Conducting and Supporting the Scholarship of Service-Learning
POD Network SoTL SIG
Professional Development Webinar
April 17, 2024
Barbara Jacoby, Ph.D.
SoSL Can Tell Us
What are students learning?
Do communities really benefit?
What are the most effective teaching practices?
It it worth all the time, energy, money?
Challenges of SoSL
Multiple participants
Various settings
Many different activities and desired outcomes
Difficult to determine value added, causality, and change over time
Today’s Agenda
Today’s Agenda
Service-Learning is
“a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes.”
–B. Jacoby, Service-Learning Essentials, 2015
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Key Elements of Service-Learning
Reflection
Reciprocity
Direct Service
8
Indirect Service
9
Project-Based Service
10
Advocacy
11
Community-Engaged Research
12
SoSL Defined
“... going beyond scholarly teaching and involves systematic study of teaching and/or learning and the public sharing and review of such work through presentations or publications.”
–Kathleen McKinney
Types of Potential SoSL Questions
“What is” questions
“What works” questions
“Visions of the possible” questions
“Developing new framework” questions
–Pat Hutchings
4 Dimensions of High-Quality SoSL
Theory
Measurement
Design
Practice
SoSL Project Plan
What issue, strategy, question intrigues you?
Why is this topic important to service-learning?
What conceptual and theoretical frameworks may be relevant?
What do we know about the topic? What work has been done?
What questions remain unanswered?
SoSL Project Plan
What methods, tools, approaches, instruments can be used or modified? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What existing data can be used? What data needs to be collected?
What is the population/sample to be studied?
What are the potential implications for practice?
Potential SoSL Collaborations
Faculty colleagues
Community partners
Students
Supporting SoSL Faculty
Tie SoSL to disciplinary research
Connect SoSL to campus priorities
Assist in finding collaborators
Provide or help locate funding
Supporting SoSL Faculty
Connect SoSL to service to institution
Create a SoSL faculty learning community
Provide funding for SoSL conferences
Assist with request for reassigned time
SoSL Methods
Portfolios and other reflective tools
Interviews and focus groups
Observation
Questionnaires
SoSL Methods
Content analysis
Secondary analysis
Experiments
Case studies
Mixed methods
SoSL Examples
Effetiveness of a single course
Impact of SL on underrepresented students across multiple courses
Analysis of a large national dataset
SoSL Books
SoSL Journals
Kennesaw State Teaching Journal Directory
https://facultydevelopment.kennesaw.edu/scholarly-teaching/journals/index.php
Univ of Minnesota Rochester
Disciplinary SoTL Journals
“You’d be amazed at how much research you can get done if you have no life whatsoever.”
–Ernest Cline
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
–Wernher Von Braun