Contemporary trends in leadership education emphasize paradigms of learning and educational practices associated with developing responsible citizens, furthering higher education's civic mission. Yet, few introductory leadership courses include an explicit civic component (Johnson & Woodard, 2014). Service-learning is a high-impact practice…

Each year, millions of people around the world are affected by natural disasters. Following these disasters, many students from colleges and universities arrive to support the affected areas. These seamless leadership learning opportunities engage students by allowing them to implement the concepts they learned in a classroom. Humanitarian relief…

Service learning strengthens all involved: Students, faculty members, the community, and higher education institutions. Benefits of service learning for students include gaining real world experiences, personal and transformative outcomes (Conway, Amel, & Gerwien's, 2009), as well as higher order thinking from reflection on the experience…

The experience of place in arts-based service learning (ABSL) is personal. It can be difficult to define and challenging to share and build upon. This paper, reporting from a national ABSL project involving three Australian universities, is concerned with experiences of place in forming professional teacher identity. Using a narrative methodology…

In the winter of 2010, as the professor of an introductory Gender Studies course in a Canadian university, author Ilya Parkins was involved in a community service learning project centered on the memorialization of women murdered in her university's local community. In this article, Parkins considers what limited this project, which was so…

Urban education is a complex system that is often shrouded in stereotypes, labels, and barriers. Service-learning is well-entrenched in suburban institutions, but is a fledgling or grassroots organization in the urban education community. Often, suburban service-learning initiatives have taken the tone of community service in that it is often…

Service learning has become increasingly popular across all levels of education. Previous literature emphasizes that reflection is an important aspect of service learning. However, limited focus has been given to appropriate methods of reflection for younger children. This longitudinal study followed 31 second-grade children (15 females; mean age…

Because of the current emphasis on accountability at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels across all content areas, accreditation agencies, administrators, program designers, course developers, faculty, and students have increasingly focused on stating and measuring student learning outcomes and documenting the relationship between…

Service-learning has been shown to have benefits for both students and faculty, however, it is quite rare in the mathematics classroom. At Concordia University Irvine we have established a relationship with the Village of Hope--a local non-profit organization designed to help homeless families transition to a self-sufficient status via temporary…

Reflection is an increasingly essential component of experience-based learning in higher education to encourage students to draw connections between theoretical and practical knowledge and experiences. This qualitative study examines the reflections of undergraduate students in a service-learning course for secondary English teacher candidates.…

Service learning remains a topic of interest in higher education. It has become more prevalent in teacher preparation programs with the intent of providing the opportunity for pre-service teachers to become engaged with individuals who have different life experiences than their own. Lessons can be learned through a review of the literature and the…

This article examines the role of international service-learning (ISL) in facilitating undergraduates' exploration of their conceptions of self (i.e., self-exploration). Conception of self refers to the use of values to define one's role in a social/cultural group or organization and in society, and to determine current actions and future…

Research on service learning has demonstrated positive outcomes in several areas of student learning; however, there is a scarcity of research examining the lived experiences of students. This study consisted of seventeen students from two cohorts enrolled in a service learning class working in a rural town. The current study suggests the…

Herein we identify and address promising practices, essential theories, and related cautions within service-learning. The argument that service-learning is an organized community service which is connected to curriculum in an effort to deepen learning around content was scrutinized and endorsed. We envisioned service-learning as more than a joint…

Character education (CE) in schools has been reported to support a safe school environment in which adults and students can embrace core ethical values such as respect, fairness, and responsibility, for example (Pala, 2011). It has the power to not only "cultivate minds [but] nurture hearts" as well (Pala, 2011, p. 26). The creation of a…