Christine M. Cress - Böcker

A college student wants to lead a campaign to ban a young adult novel from his child’s elementary school as his service-learning project in a children’s literature course. Believing the book is offensive to religious sensibilities, he sees his campaign as a service to children and the community. Viewing such a ban as limiting freedom of speech and access to information, the student’s professor questions whether leading a ban qualifies as a service project. If the goal of service is to promote more vital democratic communities, what should the student do? What should the professor do? How do they untangle competing democratic values? How do they make a decision about action?This book addresses the teaching dilemmas, such as the above, that instructors and students encounter in service-learning courses.Recognizing that teaching, in general, and service-learning, in particular, are inherently political, this book faces up to the resulting predicaments that inevitably arise in the classroom. By framing them as a vital and productive part of the process of teaching and learning for political engagement, this book offers the reader new ways to think about and address seemingly intractable ideological issues.Faculty encounter many challenges when teaching service learning courses. These may arise from students’ resistance to the idea of serving; their lack of responsibility, wasting clients’ and community agencies’ time and money; the misalignment of community partner expectations with academic goals; or faculty uncertainty about when to guide students’ experiences and when direct intervention is necessary.In over twenty chapters of case studies, faculty scholars from disciplines as varied as computer science, engineering, English, history, and sociology take readers on their and their students’ intellectual journeys, sharing their messy, unpredictable and often inspiring accounts of democratic tensions and trials inherent in teaching service-learning. Using real incidents – and describing the resources and classroom activities they employ – they explore the democratic intersections of various political beliefs along with race/ethnicity, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and other lived differences and likenesses that students and faculty experience in their service-learning classroom and extended community. They share their struggles of how to communicate and interact across the divide of viewpoints and experiences within an egalitarian and inclusive environment all the while managing interpersonal tensions and conflicts among diverse people in complex, value-laden situations. The experienced contributors to this book offer pedagogical strategies for constructing service-learning courses, and non-prescriptive approaches to dilemmas for which there can be no definitive solutions.

A college student wants to lead a campaign to ban a young adult novel from his child’s elementary school as his service-learning project in a children’s literature course. Believing the book is offensive to religious sensibilities, he sees his campaign as a service to children and the community. Viewing such a ban as limiting freedom of speech and access to information, the student’s professor questions whether leading a ban qualifies as a service project. If the goal of service is to promote more vital democratic communities, what should the student do? What should the professor do? How do they untangle competing democratic values? How do they make a decision about action?This book addresses the teaching dilemmas, such as the above, that instructors and students encounter in service-learning courses.Recognizing that teaching, in general, and service-learning, in particular, are inherently political, this book faces up to the resulting predicaments that inevitably arise in the classroom. By framing them as a vital and productive part of the process of teaching and learning for political engagement, this book offers the reader new ways to think about and address seemingly intractable ideological issues.Faculty encounter many challenges when teaching service learning courses. These may arise from students’ resistance to the idea of serving; their lack of responsibility, wasting clients’ and community agencies’ time and money; the misalignment of community partner expectations with academic goals; or faculty uncertainty about when to guide students’ experiences and when direct intervention is necessary.In over twenty chapters of case studies, faculty scholars from disciplines as varied as computer science, engineering, English, history, and sociology take readers on their and their students’ intellectual journeys, sharing their messy, unpredictable and often inspiring accounts of democratic tensions and trials inherent in teaching service-learning. Using real incidents – and describing the resources and classroom activities they employ – they explore the democratic intersections of various political beliefs along with race/ethnicity, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and other lived differences and likenesses that students and faculty experience in their service-learning classroom and extended community. They share their struggles of how to communicate and interact across the divide of viewpoints and experiences within an egalitarian and inclusive environment all the while managing interpersonal tensions and conflicts among diverse people in complex, value-laden situations. The experienced contributors to this book offer pedagogical strategies for constructing service-learning courses, and non-prescriptive approaches to dilemmas for which there can be no definitive solutions.

