Advocacy

NSLA aims to influence state and federal policies that advance high quality academic service-learning in P-12 schools. NSLA believes service-learning is a critical element in effective school climate and providing high quality instruction for all students. As a result, our advocacy efforts focus on policies which address these components in solving our education system’s toughest issues: increasing student success, reducing the achievement gap, maximizing the capacity of all students as engaged learners, dropout prevention, balanced assessments, workforce development, and teacher quality. Our mission is to support and strengthen the efforts of our members who are working to advance P-12 school-based service-learning. NSLA provides a unified national voice for its members in promoting and sustaining service-learning.

Ten Steps for Bringing Service to Your Classroom

Step 1: Assess the Needs and Resources of Your Community and School
In selecting a project, consult with community members, civic groups, businesses, government officials, school personnel, and students to determine both the needs of your community and the available resources, including partnership opportunities. Find out who else is doing (or has done) something similar.

Step 2: Form Community Partnerships
Most successful service projects require forming partnerships. You can build on existing relationships and connections, or you can develop new ones with potential partners identified in Step 1. Be realistic about your resources, needs, and limitations, and make sure that your goals are of mutual interest to all of your partners. Also be concrete about the roles and responsibilities of each partner organization.

Step 3: Set Specific Educational Goals and Curriculum
Determine what you expect the young people to learn. Even service and service-learning projects organized by community-based organizations or after-school programs should set specific educational goals. Establish what content objectives or standards will be addressed, and incorporate your service and learning objec-tives into lesson plans. Devise ways to measure and assess whether those goals are being met, including reflection and assessment activities. When evaluating student performance, assess their effort and mastery of the subject. Service out-comes may not be what you expect.

Step 4: Select a Project and Begin Preliminary Planning
Pick a project and determine how all partners can work together to achieve the desired goals. Try to determine your human, financial, physical, and intellectual needs and whether you need additional partners to provide the required resources. Be sure to identify people in your school or organization who can coordinate the project and maintain continuity from year to year.

Step 5: Plan Your Project in Detail
Set up a timeline, create a budget, and assign tasks. Think about how to include your partners in this process. As with any project, thorough planning, including the creation of schedules, benchmarks, budgets, evaluation and assessment tools, and documentation, can identify and correct many potential problems.

Step 6: Acquire Necessary Funding and Resources
If additional funds, goods, or services are needed, consider seeking assistance from local businesses, national corporations, parents, faith-based organizations, government programs (e.g., GrantLinks, Federal and State Education Authorities), civic groups, and other community organizations or sources of federal, state, and local funds.

Step 7: Implement and Manage Project
Put your plan into action. Continually assess your project to determine what is working and what could be improved. Involve project partners in evaluating and improving your project.

Step 8: Organize Reflection Activities
Make sure students are thinking about their service experience on a regular basis (e.g., through journals or classroom assignments) and organize activities that allow students to analyze their service and see how their ideas, knowledge and perceptions are changing. Use such reflections to help assess and improve the project. You may want to use the logbooks in the SISL Resource.

Step 9: Assess and Evaluate Your Service Program
Ensure that your evaluation assesses the outcomes of the service project for the youth, the community, and the organizations involved. Documentation and evaluation of the project will create a legacy for the individuals and the organizations who participated in and benefited from your service activities. It will also point the way to the next project for your classroom, and may foster activities in other classrooms.

Step 10: Celebrate Achievements
Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Recognition of students can help build habits of service and lead to a lifetime of community involvement. Don't forget to recognize key community partners as well. Recognition may include: displays in school or online, celebratory events such as ribbon cuttings or groundbreakings, visits by local officials, and participation in national recognition programs, some of which are listed in the Tools and Resources section of this guide.

Source (with some adaptions) Students in Service to America
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Civic Outcomes through Service–Learning

Service–Learning is a valuable experiential teaching and learning strategy that can help develop citizenship skills. At the heart of citizenship is the disposition to contribute to the common good. These outcomes should guide teachers as they develop a service-learning project and decide how to organize preparation, action, and reflection activities that are linked to classroom curriculum. Through involvement in a quality service-learning project, students should be able to demonstrate growth in the following areas critical to future civic action.
Community Knowledge:
  • Identify key community organizations and institutions
  • Identify key individuals in the community
  • Articulate the policies and issues that impact the community’s development
  • Analyze the community’s strengthens, needs, and challenges
Leadership Skills:
  • Conduct action research
  • Communicate effectively
  • Organize others toward a shared vision
  • Develop a strategy and action plan to solve problems and make decisions
  • Be willing to take risks and accept failure
  • Be a role model for others
Civic Commitment:
  • Participate in civic dialogue
  • Take one of multiple actions to solve community problems
  • Work for the common good
  • Demonstrate positive attitudes about active citizenship
Source Chicago Public Schools

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5 September, 2010   Visits: 25169    © National Service-Learning Alliance