scholarly journals Improving the Long-Term Sustainability of Service-Learning Projects: Six Lessons Learned from Early MIT IDEAS Competition Winners

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-29
Author(s):  
Diana Jue
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Community Partner ◽  
Target Populations ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
History Of ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Learning Projects ◽  
Ongoing Concern

An ongoing concern of service-learning projects is whether they can benefit target populations in the long-term. Too often, service-learning projects end before a real deliverable is presented to the community. At MIT, a short history of service-learning projects can be documented through the IDEAS Competition, an annual competition that awards small monetary prizes to student teams that have designed and implemented innovative projects to positively impact underserved communities. This article analyzes how winning projects of the first five IDEAS Competitions evolved or dissolved. From the experiences and wisdom of these early winners, this article offers six pieces of advice to students and academic institutions seeking to implement service-learning projects: 1) Seriously consider implementation from the beginning, 2) Be concrete and realistic in the short term, 3) Be flexible in the long-term, 4) Build a multidisciplinary team, 5) Collaborate with a solid community partner, and 6) Prepare for continuity.

scholarly journals In Search of Community; Humanitarian Engineers and Circles of Friends

2014 ◽  
pp. 509-524
Author(s):  
David R Munoz
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Credit Union ◽  
School Construction ◽  
Community Project ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
The Village ◽  
Learning Projects

Circles of friends (trust) as a means for indigenous community development have been actively encouraged in Colinas de Suiza, Honduras. This effort at enhancing long-term community resilience is the latest in a 10 year relationship that includes a water project and two school construction activities within the village of ~10,000 economically poor. These techniques were utilized in part to provide an example of communities in partnership for universities involved in developing educational programs around practically-based engineering service learning projects. To enhance community involvement, children were included in the development process through creative educational activities involving music, graphical arts and dance. The initial two-month experience culminated in a fiesta or celebration of community. Project evaluation has yielded several positive indigenous results; namely the construction of a dining hall, supported by the local community where poorest children are fed, and the formation of a locally managed credit union where the local people can place their savings and apply for microloans for microenterprise development. This project is further testament to the belief that humanitarian efforts are most effective when performed consistently within the same locations and where the entire community is invited to organize, identify, discuss and solve their own problems.

scholarly journals Building Community and Fostering Health and Well-Being through a Collaborative School Based Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abimbola O. Asojo ◽  
Hoa Vo ◽  
Suyeon Bae ◽  
Chelsea Hetherington ◽  
Sarah Cronin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Dining Room ◽  
Learning Projects

This article presents lessons learned from collaborative service-learning projects aimed at bridging the gap between theory and practice by providing students design experiences in authentic settings. Interior design students gained disciplinary and civic benefits while problem solving for a preK-5 elementary school calming room, dining room, and teacher sanctuary. The elementary school teachers and staff reported the redesigned calming room supported students’ emotional and self-regulation skills. Teachers and staff also reported the dining room and teacher sanctuary supported the school community well-being. The authors’ present findings and hope the article can serve as a model for educators interested in community building service-learning projects in school environments.

Alternative Service-Learning Projects in Mathematics

2017 ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Lisa E. Marano ◽  
Kimberly Dempsey ◽  
Ross Michael Leiser
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Financial Literacy ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Mathematics Courses ◽  
Adult Esl ◽  
History Of ◽  
Alternative Service ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Esl Curriculum ◽  
Learning Projects

A discussion of the development, implementation, and results of two service-learning projects from different mathematics courses is presented. In an Honors Mathematics and Social Justice seminar, where the focus was on fairness and access to quantitative and financial literacy, the students developed financial literacy brochures that would be relevant to students and the community at large. The pamphlets were used in two ways: they were distributed across campus and they were used in an adult ESL curriculum. In a History of Mathematics course, students developed a lecture series at a local senior day center on historical highlights from the world of mathematics. The students learned how to differentiate between learning and unpacking mathematics for other audiences. In this chapter, the use of reflection is discussed, as this is an essential component of any service-learning project. Encounters with resistance are discussed as well.

scholarly journals Factors Leading to Sustainable Social Impact on the Affected Communities of Engineering Service Learning Projects

