A 2023 SPE Outstanding Book Honorable Mention Transformative Critical Service-Learning offers hands-on tools for implementing, reflecting on, and assessing critical service-learning in classrooms and community spaces. Answering a need from practitioners for a practical tool for making sense of critical service-learning, the authors introduce the Critical Service-Learning Implementation Model as a way to encourage conversations among stakeholders. Materials include specific criteria to examine, examples of application and context, and ways to incorporate the model into reflective practices. Valuing partnerships, reflection, and analysis of power dynamics, the research and strategies offered here provide an entry point for faculty new to critical service-learning, while also offering new ideas and tools for long-time practitioners. Chapters offer particular attention to strategies for engaging students, syllabus development, and reflective cycles. Additionally, the authors offer a model for faculty development in the area of critical service-learning at the institutional level, including suggestions for faculty and administrators interested in increasing engagement with social justice and community spaces. As institutions of higher education are focusing more on the ways in which they can meet the needs of the communities surrounding their campuses, The Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Classification for Community Engagement provides a special-purpose designation for higher education institutions with commitments in the area of community engagement. Universities must commit to institutional change in order to improve the outcomes for the communities surrounding the campus. The classification framework represents best practices in the field and encourages continuous improvement through periodic re-classification. Service-learning has been identified as one of the more effective methods for engaging undergraduate and graduate students in community engaged scholarship, which facilitates development of critical inquiry, understanding needs assessment, and deep reflection on inequality. The authors intend this book to benefit university faculty endeavoring to begin or develop service-learning courses, higher education administrators who want to train and engage university faculty in adopting a more community engaged teaching model, and P-12 teachers, who often serve as community partners with higher education institutions to facilitate justice-oriented approaches to teaching their diverse students. Perfect for courses such as: Critical Thinking and Communication/Service-Learning │ Service-Learning Capstone │ Pathways to Effective Community Engagement │ School and Community Collaboration │ Teaching to Transform Society │ Food, Environment, and Sustainability │ Race and the Right to Vote in the US │ Education and Society │ Environmental Education │ Race, Place, and Memory

Transforming Teacher Education through Service-Learning provides a fresh look at educational reform through the lens of teacher preparation. It poses the question “Why service-learning now?” as it discusses the meaningful ways service-learning pedagogy can transform the approaches used to prepare teachers to educate tomorrow’s children. The pedagogy of service-learning has significant implications for teacher education. Its transformative aspects have far reaching potential to address teacher candidate dispositions and provide deeper understanding of diversity. Knowledge of the pedagogy and how to implement it in candidates’ future classrooms could alter education to a more powerful experience of democracy in action and enhance the civic mission of schools. The current and ongoing research found within this volume is meant to continue support of the notion of educational reform. Because the vision we hold becomes the reality we experience, it is imperative to consider the question—Why service-learning now?—as we adjust teacher preparation programs to promote engaging opportunities for today’s youth.

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.

This book offers a comprehensive rethinking of the theory and practice of service-learning in higher education. Democratic and community engagement are vital aspects of linking colleges and communities, and this book critically engages the best practices and powerful alternative models in the academy. Drawing on key theoretical insights and empirical studies, Butin details the limits and possibilities of the future of community engagement in developing and sustaining the engaged campus.

Advocates have positioned service-learning as a real-world, real-time opportunity for students to encounter academic knowledge in a meaningful and relevant manner. Service-learning in higher education settings offers a powerful alternative to traditional models of teaching and learning. Students are encouraged to develop links to local institutions, volunteer their time, and create a special bond between the university and the community in which they live. Service-learning has become a very popular alternative to standard courses in higher education and is gaining significant popularity. This book takes a serious look at the unintended consequences and alternative conceptualizations of this mode of learning and explores what it could offer us in the future.

Engaging in genuine dialogue and authentic communication is essential for teachers to assist students’ successes and help them further their education through refining critical thinking skills beyond the classroom. Critical Theory and Transformative Learning is a critical scholarly resource that examines and contrasts the key concepts related to critical approaches in educational settings. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics including repressive tolerance, online teaching, and adult education, this book is geared toward educators, administrators, academicians, and researchers seeking current research on transformative learning and addressing the interconnectedness of important theories and praxis.

The leading authorities in the field produced this comprehensive resource, which provides strategies and methods for fostering Transformative Learning (TL) practice in a wide variety of higher and adult education settings. The book answers relevant questions such as: What are effective practices for promoting TL in the classroom? What is it about TL that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of TL? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering TL? What are the risks and challenges when practicing TL in the classroom?