Career Services Guides
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Service-Learning
Important Questions to Ask Yourself
1. What changes would you like to occur in your students as a
result of incorporating
Service-learning instructional activities in
your course?
2. If you successfully implement Service-learning pedagogy in a
course, what would it look like?
Write a clear description of a
specific learning outcome that would occur if your goal is met.
3. Do you require special equipment, space, transportation, or
personnel support to implement
your course plans? To implement Service-learning plans
on a departmental and/or
institutional level?
4. Can your Service-learning plans be adjusted to fit your class period or course schedule?
5. How will students be grouped in your Service-learning plan
(individualized, small group, pairs, a combination)?
6. How will expressed community needs be met in your
Service-learning plan?
In what ways will community-based
representatives participate in your Service-learning plans?
7. In what ways can students contribute to the selection and implementation of service activities?
8. What reasonable accommodations can you make to adapt your
Service-learning
design to fit the needs and interests of students with
special needs? Is your plan able to
reasonably accommodate
students with physical and/or cognitive abilities?
9. Does your Service-learning plan contain potentially controversial material? If so, what are ways of dealing with such controversial issues?
10. What risks or dangers will students be exposed to while participating in off-campus Service-learning activities? In what ways will you deal with these? Have you consulted Pine Manor's policies pertaining to insurance, etc.?
11. What policy or procedural considerations must be established before implementing Service-learning activities?
12. List some major questions, problems, or concepts that this course addresses (what is this course about?). How does (or might) this course raise or address issues in the community?
13. Brainstorm some service projects, experiences, or placements that you think might be appropriate for achieving your goals. (Think here of what the learning objectives of those experiences might be in relation to the learning objectives of the course as well as how they might benefit the community.)
14. What required assignments (e.g., research, papers, case studies), reading list (e.g., textbooks, novels, articles), and teaching/learning methods (e.g., discussion, simulation, lecture, seminar) do you currently employ in this course? Which of these might be fruitfully adapted, supplemented, or replaced by a Service-learning component? How might you do this?
15. What's in it for your community partners? How do you imagine they might contribute to your students' learning? How equitable and reciprocal are the relationships among you, your students, and the community partners? Are power and ideas, goals and visions shared? What other role(s) might the community partners play in the life and mission of the college?
16. What's in it for you?
17. What are some of your reasons for wanting to incorporate Service-learning into your teaching? Determine which of your reasons are most and least important to you.
18. What will your students know? Skill objectives/Attitudes and Values: What will your students be able to do?
19. What specific learning outcome(s) do you want Service-learning to fulfill?
20. What will be considered "service" in the context of this course? Direct: Providing service directly to individuals at the agency site or in the community. Examples include tutoring children, holding a party for residents of a nursing home, conducting health screenings in a homeless shelter, and serving meals in a soup kitchen. Non-direct: Serving at an agency doing behind-the-scenes assistance, not directly with individuals the agency serves. Examples include making gifts on-site for patients at a Children's Hospital, sorting food at a food distribution center, painting the exterior of a homeless shelter, and helping with a major mailing at a non-profit organization. Indirect: Serving on behalf of an issue, population, or community of concern, but removed from the actual site. Examples include fundraising and researching or writing position papers for an advocacy organization.
21. What assignments will be required before credit can be awarded? What types of reflection will you use? (Journal, research paper, oral presentation, essay, etc.)
22. Will students be restricted to specific non-profit agencies or fields of interest? If so, specify.
Sources: Bethel University- 20 Questions; Service-Learning and Civic Engagement in the Classroom; Service-Learning Development Worksheet.