The Meaning, Elements, and Results Of Service Learning
There are several definitions of service-learning; however, Bringle and Hathcher (2002) created one of the first and most often used ones in academic scholarship: Service-learning is a credit-bearing educational experience in which students take part in a planned service project that addresses needs in the community and then reflect on the project to better understand course material, develop a broader understanding of the discipline, and feel more responsible for the world around them.
According to a more contemporary definition, service-learning is the fusion of education, participation, and reflection with several academic and community partners (Bringle, Clayton, & Hatcher, 2013). Although different organizations and service-learning educators have different ideas about what service-learning is and how it should be used, most agree that it involves taking students out of the classroom and placing them in the community where they can learn by interacting with real people and directly affecting their community in ways that produce tangible outcomes. Academic institutions must build and maintain connections with other organizations, agencies, and community leaders in order to support this learning process.
Some service-learning instructors let their students choose volunteer opportunities that interest them or are directly connected to the profession they want to pursue. Other educators mandate that their pupils take part in group activities where the teachers in the classroom urge the students to critically reflect on their own experiences. Everyone acknowledges the value of reflection, whether it is carried out in a group context or alone. Students get a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the many advantages of assisting others via the reflection process. One of the most important aspects of the service-learning program is often acknowledged to be the reflection component (Gibson, Hauf, Long, & Sampson, 2011).
According to Eyler and Giles (2002), service-learning has the best results when students collaborate with one another to apply what they have learned to problems in the community while also reflecting on their experiences in order to achieve concrete goals for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves.
Although proponents of service-learning claim that this pedagogical strategy for community participation has concrete, real, beneficial, and important benefits (Bringle, Clayton, & Hatcher, 2013), other people have doubts about whether or not these results can really be measured. Beyond the advantages it has for student understanding, service-learning is also used in part to address some of society’s most difficult and urgent issues (Stewart & Webster, 2011). Teachers are looking for explanations beyond how service learning might improve students’ knowledge and social awareness as it grows in popularity.
The effects of service-learning on the growth of student leadership, and precisely which important occurrences may happen during the course of an academic semester, is one area of service-learning research that has not attracted much attention. Additionally, previous studies on the growth of student leadership have not yet taken Social Impact Assessment (SIA) as a kind of service-learning into account.