This substantially expanded new edition of this widely-used and acclaimed text maintains the objectives and tenets of the first. It is designed to help students understand and reflect on their community service experiences both as individuals and as citizens of communities in need of their compassionate expertise. It is designed to assist faculty in facilitating student development of compassionate expertise through the context of service in applying disciplinary knowledge to community issues and challenges. In sum, the book is about how to make academic sense of civic service in preparing for roles as future citizen leaders.Each chapter has been developed to be read and reviewed, in sequence, over the term of a service-learning course. Students in a semester course might read just one chapter each week, while those in a quarter-term course might need to read one to two chapters per week. The chapters are intentionally short, averaging 8 to 14 pages, so they do not interfere with other course content reading.This edition presents four new chapters on Mentoring, Leadership, Becoming a Change Agent, and Short-Term Immersive and Global Service-Learning experiences. The authors have also revised the original chapters to more fully address issues of social justice, privilege/power, diversity, intercultural communication, and technology; have added more disciplinary examples; incorporated additional academic content for understanding service-learning issues (e.g., attribution theory); and cover issues related to students with disabilities, and international students.This text is a student-friendly, self-directed guide to service-learning that:Develops the skills needed to succeedClearly links service-learning to the learning goals of the courseCombines self-study and peer-study workbook formats with activities that can be incorporated in class, to give teachers maximum flexibility in structuring their service-learning coursesPromotes independent and collaborative learningEqually suitable for courses of a few weeks’ or a few months’ durationShows students how to assess progress and communicate end-resultsWritten for students participating in service learning as a class, but also suitable for students working individually on a project.Instructor's ManualThis Instructor Manual discusses the following six key areas for aligning your course with use of Learning through Serving, whether you teach a senior-level high school class, freshman studies course, or a college capstone class:1. Course and syllabus design2. Community-partner collaboration3. Creating class community4. Strategic teaching techniques5. Developing intercultural competence6. Impact assessment

This substantially expanded new edition of this widely-used and acclaimed text maintains the objectives and tenets of the first. It is designed to help students understand and reflect on their community service experiences both as individuals and as citizens of communities in need of their compassionate expertise. It is designed to assist faculty in facilitating student development of compassionate expertise through the context of service in applying disciplinary knowledge to community issues and challenges. In sum, the book is about how to make academic sense of civic service in preparing for roles as future citizen leaders.Each chapter has been developed to be read and reviewed, in sequence, over the term of a service-learning course. Students in a semester course might read just one chapter each week, while those in a quarter-term course might need to read one to two chapters per week. The chapters are intentionally short, averaging 8 to 14 pages, so they do not interfere with other course content reading.This edition presents four new chapters on Mentoring, Leadership, Becoming a Change Agent, and Short-Term Immersive and Global Service-Learning experiences. The authors have also revised the original chapters to more fully address issues of social justice, privilege/power, diversity, intercultural communication, and technology; have added more disciplinary examples; incorporated additional academic content for understanding service-learning issues (e.g., attribution theory); and cover issues related to students with disabilities, and international students.This text is a student-friendly, self-directed guide to service-learning that:Develops the skills needed to succeedClearly links service-learning to the learning goals of the courseCombines self-study and peer-study workbook formats with activities that can be incorporated in class, to give teachers maximum flexibility in structuring their service-learning coursesPromotes independent and collaborative learningEqually suitable for courses of a few weeks’ or a few months’ durationShows students how to assess progress and communicate end-resultsWritten for students participating in service learning as a class, but also suitable for students working individually on a project.Instructor's ManualThis Instructor Manual discusses the following six key areas for aligning your course with use of Learning through Serving, whether you teach a senior-level high school class, freshman studies course, or a college capstone class:1. Course and syllabus design2. Community-partner collaboration3. Creating class community4. Strategic teaching techniques5. Developing intercultural competence6. Impact assessment

“Interacting with colleges can be confusing and frustrating. We learned the hard way through trial and error over the years. This Guide has great strategies for developing effective collaborations from the outset so that resources are leveraged for education and improvement.”—Sheila, Boys and Girls Club“VERY strong and well-written chapters with lots of gold that I think community organizations will find very helpful.”—Melia, Hands on Greater Portland“The format and visual cues make the Guide easy to scan for quick tips and ideas. Also, the information is comprehensive regarding research-based practices, but the writing is friendly and engaging for all non-profit sectors and community agencies. Lots of practical examples.”—Juan, Immigrant Empowerment* Discover Campus Resources for Identifying Volunteers and Service-Learners* Decode Confusing Language, Terminology, and Acronyms of Academe* Decipher Your Academic Partner’s Goals for Community-Based Learning and Research* Devise Empowering Learning and Serving Experiences for Students and Clients* Design Sustainable and Enriching Relationships for Enhancing CommunitiesBased upon years of field experience, this Guide is addressed to you, whether your non-profit has experience of working with university interns or volunteers but wants to deepen and increase the effectiveness of the relationship; whether your agency is starting to explore how to improve client services through a campus collaboration; or whether you work for an NGO interested in partnering with universities across borders to effect positive change and draw attention to the challenges, resources, and needs of your community. This Guide offers insights and strategies to leverage student learning and community empowerment for the benefit of both parties. Recognizing both the possibilities and the pitfalls of community-campus collaborations, it demystifies the often confusing terminology of education, explains how to locate the right individuals on campus, and addresses issues of mission, expectations for roles, tasks, training, supervision, and evaluation that can be fraught with miscommunication and misunderstanding. Most importantly it provides a model for achieving full reciprocity in what can be an unbalanced relationship between community and campus partners so that all stakeholders can derive the maximum benefit from their collaboration.This Guide is also available in sets of six or twelve, at reduced prices, to facilitate its use for planning, and for training of leaders engaged in partnerships.The Community Partner Guide to Campus Collaborations Six Copy Set978-1-62036-271-6, $87.00The Community Partner Guide to Campus Collaborations Twelve Copy Set978-1-62036-272-3, $150.00

