Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Service Learning As A Strategy To Prepare Teacher Candidates For Contemporary Diverse Classrooms, Deborah Hamm, David Dowell, Jean Houck

Higher Education

The article describes a service-learning program jointly developed, implemented, and evaluated by a large university and a culturally and linguistically diverse urban school district. Each semester, over 200 undergraduate students preparing to be teachers learn first-hand about contemporary classrooms by assisting at-risk students. Program evaluation found changes in the undergraduates' attitudes about the importance of social and individual difference on children's learning.

Service-Learning Projects In Composition And Beyond, Thomas Deans, Zan Meyer-Goncalves

Higher Education

All college teachers want their courses to be relevant and provocative, and to encourage students to be more active learners of the discipline, participants in the academy, and citizens in the wider community. As teachers of composition, we first experimented with combining community service with classroom teaching because it promised to advance teaching aims we value, especially making connections between academic courses and community needs, and between cognitive thinking and ethical social action. And we continue with service-learning projects because our experience and students' responses suggest a significant degree of success in meeting those goals. But we are certainly not …

Community Service-Learning In Teacher Education: A Report On Innovative Programs In New England, Beth Wohlleb, Robert Maloy

Higher Education

As the strengths of community service-learning are becoming more recognized by educators at all levels, many institutions of higher education are incorporating CSL as a dynamic pedagogy into their teacher education programs. Many schools or departments of education encourage or require certification candidates to perform CSL as part of their teacher training as ways to learn about the teaching profession through the practice of teaching and reflection. Fewer schools integrate service-learning into their teacher education program in another way: by teaching preservice teachers how to use service-learning as a pedagogy with children in their own future classrooms. This second group …

Higher Education And Civic Responsibility, Alexander W. Astin

Higher Education

It goes without saying that higher education plays a major part in shaping civic life in modern American society. Our colleges and universities not only educate each new generation of leaders in government, business, science, law, medicine, the clergy, and other advanced professions, but are also responsible for setting the standards and training the personnel who will educate the entire citizenry at the precollegiate level. Higher education institutions can also exert important societal influences through the scientific, technological, and cultural knowledge produced by their faculties. (Reprinted with permission by the author.)

Expanding And Sustaining Partnerships, Judith A. Ramaley

Higher Education

The Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) Program requires adaptations in the university environment. We must examine and reinterpret (1) the roles and responsibilities of faculty; (2) the design of the undergraduate curriculum; (3) the structures of the university that create the capacity and support to sustain different working relationships with the community; and (4) our definitions of success and quality.

Community Service And Political Identity Development In Adolescence, Miranda Yates, James Youniss

Civic Engagement

This article addresses the interconnection of political socialization and identity development. We begin with Erikson 's work, which identified the development of political commitment in adolescence as a key aspect of identity formation. We then seek to shed light on the social processes through which youth become engaged in political activities and issues. We discuss the influences of family and peers as well as participation in community service and other civic activities. The development of social responsibility and agency, and an understanding of the complexity of social issues are considered as important facets of political commitment. Data from a case …

Book Review: To End A War, Rory J. Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

If asked to name career diplomats who have tackled some very difficult international crises, many foreign policy makers would put Richard Holbrooke near the top of the list. Not many negotiators have wielded moral principle, power, and reason as well as Holbrooke. His book on the Bosnia negotiations leading up to the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement is timely, given the ethnic cleansing that is being carried out in Kosovo, a southern province of Yugoslavia's Serb Republic. Once again we are faced with unrest in the Balkans. We have seen the daily newspaper headlines change from "24 Albanian Men Killed in …

Solving Everyday Problems Creatively: The Role Of Problem Construction And Personality Type, Roni Reiter-Palmon, American Institutes For Research, K. Victoria Threlfall

Psychology Faculty Publications

Problem construction has been determined to be an important process contributing to creative problem solving. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether problem construction plays a role in how individuals interpret ambiguous, ill-defined problems in a way that fits with their personality. We also hypothesized that solution quality and originality would be related not only to problem construction ability but also to the degree to which the solution fits the personality of the individual. Students who participated in this study (N = 195) were asked to complete measures to identify personality types, a measure of problem construction ability, …

Local Tv News And The Death Penalty: Social Construction Of A Nebraska Execution, Jeremy Harris Lipschultz, Michael L. Hilt

Communication Faculty Publications

This paper focused on the September 2, 1994 execution of Harold Lamont "Walkin' Willie" Otey. Coverage of the execution by the four Omaha, Nebraska television stations was examined. The Otey execution is seen from a social construction of reality perspective. The television portrayal of a confrontation on the night of the execution between supporters and Opponents of capital punishment is seen as a mediated view of what happened that night. The public image of the death penalty as appropriate justice is seen as influenced by media coverage.

Omaha Conditions Survey: 1998, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

The Omaha Conditions Survey: 1998 is the fifth in a series of studies conducted by the Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The purpose of the Omaha Conditions Survey is to produce and disseminate quality information about issues of importance to the community. The 1998 survey focused on measuring detailed characteristics of the local labor force. This information is intended to help members of the community address issues related to labor availability and employment needs.

