Does Service Learning Really Help?

The following is cross-posted from myImpact.org:

A recent New York Times article asked the question, “Does Service Learning Really Help?” The article, by nonprofit reporter Stephanie Strom, “loosely” defines service learning as “community service that supplements and enhances what students learn in a classroom” and explored the elements that make a positive experience for students.

“In reality, service learning often seems unconnected to any curriculum — painting park benches, for example. At its most basic, it can be hard to distinguish from plain vanilla community service” the article laments, while suggesting that detailed planning, by academic institutions and faculty, will result in a more enriching experience.

This conversation is an essential one, and one that speaks to the heart of the goals of myImpact.org. Understanding that volunteers, especially student volunteers, need to see their work in a greater context and then use that story to inspire more students to join a cause or participate in a program, is an essential guiding principle.

All too often, schools (and even colleges and universities) are more focused on aligning a service-learning program with a mandated curriculum that they ignore important elements that will enrich a student’s participation. For example, understanding the needs and working in concert with the non-profit organization a student volunteers at is more important than signing off on a certain number of volunteer hours.

Elson Nash, the acting director of Learn and Serve America at the Corporation for National and Community Service, said, “The relationships are key because everyone — the students, faculty and community organization — needs to be involved in developing the expectations for the service learning experience,” Mr. Nash says. “They need to talk about what it’s going to address, how the students are going to be involved, how it connects to the classroom experience, how it meets the nonprofit’s needs and, most importantly, how it is going to be evaluated.”

At myImpact.org, we believe that new technology and social media allow these relationships to be formed, and sustained, in ways like never before. The first version of our online platform, currently in development, treats recording a simple metric such as volunteer hours, formerly an individual exercise, as a social action—in a community where it can be commented on and, more importantly, tracked over time.

This approach is consistent with what we have outlined as a “Millennial Model” of civic engagement, valuing three traits: inclusivity, transparency and shared-decision making. A service-learning program that is going to positively enrich a student’s learning experience must be developed with the student’s, be open and honest about the intended outcomes (and how the program will be measured) and, overall, not take a top-down approach.

In sum, to answer the question “Does Service Learning Really Help?” the answer is an emphatic “yes,” with a giant caveat: when it is developed and implemented with a new model in mind.