Community Engagement in the Liberal Arts: How Service Hours and Reflections Influence Course Value

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-430
Author(s):  
David Lynn Painter ◽  
Courtney Howell
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Arts Community ◽  
Individual Conversations

Background: In response to critics’ charges that the liberal arts lack practical value, most colleges have incorporated service-learning in their curricula. Ideally, these service-learning activities not only benefit the community but also enhance the course’s (a) pedagogical effectiveness as well as the students’ (b) civic engagement and (c) professional development. Purpose: This investigation uses a survey to measure the extent to which service-learning in community engagement courses at a liberal arts college achieved these three outcomes. Methodology/Approach: Specifically, we parsed the influence of service hours and reflection activities on 740 students’ ratings of pedagogical effectiveness, civic engagement, and professional development. Findings/Conclusions: The results suggest students in community engagement courses that included at least 15 service hours and three different types of reflections reported significantly greater outcome achievement than those with fewer hours or reflections. Moreover, class discussions and individual conversations were rated the most effective types of reflection activities. Implications: Based on these findings, we provide some best practice suggestions for service hours and reflection activities in liberal arts community engagement courses.

Liberal Arts College Faculty Reflect on Service-Learning: Steps on a Transformative Journey

2002 ◽  
pp. 143-165
Author(s):  
Joan Burton ◽  
Laurie Kaplan ◽  
Judy Jolley Mohraz ◽  
Lawrence Kay Munns ◽  
Barbara Roswell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
College Faculty

What History is good for: Service-learning and studying the past

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Smith
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Scholarship Of Teaching ◽  
Reflective Process ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rich Data

Many disciplines in the social sciences and humanities can offer profound insights into what it means to be human. History, however, encompasses the totality of human experience: economics, politics, philosophy, art, ethics, sociology, science - all of it becomes part of history eventually. Therefore, the opportunities for incorporating service-learning (carefully integrating community service with academic inquiry and reflecting on insights derived from such integration) into history courses abound. Many historians have taken advantage of this opportunity. Few historians have undertaken a scholarly investigation of the learning taking place in their service-learning courses, however. Indeed, despite the fact that the reflective process so central to service-learning lends itself remarkably well to the scholarship of teaching and learning (it generates very rich data on both the affective and content-based learning students are experiencing), there has been little published SoTL research from any discipline about service-learning. Drawing on qualitative evidence from an honours course comprised of 16 students at a private liberal arts college in the northeastern United States, I argue that not only does service-learning in history lead to more active citizenship, but that it also leads to deeper appreciation of an historical perspective as a key ingredient for being an engaged citizen.

scholarly journals The Effective Use of Negative Stems and “All of the Above” in Multiple-Choice Tests in College Courses

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p47
Author(s):  
Michael Joseph Wise
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Multiple Choice ◽  
College Courses ◽  
Response Option ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Multiple Choice Tests ◽  
Best Practice Guidelines ◽  
Effective Use

Over the past few decades, test-writing experts have converged on a set of best-practice guidelines for constructing multiple-choice (MC) items. Despite broad acceptance, some guidelines are supported by scant or inconsistent empirical evidence. This study focused on two of the most-commonly violated of these guidelines: the use of negatively oriented stems (e.g., those using the qualifiers “not” or “except”) and the use of “all of the above” (AOTA) as a response option. Specifically, I analysed the psychometric qualities of 545 MC items from science courses that I taught at a liberal arts college. In this dataset, items with negatively oriented stems did not differ in difficulty or discriminability from questions with positively oriented stems. Similarly, items with AOTA as a response option did not differ in difficulty or discriminability from those without AOTA as an option. Items that used AOTA as a distractor were significantly more difficult, and slightly more discriminating, than were items that used AOTA as the key. Although they must be written with extra attention to detail, this study suggests that MC items with negative stems or AOTA as a response option can be effectively employed for assessment of content mastery in a classroom setting.

scholarly journals Civic Engagement Index (CEI) - the case of liberal arts universities from Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1080-1088
Author(s):  
Shahrazad Hadad ◽  
Ramona Cantaragiu
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Personal Factors ◽  
Academic Environments ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The Moment

Abstract We have arrived to a moment in history when the society we are living in is confronted with different sets of problems: hunger, crime, economic crises, natural disasters or cataclysms, and various human rights violations. At the moment the most appropriate way to solve these problems still lies with the organisms of the nation state. As such, the lack of civic sense and the increasing political apathy will only allow these problems to grow out of proportions. We are of the opinion that most of them can be counteracted if we try to educate the civic sense in people. By civic sense or engagement we understand a type of orientation towards being involved in social groups according to democratic principles. It is said the post-socialist countries are particularly threatened by the lack of civic engagement on behalf of their citizens that have reached the point where they take democracy for granted. This is why we explore the role played by universities in developing and shaping this civic attitude amongst young people. In order to do so, we resorted to questionnaires applied in liberal arts universities in Romania. These universities have a special relation to democratic principles, national pride and the perpetuation of the nation state as an ideal for its citizens and because of this we believe they represent a proper starting point for the current investigation. The areas that are targeted through the questionnaire are the following: the academic environment, the methods through which civic values are instilled in the hearts and minds of the students, and the institutional and personal factors that determine faculty to introduce civic values in their academic environments. Using the results we create the Civic Engagement Index (CEI) that can be used as a valuable benchmarking mechanism for those universities that are trying to enhance their civic engagement activities. Finally, we test the hypothesis that certain universities fail to create civic-oriented graduates and we propose ways in which the organizational culture could be transformed into a more supportive one: civic participation guides, civic responsibility classes, and service learning classes for faculty members to increase their openness towards the promotion of civic values.

Book reviews

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 106-118
Author(s):  
Dan W. Butin ◽  
John Craig ◽  
Erin M. Sergison ◽  
Ellen E. Gutman
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Younger Generation

Craig A. Rimmerman (ed.) (2009) Service-Learning and the Liberal Arts: How and Why It WorksReview by Dan W. ButinDavid Watson (2007) Managing Civic and Community EngagementReview by John CraigAnne Colby, Elizabeth Beaumont, Thomas Ehrlich and Josh Corngold (2007) Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political EngagementReview by Erin M. SergisonRussell J. Dalton (2008) The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation is Reshaping American PoliticsReview by Ellen E. Gutman

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Service Learning and Undergraduate Social Work Students' Professional Value Development

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-155
Author(s):  
Denise Levy ◽  
Alisha Edmiston
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Relationship

Service learning has long been used to foster students' personal and professional development and encourage civic engagement. This study explored how service learning affected the development of professional values in undergraduate social work students, with a focus on the core values of the profession outlined by the National Association of Social Workers. Thirty- six students enrolled in a service- learning course with 30 hours of required service in an agency completed a survey at the end of the semester. The majority of respondents reported observing a slight or significant increase for them personally in each of the core values as a result of the service-learning experience. The core values of service and competence increased the most. Working with agency clients and participating in class discussions were the most helpful in the development of all the core values.

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