What is Academic Service-Learning?

Service-Learning is a concept that unites hands-on service experiences with education. Service-Learning programs enrich students’ lives by making relevant connections between what they learn in class and what they experience in the real world. Service-Learning can occur through service programs that are integrated into the students’ academic curriculum. Students are provided with a structured time to reflect or write about what they experienced during the actual service activity.

Service-Learning is, therefore, an effort to promote the fact that much learning takes place when we can connect classroom instruction to real-life situations. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on linking what students are doing at their individual sites with broader community issues and involvement.

Unlike traditional volunteering, which stresses service goals (ethic of service, moral development,value and belief definition), service learning encourages the blending of both service and learninggoals. Service-Learning provides the following opportunities for students:

• fosters the academic, social, and personal development of students
• enhances what is taught in schools by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the community
• utilizes newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations in their own community

Service Learning is a form of experimental learning where students apply

• knowledge,
• skills,
• critical thinking, and
• wise judgment

to address genuine community needs.