Service-Learning Essentials - by Barbara Jacoby (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Service-Learning Essentials is the resource you need to help you develop high-quality service-learning experiences for college students. Written by one of the field's leading experts and sponsored by Campus Compact, the book is the definitive work on this high-impact educational practice. Service-learning has been identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as having been widely tested and shown to be beneficial to college students from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Organized in an accessible question-and-answer format, the book responds clearly and completely to the most common questions and concerns about service-learning. Each chapter addresses issues related to individual practice as well as to the collective work of starting and developing a service-learning center or program, with examples drawn from a variety of disciplines, situations, and institutional types. The questions range from basic to advanced and the answers cover both the fundamentals and complexities of service-learning. Topics include:

• Determining what service-learning opportunities institutions should offer
• How to engage students in critical reflection in academic courses and in cocurricular experiences
• Best practices for developing and sustaining mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships
• Integrating service-learning into the curriculum in all disciplines and at all levels, as well as various areas of student life outside the classroom
• Assessing service-learning programs and outcomes
• The dilemmas of service-learning in the context of power and privilege
• The future of service-learning in online and rapidly globalizing environments

Service-learning has virtually limitless potential to enable colleges and universities to meet their goals for student learning while making unique contributions to addressing unmet local, national, and global needs. However, in order to realize these benefits, service-learning must be thoughtfully designed and carefully implemented. This easy-to-use volume contains everything faculty, leaders, and staff members need to know about service-learning to enhance communities, improve higher education institutions, and educate the next generation of citizens, scholars, and leaders.

From the Back Cover

Praise for SERVICE-LEARNING ESSENTIALS

"With Service-Learning Essentials, we finally have a book that can serve as a one-stop resource for all of us in higher education--faculty, student affairs professionals, administrators, students--who seek to understand, implement, improve, or critique the practice and promise of service-learning. And with Barbara Jacoby, we have someone uniquely capable of delivering such a rich and timely resource."
--Rick Battistoni, director, Feinstein Institute for Public Service, and Providence College 2013 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award recipient

"Service Learning Essentials: Questions, Answers, and Lessons Learned is an essential work that will assist administrators, faculty, students, and community members in meeting the ever-growing need to bridge higher education with community. Finally, this is a work that connects theory to practice with implementation that is effective, accessible, and measureable. This is a must for every institution and individual who understands the importance of impactful service-learning."
--Devorah A. Lieberman, president, University of La Verne

"Service-learning, designed as part of academic credit-bearing courses, continues to out-trump all other high impact practices in its comprehensive spectrum of positive outcomes for students. Barbara Jacoby's book explains why, and more importantly, draws on her deep expertise to advise readers how to maintain service-learning's high octane performance."
--Caryn McTighe Musil, senior scholar and director of civic learning and democracy initiatives, Association of American Colleges and Universities

"Service-Learning Essentials: Questions, Answers, and Lessons Learned emphasizes the important contributions of cocurricular experiences in service-learning and is an essential read for all student affairs educators."
--Kevin Kruger, president, NASPA--Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education

About the Author

Barbara Jacoby is faculty associate for Leadership & Community Service-Learning and affiliate associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.