What is Service Learning?
Service-learning is a teaching method that combines meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. Students improve their academic skills by applying what they learn in school to the real world; they then reflect on their experience to reinforce the link between their service and their learning.
The distinctive element of service-learning is that it enhances the community through the service provided, but it also has powerful learning consequences for the students or others participating in providing a service. Service-learning is growing so rapidly because we can see it is having a powerful impact on young people and their development. It is a dynamic process, through which students' personal and social growth is tightly interwoven into their academic and cognitive development. According to scholars Eyler and Giles (1999), with the service-learning model "experience enhances understanding; understanding leads to more effective action."
Components of Service-Learning:
Service-learning must include preparation, action and reflection. Preparation is the first step that students take by working with their teachers and members of the community to identify key issues that impact the community. Students select a type of action and plan their actual project. Students take action by actually embarking on the task that they have designed through direct service, indirect service and advocacy. Finally, students reflect on their experience reviewing what they have learned.