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Armstrong ◽  
Christopher A. Mattson ◽  
Randy S. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Engineering Programs ◽  
Project Outcomes ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Learning Programs ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Learning Projects

Abstract University engineering programs across the USA engage in service learning projects. These projects involve student teams designing and implementing products or solutions for communities in need, often in developing nations. There has been much research done relating to pedagogy and the impact of these programs on student learning. However, less research has been done on measuring the impact of these programs on the affected communities. This paper examines factors that practitioners believe are related to successfully delivering a desirable and transferable solution to affected communities. The authors identified 46 distinct factors from the literature that implicitly or explicitly are suggested to contribute to successful project outcomes. Formed as postulates in this paper, these 46 factors have been separated into 5 categories to assist understanding and implementing these factors into service learning programs. Lastly, different methods of analyzing and measuring project success and impact are discussed. Future methods for proving the viability of the 46 postulates are discussed as well.

Reports from the Field

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin L. Conlin
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public History ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Student Community ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Learning Projects

Student community-based projects are a natural tool for achieving diverse public history outcomes, yet these types of projects are challenging to organize and manage. Focusing on two undergraduate community-centered oral history projects, this article serves as a guide for those interested in developing manageable service-learning projects that facilitate meaningful community partnerships. It explores lessons learned during the projects’ organization and execution including how to keep them manageable in terms of scope, scale, and structure and how to maximize available resources (both human and material). It also advances methods for developing student skills in new media technologies and platforms.

scholarly journals Remote Community Engagement in the Time of COVID-19, a Surging Racial Justice Movement, Wildfires, and an Election Year (Journal Pre-Proof)

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Merith Weisman
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
State University ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Community Partner ◽  
Remote Community ◽  
Civic Learning ◽  
Real Community ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Learning Projects

Due to wildfires in fall of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in spring of 2020, Sonoma State University lost 50 service-learning courses, and as a result, almost 900 fewer students completed a service-learning course than the previous year. During the summer of 2020, the Center for Community Engagement began developing service-learning projects that were designed to be done remotely and address either COVID-19 or engage students with involvement in the fall 2020 election. Later, opportunities to address racial injustice and the wildfires were integrated. The opportunities described require active participation but remotely within the community; however, it is possible that students find it challenging to connect their remote experiences to real community need and academic and civic learning. The flexibility and creativity developed for remote service learning are essential in the ongoing adjustment to the changing needs of our students and community partner.

Service-Learning in Prison Facilities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly Schaefer Hinck ◽  
Edward A. Hinck ◽  
Lesley A. Withers
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Learning Projects

This chapter presents a powerful case for the transformative potential of service-learning initiatives in prisons. It shows how undergraduate and graduate service-learning projects provide important learning opportunities to imprisoned students in Michigan, and also transform the perspectives of the free students who participate in the projects. Prison activism, in conjunction with strong educational initiatives that foster deep understanding of how economics, race, and class interact to produce the prison-industrial complex (PIC), holds great promise for achieving long-term policy and institutional changes in national, state, and local communities. The chapter argues that activism, by itself, presumes the existence of an audience that is rational, compassionate, informed, and capable of developing an enlarged understanding of the systemic forces that produce and sustain the PIC.

Ethnographic Service Learning: An Approach for Transformational Learning

Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie A. Medeiros ◽  
Jennifer Guzmán
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Transformational Learning ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Field Methods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Transformational Experiences ◽  
Learning Projects

Trends in higher education pedagogy increasingly point to the importance of transformational experiences as the capstone of liberal arts education. Practitioners of ethnography, the quintessential transformational experience of the social sciences, are well-positioned to take the lead in designing courses and term projects that afford undergraduate students opportunities to fundamentally reshape their understanding of the social world and their own involvement within it. Furthermore, in the United States, colleges and universities have become proponents of service learning as a critical component of a holistic educational experience. In this article, we describe how service learning can be incorporated into training students in ethnographic field methods as a means to transformational learning and to give them skills they can use beyond the classroom in a longer trajectory of civic participation. We discuss strategies, opportunities, and challenges associated with incorporating service learning into courses and programs training students in ethnographic field methods and propose five key components for successful ethnographic service learning projects. We share student insights about the transformational value of their experiences as well as introduce some ethical concerns that arise in ethnographic service-learning projects.

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