blocks.