Designing a service-learning program in ten steps

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Abstract

Creating an effective service project or service-learning program requires careful planning. This effective practice describes ten steps that teachers, parents, after-school providers and those who work in community-based organizations can take to enlist youth in service. The ten steps are excerpted from Students in Service to America: A Guidebook for Engaging America's Students in a Lifelong Habit of Service, authored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the Points of Light Foundation (September 2002).

Issue

Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.

Action

The following steps are helpful in creating an effective service project or service-learning program. While all steps are useful to consider, all need not be carried out or followed in the order presented. The planning and implementation of service and service-learning programs are dynamic processes, and projects vary.

Read through all steps before undertaking a project.
Include participating youth in as many phases as possible.

1. Assess the Needs and Resources of Your Community and School
  In selecting a project, consult with community members, civic groups, businesses, government officials, school personnel, and students to determine both the needs of the community and the available resources, including partnership opportunities. Find out who else is doing (or has done) something similar.
2. Form Community Partnerships
  Most successful service projects require forming partnerships. You can build on existing relationships and connections, or you can develop new ones with potential partners identified in Step 1. Be realistic about your resources, needs, and limitations, and make sure your goals are of mutual interest to all of your partners. Also be concrete about the roles and responsibilities of each partner organization.
3. Set Specific Educational Goals and Curriculum
  Determine what you expect the young people to learn. Even service and service-learning projects organized by community-based organizations or after-school programs should set specific educational goals. Establish what content objectives or standards will be addressed, and incorporate your service and learning objectives into lesson plans. Devise ways to measure and assess whether those goals are being met, including reflection and assessment activities. When evaluating student performance, assess their effort and mastery of the subject. Service outcomes may not be what are initially expected.
4. Select a Project and Begin Preliminary Planning
  Pick a project and determine how all partners can work together to achieve the desired goals. Try to determine your human, financial, physical, and intellectual needs and whether you need additional partners to provide the required resources. Be sure to identify people in your school or organization who can coordinate the project and maintain continuity from year to year.
5. Plan Your Project in Detail
  Set up a timeline, create a budget, and assign tasks. Think about how to include your partners in this process. As with any project, thorough planning, including the creation of schedules, benchmarks, budgets, evaluation and assessment tools, and documentation, can identify and correct many potential problems.
6. Acquire Necessary Funding and Resources
  If additional funds, goods, or services are needed, consider seeking assistance from local businesses, national corporations, parents, faith-based organizations, government programs (e.g., AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Learn and Serve America, your State Education Agency), civic groups, and other community organizations or sources of federal, state, and local funds.
7. Implement and Manage Project
  Put your plan into action. Continually assess your project to determine what is working and what could be improved. Involve project partners in evaluating and improving your project.
8. Organize Reflection Activities
  Make sure students are thinking about their service experience on a regular basis (e.g., through journals or classroom assignments) and organize activities that allow students to analyze their service and see how their ideas, knowledge and perceptions are changing. Use such reflections to help assess and improve the project.
9. Assess and Evaluate Your Service Program
  Ensure that your evaluation assesses the outcomes of the service project for the youth, the community, and the organizations involved. Documentation and evaluation of the project will create a legacy for the individuals and organizations that participated in and benefited from your service activities. It will also point the way to the next project for your classroom, and may foster activities in other classrooms.
10. Celebrate Achievements
  Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Recognition of students can help build habits of service and lead to a lifetime of community involvement. Don't forget to recognize key community partners as well. Recognition may include: displays in school or online, celebratory events such as ribbon cuttings or groundbreakings, visits by local officials, and participation in national recognition programs.

Context

Service-learning is a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students work with others through a process of applying what they are learning to community problems and, at the same time, reflecting upon their experience as they seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves. (Eyler & Giles, 1999)

The United States Department of Education and the Corporation for National and Community Service, as part of the USA Freedom Corps in cooperation with the Points of Light Foundation, created Students in Service to America: A Guidebook for Engaging America's Students in a Lifelong Habit of Service (September 2002). The guidebook was developed to help adults — teachers, parents, after-school providers and those who work in community-based organizations — to find and create opportunities for young people to get involved in service.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, through its Learn and Serve America program, provides funding and training support for service-learning programs in schools, community-based organizations, and higher education institutions. Nearly every State Education Agency (SEA) operates a Learn and Serve America program that makes funds available to local schools and their service-learning partners and provides training and technical assistance. The SEA Learn and Serve America representative has expertise in service-learning across the state. In addition, Learn and Serve America makes competitive grants to national nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions and associations, tribes, U.S. territories, and state commissions on national and community service.

Outcome

Service-learning:

Promotes learning through active participation in service experiences
Provides structured time for students to reflect by thinking, discussing and/or writing about their service experience
Provides an opportunity for students to use skills and knowledge in real-life situations
Extends learning beyond the classroom and into the community
Fosters a sense of caring for others (as adapted from the National and Community Service Act of 1990)