Service learning links community service and volunteerism with academic learning. It is a collaborative effort that brings schools, community-based organizations, parents, and other community members together in a common enterprise of individual and community growth. Service learning is based on a number of existing links between schools and…

At Florida's Miami-Dade Community College, a service learning component was implemented in a reading course designed to prepare students to pass the statewide test required to obtain an associate degree. In the service learning option, students were required to perform 15 hours of tutoring in reading to at-risk elementary students or adults,…

This report presents the perspectives of three educators from historically black colleges and universities on the advancement of community service and service-learning in higher education. Each of the essays is introduced by a leader in the service-learning community. They include: (1) "Curriculum Transformation and Service Learning"…

Service-learning is a teaching strategy used by Texas middle schools that combines classroom learning with community activities and where both students and teachers plan activities and projects that meet a well defined school or community need. These activities strengthen academic learning by addressing learning objectives, allowing students to…

A research project used data from a national comparative study to examine whether service learning improved students' problem solving or contributed to a more complex understanding of social issues. In a pilot study, students with no, limited, and intensive service-learning experience were interviewed about a social problem and how they would…

This book incorporates teaching strategies to enhance middle school science and social studies using service learning. The book was developed by teachers who participated in a series of institutes conducted by the Social Science Education Consortium and the Science Discovery Program at the University of Colorado during the summers of 1993 and…

Discusses accomplishments of students in Miami Middle School and High School in northeastern Oklahoma, who with the help of teachers are linking their lived experience, school-based learning, and new-found activism through the medium of a service-learning project. Discusses the history of Tar Creek, now designated as the nation's worst…

This volume discusses the ways in which teacher preparation programs around the country are actively embracing civic education from the belief that teacher education is inherently tied to both the preparation of civil servants and the work of preparing citizens. In the field of education, specifically the work of preparing teachers, there has been…

Many colleges and universities are using a service-learning paradigm to structure service learning experiences for their students to reinforce and enhance the understanding of course material. Two studies were undertaken at a parochial college to address the benefits to students who perform service as part of their curricular studies. In the first…

A study examined 64 eighth-grade students' perceptions of opportunities available from participating in service learning and contrasted these with perceived learning opportunities available in school. Each student was enrolled in a 10-week required service learning course. Students visited service sites daily and had reflection periods two times…

In this practical guide to service learning, 21 contributors describe specific service-learning projects that have enhanced the curriculum in schools across the United States and that have improved student learning in the process. In the Foreword, U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard W. Riley, encourages schools to incorporate service learning…

Reports on a series of programs designed to test the hypothesis that increasing student involvement in and understanding of social institutions combined with increased cognitive and social skills can decrease youth violence. The program combines law-related, conflict resolution, and service learning components with qualitative and quantitative…

Presents four brief essays expressing the importance of combining service learning and citizenship education. Authors Benjamin Barber, Joan Schine, Harry C. Boyte, and James C. Kielsmeier stress the advantages of learning democratic concepts and principles, as well as understanding civic government, through student participation. (MJP)

Provides 11 guideposts for teachers and students planning constructive community action projects. These include avoid overanalysis at the beginning, write your original idea down before you modify it, ignore negativity, do your homework, build a core group, and recruit community allies. (MJP)

For more than 200 years, American democracy has served as a model for the world. Central to the founders' vision was that government requires the consent of the governed that the people must be active and responsible participants in their own governance. A primary mission of American public schools has been the civic education of young people.…