Assessment And Service Learning, International Service Learning Conference, Sheila Bailey

Conference Proceedings

Workshop Objectives:

Participants will...

- Identify the difference between program evaluation and student assessment;

- Identify national efforts in the United States and issues in service learning and assessment;

- Review a tool to create learning activities which link standards, curriculum, learning goals and assessment;

- Identify resources for student assessment, including the National Study Group on Assessment and Service Learning.

The Evolution Of Character Education: From Hellfire And Brimstone To Constructivism, Arati Singh

Special Topics, General

Since colonial times, character education has played a kaleidoscopic role in American schools. Seventeenth and eighteenth century Puritan curriculum was synonymous with an exceedingly rigid and religious moral code. Nineteenth century policy makers adopted a Pan-Protestant, and then a generalized Christian philosophy of character education, as they pursued a common school system. As twentieth century American society grew increasingly pluralistic, the religious basis of character education succumbed to a more secular framework. Predictably, this century has seen character education be demoted to just one of many competing items on the national education agenda. Paradoxically, today's violence-filled headlines evince a more …

Lb 1085 Report To The Nebraska Unicameral For Dodge, Douglas, Sarpy, Saunders And Washington Counties: Multi-County Shared Services Project, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

The 1996 session of the Nebraska Unicameral enacted several bills focusing on the organization and cost of local governments. One bill-LB 1085--provided new, more specific language and procedures governing county consolidation and service cooperation. Coupled with the new language and procedures was a requirement that each county complete by January, 1998 a study of whether property taxes might be reduced through the consolidation of offices, services and/or county governments.

The Impact Of Service-Learning On Participants In Community-Based Organizations, Kay S. Bailey

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Research questions examined variables addressing the impact of service-learning on participants in community-based organizations during the 1997 summer session. The researcher set out to determine whether young people engaged in service-learning programs were likely to be involved in other service organizations, whether they are likely to continue to enroll in service-learning programs, likely to be committed to participation in voluntary service as adults, whether they value their service-learning experience, see value to themselves and to the community, and if differences exist by ethnicity and gender.

A survey instrument was mailed to the six program coordinators in the study for administration …

Peer Versus Adult Models: Infants Immediate And Deferred Imitation Of Familiar And Novel Events, Robina Enayat Gul

Student Work

The present study examined the effects of different aged models (adult vs. peer) on infants' memory and imitative behaviors. Thirty infants between the age of 14- to 18-months were included in the study. Fifteen of the infants watched an adult model demonstrate two familiar three-step event sequences and two novel three-step event sequences on simple objects. The other fifteen infants observed a peer model perform the same event sequences on the same objects. Three questions were addressed: (a) Do infants learn to imitate three-step event sequences better from an adult or a peer model? (b) Do infants better recall familiar …

Relationship History And Friendship Development In Adolescence, Jay L. Ringle

Student Work

Adolescents in grades 8, 10, 12, and college (13-22 year olds) completed the Relationship Closeness Inventory (RCI) (Berscheid, Snyder, & Omoto, 1989), a written relationship development narrative, and a graph of major relationship events for a designated friend in a same-sex and cross-sex relationship. Data collection was done in separate sessions for each relationship type, with order of com pletion randomly assigned.

Age and relationship differences were found for total score on the Relationship Closeness Inventory (RCI), indicating that closeness in same-sex relationships increases gradually with age, whereas closeness in cross-sex relationships does not increase until later adolescence. When asked …

The Spirit Of Volunteerism And Volunteerism In American Schools, Gerald H. Maring

Service Learning, General

In American culture historically and at present, there is a strong tension between "rugged individualism" and commitment to community-mindedness. University of California professor of sociology Robert Bellah et al. (1985) have analyzed this tension in its roots and ramifications from political, literary, philosophical, theological, psychological, and sociological perspectives in their seminal work Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Building upon the findings and perspectives they wrote about in Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Bellah et al. (1991) proposed in their sequel entitled The Good Society what they felt were necessary changes …

Methodological Problems In Evaluating Service Learning Projects, David A. Payne

Evaluation/Reflection

The ever increasing use of "service learning" as an adjunct to the ongoing instructional programs in public schools and higher education has challenged the conduct of both formal and informal evaluations. This article considers threats to internal validity in evaluating "learn and serve" projects with particular attention to data collection design and instrumentation. Mixedmethods designs are likely to be most effective, particularly when the intent is to focus on valueadded assessment, and there is considerable variability in the nature and extent of implementation of learn and serve activities.

School-To-Work And Service-Learning, Madeleine S. Hengel, Robert D. Shumer

Bibliographies

This document has been prepared as a brief review of resources and readings on Service-Learning and School-to-Work. The series, "Links, Connecting Theory With Practice," is being developed to give practitioners and researchers who contact the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (NSLC) a point of reference in beginning to look at topics and current issues in service-learning.

