Experiential Learning in Sociology: Service Learning and Other Community-Based Learning Initiatives

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda A. Mooney ◽  
Bob Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Learning

scholarly journals Considering Power in Community-Based Research: Shifting Toward New Pedagogical Approaches with a 'Public Work for Public Things' Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Haarman ◽  
Patrick M Green
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Power Differential ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Work ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Service Learning Pedagogy ◽  
The Voice

One of the fundamental questions of power in the pedagogy of community-based research (CBR) is who gets to decide what is research worthy and what is the focus of CBR questions? The reality of the power imbalance in community-based research and learning is often reflective of a systemic disengagement with the broader community. Even when instructors and administrators are intentional in how they solicit feedback or think through the impact of their work, they may not know the neighbourhood. Prioritising the voice of community partners does not provide a simple solution, as the individuals we work with to organise community-based learning opportunities may not be residents of the neighbourhood. This article adopts a theory-building approach to this crucial question. Building on the work of Boyte (2014) and Honig (2017), community-based research is reoriented as ‘public work for public things’ (Haarman 2020). After establishing the ‘public work for public things’ framework, the article explores how this new framework impacts collaborative research by addressing the power differential and creating new lines of inquiry – specifically the practice of ‘elicitation of concerns’. Through the lens of critical service-learning pedagogy (Mitchell 2008) and a practitioner-scholar framework (Lytle 2008; Ravitch 2013; Salipante & Aram 2003), we then interrogate two community-based research courses we have recently taught, examining how a ‘public work for public things’ approach would have altered the course and its methods.

Enriching the intersection of service and transformative learning with Freirean ideas: The case of a critical experiential learning programme in Brazil

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 579-597
Author(s):  
Rosane Dal Magro ◽  
Marlei Pozzebon ◽  
Soraia Schutel
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Management Students

In this article, we examine the value of combining transformative and service learning pedagogical practices in management education programmes to encourage management students to be more critical and reflexive regarding serious contemporary issues like social inequality and sustainability. We draw on a long-term management education experience conducted in the northeastern region of Brazil, where international students learn how to develop a real-time community-based project with local inhabitants. We argue that while service learning approaches promote pragmatic action-based principles, transformative learning acts at the epistemic level, contributing to change in values. In addition, Paulo Freire’s ideas are integrated to reinforce critical and reflexive dimensions of the learning experience. Our results offer a process-based model showing how a critical experiential learning pedagogy might lead to the development of community-based competences, which, in turn, might lead to changes in the deeply held values of the participants. Freire’s emancipatory ideas are applied not only regarding the relationship between teachers and students, but also to the distinction between Western and non-Western societies, going beyond questioning of the destructive consequences of financial capitalism to question the hegemony of one worldview over all other possible ones.

Service Learning Partnership Between University And School Students: Experiential Learning Inspired Through Community Research

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Nandan
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Corporate Philanthropy ◽  
Community Research ◽  
School Students ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Community Based Research

This article describes a service learning project implemented jointly by undergraduate and high school students during summer.  The service learning project was designed through a Summer Research Institute hosted at a Midwestern University; the institute encouraged faculty to recruit undergraduate students who would partner with area high school students to conduct a community-based research project in their field of interest.  The article describes the partnership between students, as well as the experiential learning that occurred during: research topic identification, literature analysis, planning and implementing a mixed-methodology community-based research project, and during the qualitative and quantitative data analysis, by students.  Using a mosaic theory, the students inferred relationships between three apparently unrelated spheres of their research: challenges faced by youth in the community, financial health of social services for youth, and corporate philanthropy for youth services.  Recommendations for designing creative academic, experiential and service learning projects are offered for all educators. 

scholarly journals Welcome from the IARSLCE President

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. iii-iii
Author(s):  
Susan Root
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
International Association ◽  
Community Based ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Quality Research ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
Learning And Collaboration

I am thrilled to introduce the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE), the journal of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE). IARSLCE is an association of K-H scholars and practitioners dedicated to the development and dissemination of high quality research on service-learning and other forms of community-based learning and collaboration.

