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Service Learning
Edited by Joan Schine
University of Chicago Press, 1997
In the current wave of school reform, service learning is frequently cited as a strategy for engaging disaffected students and for developing the habits and attitudes of constructive citizenship. This volume brings together a variety of current perspectives on the theory and practice of service learning.

Although a small number of schools and colleges have incorporated service learning in their curricula for many years, only in the last decade has it become the object of extensive study for researchers, scholars, and practitioners, as well as for policymakers and the general public. The Yearbook includes a historical overview, discussion of the roles of state and federal government in establishing and supporting service learning, and descriptions of existing programs at the school and college level. A theoretical framework for service learning is delineated, existing research is described, and additional areas for research and evaluation are suggested.
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front cover of Service Learning in Interpreter Education
Service Learning in Interpreter Education
Strategies for Extending Student Involvement in the Deaf Community
Sherry Shaw
Gallaudet University Press, 2013

Institutions of higher learning around the nation have embraced the concept of student civic engagement as part of their curricula, a movement that has spurred administrators in various fields to initiate programs as part of their disciplines. In response, sign language interpreting educators are attempting to devise service-learning programs aimed at Deaf communities. Except for a smattering of journal articles, however, they have had no primary guide for fashioning these programs. Sherry Shaw remedies this in her new book Service Learning in Interpreter Education: Strategies for Extending Student Involvement in the Deaf Community.

       Shaw begins by outlining how to extend student involvement beyond the field experience of an internship or practicum and suggests how to overcome student resistance to a course that seems atypical. She introduces the educational strategy behind service-learning, explaining it as a tool for re-centering the Deaf community in interpreter education. She then provides the framework for a service-learning course syllabus, including establishing Deaf community partnerships and how to conduct student assessments.

       Service Learning in Interpreter Education concludes with first-person accounts from students and community members who recount their personal and professional experiences with service learning. With this thorough guide, interpreter education programs can develop stand-alone courses or modules within existing coursework.

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front cover of The Unheard Voices
The Unheard Voices
Community Organizations and Service Learning
Randy Stoecker
Temple University Press, 2009

Service learning has become an institutionalized practice in higher education. Students are sent out to disadvantaged communities to paint, tutor, feed, and help organize communities. But while the students gain from their experiences, the contributors to The Unheard Voices ask, "Does the community?"

This volume explores the impact of service learning on a community, and considers the unequal relationship between the community and the academy. Using eye-opening interviews with community-organization staff members, The Unheard Voices challenges assumptions about the effectiveness of service learning. Chapters offer strong critiques of service learning practices from the lack of adequate training and supervision, to problems of communication and issues of diversity. The book's conclusion offers ways to improve service learning so that future endeavors can be better at meeting the needs of the communities and the students who work in them.

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