Service-Learning (SL) and School-to-Work (STW) both extend learning beyond the classroom into real world contexts where broader problem-solving and decision-making skills are addressed. While service-learning provides opportunities for students to participate in learning activities within their community that utilize their academic and vocational competencies, School-to-Work helps …

Service-Learning And School-To-Work Linkages, Bob Bhaerman

School K-12

In this brief based on a section of a forthcoming NSEE monograph on The Role of Service Learning in Educational Reform by B. Bhaerman, B. Gomez, and K. Cordell, ti·om the American Association for Career Education (AACE), the concepts of service-learning and school-to-work transition are reviewed: linkages, similarities, and differences between service-learning and school-to-work are noted; and several key issues are discussed.

Service Learning In Maryland: Making Academics More Relevant, Marian Rouse Finney

Special Topics, General

Maryland is the first state in the nation to require every student to perform service as a condition of receiving a high school diploma. During the last 15 years, a strong support system for service learning has emerged in Maryland. The diversity of opportunities for service are broad, challenging, and inviting.

Why The Environment Needs National Service, Brian R. Trelstad

Special Topics, General

On July 20, 1969, when “man” landed on the Moon, the United States achieved a remarkable scientific and technological breakthrough. “One small step for . . . man; one giant leap for mankind”; Neil Armstrong’s voice crackled through Mission Control to the millions around the globe who were watching that moment, transfixed by their television sets. Everyone was watching. Everyone that is, but my mother-and the handful of other mothers around the globe who were giving birth at the same moment-to people like me, a generation of moon children.

Florida Learn & Serve 1995-96: What Were The Outcomes?, Joe Follman, Kate Muldoon

Special Topics, General

This article is taken from a report on the second year of research on quantitative outcomes of K-12 students who participated in service learning projects in Florida in 1995-96. The study involved 29,000 students in 107 subgrants. It illustrates what one state has been able to accomplish .

How Effective A Tool Is Student Community Service, Martha Naomi Alt

Service Learning, General

Despite the popular appeal among the public, educators, parents, and even students for community service, there is surprisingly little firm evidence that students who engage in service learn more, develop in different ways, or learn different skills than those who do not. What are the implications for policy, further research, and school practice?

Bringing The Gap Between Service And Learning, Julie Hatcher, Robert G. Bringle

Evaluation/Reflection

Learning theorists recognize that not all experiences result in learning, particularly discipline-based learning. John Dewey called for education to be deeply rooted in experience (1916), yet he acknowledged that experience in and of itself is not always educative (1933). Experiences often create controversy, and if the controversy is not reflected upon, it can be a misleading, even harmful experience, which produces a lack of sensitivity and responsiveness in the learner (Dewey 1933). Although an encounter has the potential to develop key perceptions that foster personal growth, it is only when the experience is thoughtfully considered and analyzed that generalizations are …

Service Learning: Connecting Citizenship With The Classroom, Mary Ellen Brandell, Shelly Hinck

Civic Engagement

Has the effective teaching of writing changed for the better, remained much the same, or become worse in the last 20 years? Have the major obstacles to the effective teaching of writing been removed? This 20- year follow-up examines the question.

Citizenship And Young People's Role In Public Life, Melissa Bass

Civic Engagement

Young people play many roles in public life. They are activists and entrepreneurs, officeholders and voters, taxpayers and consumers, advocates and beneficiaries. They are also, first and foremost, citizens.

In its narrowest, most technical sense, citizenship is something that we are born with. In its richest sense, it is something we can work our entire lives toward making real.

Many of our public roles happen to us. We become taxpayers when we get our first jobs. We are customers when we stand in line at the DMV. But some of our public roles require a little more effort. In order …

The Impact Of School Based Community Service On Nine Grade Students' Self-Esteem And Sense Of Civic Inclusion, Judy Reese

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

PROBLEM: Community Service (CS) has been enshrined as a panacea for the problems of declining civic involvement among American Youth. Developing a framework to understand the impact of these programs is an essential component to evaluating their effectiveness.

HYPOTHESES: Four hypotheses were tested:
1. CS participation has a positive impact on the self-esteem of students.
2. Participation in CS has a positive impact on the students' sense of civic inclusion.
3. Participation in CS with the elderly has a greater positive impact on perception of the elderly than other types of CS.
4. Students that participate in CS show greater …

Youths And Communities: Toward Comprehensive Strategies For Youth Development, William H. Barton, Marie Watkins, Roger Jarjoura

School K-12

Society's conventional response to problems of young people such as teenage pregnancy, school dropout, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and violence -- is to target a specific problem and develop intervention or prevention programs for individuals who manifest the problem or are at high risk of it. Research shows that overlapping risk and protective factors affect the occurrence of all of these problems and that prevention strategies aimed at enhancing youths' development, reducing communities specific risks, and strengthening protective factors are likely to be more successful than programs addressing the problem behaviors themselves. Among such strategies deserving wider consideration are "comprehensive …

Proactive Citizenship And Service Learning At Anoka High School, William Mittlefehldt

School K-12

Change is the central process in all schools. Students change because of biological and social forces. Schools change because of the social and economic changes in their students. staff. and communities. The communities that support our schools change in demographics, economics, and politics. Those forces make teaching the value and the skills of citizenship extremely challenging. Change threatens to erode our common ground; it undermines our shared assumptions.