Community-Based Experiential Learning in Teacher Education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Harfitt
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
21St Century ◽  
New Teachers ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Partners

Institutes of higher education around the world have increasingly adopted community-based experiential learning (EL) programs as pedagogy to equip their students with skills and values that make them more open to an increasingly unpredictable and ill-defined 21st-century world. Values of social justice, empathy, care, collaboration, creativity, and resilience have all been seen as potential benefits of community engagement through EL. In the field of teacher education, the goals of preparing teachers for the 21st century have undergone similar changes with the local community being positioned more and more as a knowledge space that is rich in learning opportunities for both preservice and in-service teachers. It is no longer enough for teacher educators to only focus on the teaching of classroom strategies and methods; beginning teachers’ must now move toward a critical interrogation of their role as a community-based teacher. Boundary-crossing projects established by teacher education institutes and that are embedded in local communities can complement more traditional pedagogies such as classroom-based lectures and teaching practicum. Such an approach to teacher education can allow for new teachers to draw on powerful community knowledge in order to become more inclusive and socially connected educators. In sum, community-based EL in teacher preparation programs can create a hybrid, nonhierarchical platform for academics, practitioners, and community partners who bring together different expertise that are all seen as being beneficial to teacher development in a rapidly changing and uncertain world. While research has shown that community-based EL projects can bring tangible benefits to students, universities, and community members, a number of contentious issues continue to surround the topic and need to be addressed. One concerns the very definition of community-based EL itself. There is still a need to better characterize what community-based EL is and what it involves, because too often it is seen in overly simplistic terms, such as voluntary work, or categorized loosely as another example of service-learning endeavors, including field studies and internship programs. There has also been a paucity of research on the degree to which community-based EL projects in teacher training actually help to promote subject matter teaching skills. Other ongoing issues about the case for community-based learning in teacher education today include the question of who the teacher educators are in today’s rapidly changing world and to what extent noneducation-related community partners should be positioned as co-creators of knowledge alongside teacher educators in the development of new teachers’ personal and professional development.

English at Your Service

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Helene Krauthamer ◽  
Matthew Petti
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
General Education ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Black College ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Historically Black College ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses civic engagement and service-learning in higher education at an urban, land-grant, Historically Black College/University, with a particular focus on the challenges and benefits of service-learning for commuter students. After a discussion of service learning and how it exemplifies the Kolb learning model and effective educational practice, the chapter presents illustrations of civic engagement and extracurricular community-based learning in an English BA program through its two student organizations – The Literary Club and Sigma Tau Delta-Alpha Epsilon Rho. The chapter also provides an example of how service-learning has been implemented in a General Education program and specifically in a writing course. The chapter highlights the partnerships with community organizations that have developed, presents reflective testimonials about the impact of these experiences, provides recommendations for strengthening community-based learning, and concludes that service-learning/community-based learning results in a sense of community for all participants.

Imagination Practices and Community-Based Learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-223
Author(s):  
Simone Weil Davis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Learning Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Learning Projects

Informed by my experiences in prison/university co-learning projects, this essay centres two community-based learning practices worth cultivating. First, what can happen when all participants truly prioritize what it means to build community as they address their shared project, co-discovering new ways of being and doing together, listening receptively and speaking authentically? How can project facilitators step beyond prescribed roles embedded in the charity paradigm of service-learning to invite and support egalitarian community and equity-driven decision-making from a project’s inception and development, through its unfolding and its assessment? Second, the sheer fact of a project taking place in the marginal place between two contexts gives all participants—students, faculty, community participants and hosts—the opportunity for meta-reflection on the institutional logics that construct and constrain our perspectives so acutely. What can we do, by way of project-conception and pedagogy, to open up those insights? The vantage that “the space between” provides can bring fresh understanding of the systemic forces at work in the lives of the community participants. And the university’s assumptions about itself and its place in the world can also suddenly appear strange and new, objects of scrutiny for students and community members both.

scholarly journals Universities without Walls: A Blended Delivery Approach to Training the Next Generation of HIV Researchers in Canada

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 4265
Author(s):  
Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco ◽  
Catherine Worthington ◽  
Sean Rourke ◽  
Colin Hastings
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Community Service ◽  
Intervention Research ◽  
Community Service Learning ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Persons Living With Hiv