“Interacting with colleges can be confusing and frustrating. We learned the hard way through trial and error over the years. This Guide has great strategies for developing effective collaborations from the outset so that resources are leveraged for education and improvement.”—Sheila, Boys and Girls Club“VERY strong and well-written chapters with lots of gold that I think community organizations will find very helpful.”—Melia, Hands on Greater Portland“The format and visual cues make the Guide easy to scan for quick tips and ideas. Also, the information is comprehensive regarding research-based practices, but the writing is friendly and engaging for all non-profit sectors and community agencies. Lots of practical examples.”—Juan, Immigrant Empowerment* Discover Campus Resources for Identifying Volunteers and Service-Learners* Decode Confusing Language, Terminology, and Acronyms of Academe* Decipher Your Academic Partner’s Goals for Community-Based Learning and Research* Devise Empowering Learning and Serving Experiences for Students and Clients* Design Sustainable and Enriching Relationships for Enhancing CommunitiesBased upon years of field experience, this Guide is addressed to you, whether your non-profit has experience of working with university interns or volunteers but wants to deepen and increase the effectiveness of the relationship; whether your agency is starting to explore how to improve client services through a campus collaboration; or whether you work for an NGO interested in partnering with universities across borders to effect positive change and draw attention to the challenges, resources, and needs of your community. This Guide offers insights and strategies to leverage student learning and community empowerment for the benefit of both parties. Recognizing both the possibilities and the pitfalls of community-campus collaborations, it demystifies the often confusing terminology of education, explains how to locate the right individuals on campus, and addresses issues of mission, expectations for roles, tasks, training, supervision, and evaluation that can be fraught with miscommunication and misunderstanding. Most importantly it provides a model for achieving full reciprocity in what can be an unbalanced relationship between community and campus partners so that all stakeholders can derive the maximum benefit from their collaboration.This Guide is also available in sets of six or twelve, at reduced prices, to facilitate its use for planning, and for training of leaders engaged in partnerships.The Community Partner Guide to Campus Collaborations Six Copy Set978-1-62036-271-6, $87.00The Community Partner Guide to Campus Collaborations Twelve Copy Set978-1-62036-272-3, $150.00

This is a practical guide to designing, teaching, and coordinating service-learning courses, and for developing reciprocal community partnerships and community-based research through a lens of equity that addresses the endemic racial, social, economic, and environmental disparities across society.The text provides a comprehensive framework for developing both in-person and on-line service-learning, with a chapter on virtual delivery of courses that integrates the principles and practices described throughout the book. The authors uniquely integrate the how-to of conducting service-learning with the theoretical foundations to enact effective, equitable, and inclusive community engagement. Given this moment of enormous social inequality and divisiveness, the authors offer a new definition and set of educational principles that they characterize as Equity-Centered Community Engagement Excellence. These principles serve to guide academic and community engagement that is democratic, recognizes the voice and expertise of community partners, addresses the power imbalances between communities and academic institutions, and develops an educational experience that is potentially transformative and promotes civic responsibility.Informed by the literature of critical service-learning, critical race theory, intercultural communication theory, and social-constructivism, this book attempts to deconstruct the assumption of the preeminence of academic knowledge to reconstruct a new operational paradigm of equity-centeredness that validates community capacity to guide faculty in their redesign of service-learning curriculum, activities, collaborations, and scholarship. It is based on the principles of:·Student Agency (demonstrated as enhanced skills, knowledge, and motivation)·Community Efficacy (recognition of community assets and capacity-building)·Scholarly Advocacy (leveraging evidence-based research-based for equity-centered learning, serving, and social justice). The authors offer examples of syllabi, lessons and assignments, reflection questions, evaluation rubrics, as well as an array of teaching tips that illustrate strategies for use in the classroom and in the field.The book is addressed to faculty embarking on service-learning and to seasoned scholar practitioners looking for innovative ideas, as well as to campus administrators who coordinate community outreach or college student volunteer services, offering guidance on leveraging resources and fiscal support from external stakeholders. It is also designed to serve as a resource for professional development workshops and faculty scholar learning communities. It offers a rich compendium of ideas and examples from which faculty and practitioners can select exercises and elements to incorporate or adapt for their courses, whether designing short-term engagements or extended service-learning programs.