(1) Background: Although HIV has not diminished in importance in Canada, the field of HIV research remains small, and the graduate students who decide to pursue careers within it feel isolated and uncertain about their professional skills and opportunities. Universities Without Walls (UWW) was created in 2009 to help redress these shortcomings. This paper presents a case study of UWW, a non-credit training program for emerging HIV researchers in Canada. In particular, we focus on the possibilities of experiential learning via online and blended delivery. UWW uses both online and in-person teaching modalities to teach engaged scholarship, interdisciplinarity, community-based research (CBR), intervention research, and ethics. (2) Methods: Using a case study, we elucidated the research question: “What are the factors that make Universities Without Walls a viable training environment in the contemporary HIV/AIDS field?” Focus groups were conducted with 13 UWW key stakeholders in 2012 during a program mid-point evaluation; in 2014, telephone or in-person interviews with the three directors were conducted by a UWW fellow (the 4th author of this paper), and in 2019 the authors analyzed the information and anecdotal evidence, which had been incorporated as thick description. In addition, fellows’ self-assessments via portfolio and results from formal learning assessments were included. We also thematically analyzed 65 student self-reports (2009–2015). (3) Results and Discussion: Each UWW cohort lasted 9 months to one year and was comprised of: a) sustained mentorship from the co-directors (e.g., phone conversations, assistance with grant writing, letters of reference, etc.); b) fortnightly online webinars that aim to develop fellows’ knowledge of community-based research (CBR), research ethics, intervention research, and interdisciplinary research; c) community service learning in the form of a “field mentoring placement”; d) face-to-face engagement with fellows and mentors, most notably at the week-long culminating learning institute; e) a stipend for fellows to carry out their training activities. The UWW pedagogical framework features experiential learning, critical pedagogy, and heutagogy made manifest in the field mentoring placements (community service learning), mentorship mediated by technologies, and in-person learning institutes. Our analysis showed that experiential learning was imparted by UWW’s a) transparency about its “implicit curriculum”, the attitudes, values, character, and professional identity imparted in the program as well as the overarching programmatic elements, such as commitment to diversity, the inclusion of those with lived experience, the flexible admissions policies and procedures, interdisciplinary faculty, flexible team, administrative structure, and valuing of technology in conducting research, learning, and teaching; b) curriculum co-designing and co-teaching, and c) sustaining a community of practice. The main results reported in our case study included significant “soft outcomes” for UWW fellows, such as developing a “social presence” as a precursor to lasting professional connections; learning to experience community-based research, intersectionality, and interdisciplinarity by interacting online with persons living with HIV, leaders in the field, and a variety of stakeholders (including nonprofit staff and policymakers). (4) Limitations: While fellows’ self-evaluation data were collected by an independent assessor and anonymized to the extent this was possible, the co-authors inevitably bring their preconceptions and positive biases to UWW’s assessment. As UWW was developed to function outside of traditional academic structures, it is unlikely that the UWW program could be transferred to a post-secondary environment in its entirety. UWW was also built for the socio-political environment of HIV health research. (5) Conclusions: The experiences of those involved with UWW demonstrate that explicit curricular components—such as interdisciplinarity, community-based research, intervention research, and applied ethics—can be learned through a blended delivery when combined with opportunities to apply the knowledge in ways, such as a field mentoring placement and a learning institute. Related to this outcome, our case study describes that implicit curricular components in the formation of a professional—the sense of self in the field as a researcher, student, and community member—can also be delivered through a blended model. However, the tools and activities need to be tailored to each student for their context, while pushing their disciplinarian and professional boundaries.

scholarly journals Reimaging Experiential Learning in Online Courses for the Digital Economy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Moreau ◽  
Kaylee Eady ◽  
Ruth Kane ◽  
Peter Milley ◽  
Patrick R. Labelle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Secondary

To continue functioning and adhere to physical/social distancing regulations during COVID-19, post-secondary institutions transitioned courses online, including those with experiential learning components. Experiential learning occurs when students apply course theory and concepts in real-world situations. Types of experiential learning include, for example, eService-learning, co-op, remote co-op, practicums, service-learning, and community-based projects. Experiential learning is a core component of students' education and growth. It allows them to acquire in-demand skills, gain competencies to transition into the workforce, obtain new skills to re-enter the workforce, or prepare for future employment in the digital economy. However, academics, students, employers, and policy-makers report that they do not know how to effectively integrate or do experiential learning in online courses. Both experiential and online learning have established benefits and research foundations and experiential learning is important to retain in online courses and as work environments change. To do so successfully, academics, students, employers, and policy-makers need to reimagine how they can integrate or do quality experiential learning in online courses to ensure that it prepares students for evolving labour demands. Therefore, in this knowledge synthesis project we will conduct a scoping review to: (a) identify the types of available evidence on experiential learning in online courses; (b) identify promising strategies for integrating and doing experiential learning in online courses; (c) identify outcomes of integrating and doing experiential learning in online courses; and (d) identify and analyze gaps in the current evidence on experiential learning in online courses in order to direct future research on the topic.

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