November 2003
Volume 16, Number 11
Integrating Service-Learning Into Psychology Courses
When my departmental colleagues and I were in college, nobody talked about service-learning, although a few professors did something like it. Now, with the national emphasis on improving civic engagement among young people, service-learning has gone mainstream. A recent study of one liberal arts college found that over three quarters of the social science and humanities faculty thought that service-learning might be appropriate to a course they teach, although only about a quarter of them actually offered such a course (Rowe & Chapman, 1999). This new recognition of service-learning is supported by research demonstrating superior outcomes for students who engage in it, ranging from improved academic performance (Strage, 2000) to enhanced moral reasoning (Boss, 1994). From the Higher Education Research Institute's massive longitudinal study of over 22,000 college and university students, it is clear that although community service by itself produces some of these desirable effects, they are greater when the service takes place in the context of an academic course (Vogelgesang & Astin, 2000).
What Is Service-Learning?
A service-learning course is more than a course in which some community service occurs. Most educators agree that the term suggests course-based service that 1) addresses at least one significant learning objective for the course, 2) meets real community needs, and 3) is fully integrated into the course by means of reflective assignments, class discussion, or both. This last component seems to be especially important in realizing the academic gains that service-learning can produce.
What Are We Waiting For?
Aside from the need for more information, the most common reason faculty give for not teaching service-learning courses is that it would take too much time - their own time, and class time. As my father always says, time is the one non-renewable resource; and as a recent Teaching Tips article pointed out, most of us feel it is already too scarce (King, 2002). While it is true that setting up a service-learning course for the first time is labor-intensive, that is far less true for subsequent offerings of the same course, and even somewhat less true for other service-learning courses you may devise. Once you develop relationships with certain community partners, for example, you won't need to communicate with them as extensively or visit the site as often as you did the first time. You will know more about reflection, about how to craft assignments and integrate the students' experiences into class discussions and activities. So if you can get started and hang in there, that extra work involved in the initial set-up will pay off.
The argument about class time is more complicated. First, let's recognize that every learning activity takes time and that we are always making unconscious trade-offs, usually without data on the relative effectiveness of the activity. For example, research has offered mixed results on the efficacy of the lecture format for teaching, and yet most of us continue to lecture at least occasionally. While active learning of any kind takes more time than being told something or reading about it, students retain more of what they learn actively. Service-learning, therefore, takes its place along with lab exercises and research projects as a way for students to learn complex important lessons by doing as well as reading and thinking. I tell my students to think of the community as one of the texts for the course, a text they "read" by spending time in it and interacting with the people they encounter there.
That said, it is true that the time demands of a service project are more like those of a research project than those of a single lab exercise. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. One - the more usual - is to require the students to complete service hours outside of class, much as we would require them to collect data outside of class. In this case I find it works best to have the service sites suggest specific two- or three-hour slots and to have students sign up for a specific regular time and day of the week that fits with their schedule. The other approach is to build the service time into the class, as we build in time for a regular lab. In my department, lab courses typically meet twice a week for lecture and discussion and once or twice a week for lab, a model that works well for a service-learning course with a small number of students or where many people are needed at the same time (for example, after-school tutoring hours).
As for in-class time, service experiences make possible a number of attractive options. If a course uses discussion, it is easy to incorporate references to students' observations on site into discussion questions. Students can use their experiences as illustrations of the principles they are reading and talking about, much as we might introduce anecdotes to make a point. The advantage is that their own examples are more meaningful, and hence more memorable, for them than any we might provide. Also, students can generate descriptions of their experiences that can function like case study material for analytical discussion in small groups. Upper level students might draw on their service experiences to generate research hypotheses, brainstorm data collection methods, or propose interventions based on theories they've been learning.
Why Service-Learning in Psychology?
Of all the disciplines, psychology is one that lends itself most readily to service-learning, because both psychology and service are about people. It's hard to imagine a community where college students couldn't meet real needs - for tutoring, assistance with day care, preschool, or after school programs, with the elderly, with at-risk youth, and so on. Likewise, it's easy to see how these experiences might help students understand human development, personality, social psychology, motivation, and cognition. Indeed, psychology students have been doing this kind of service and learning for years, often under the auspices of internships or as volunteers. What distinguishes course-based service-learning is that important third element - the opportunity for reflection - which is provided and monitored by the professor. And that's probably the element that most of us find unnerving to contemplate, since we have no experience using or evaluating that kind of teaching tool. Fortunately, there is a lot of help available, even for those who don't have staff on campus whose job it is to support service-learning (see Recommended Resources at the end of the article). Ideally, every psychology department should offer at least one service-learning course - more if size and faculty interest make it possible - and every student should be encouraged to take at least one.
Define Your Own Needs and Objectives First
Listing your learning goals can be helpful in developing or improving any course, but it is essential for effective service-learning. Once you have decided what you want your students to take away with them, it is easier to brainstorm possible ways to achieve these goals through work in the community. At the least, you will get a sense of the population and age group(s) that are most relevant to your course. There also may be specific skills you would like your students to acquire: observation, reporting, active listening, and so forth. If you are having trouble coming up with course objectives that are met or strengthened by sending students out into the community, then don't do it; consider putting service-learning into a different course. Since interest in the subject matter makes students especially receptive to service-learning, an upper-level course for majors with a well-matched service site can provide an ideal opportunity for students to benefit from all that service-learning has to offer. However, a general psychology class can also benefit from a service-learning component, as a recent article documents (Krechmar, 2001).
Meet Real Community Needs
It bears repeating that real service meets real needs. The community cannot be treated as just a laboratory for our students. It is no more ethical for our students to exploit community members for class learning than it is to exploit them through research. However, given the many genuine needs for volunteer help that most communities have, it is not difficult to identify a variety of genuinely useful roles that students might play. At the same time, it is important to recognize students' limitations. It is unfair to both students and community partners to put a student in a position she or he is unqualified to fill, and agencies will not always be aware of what students are qualified to do. It is up to us to be sure that the responsibilities associated with the service are ones at which our students can succeed.
Match the Site to the Needs
Now that you have identified your own needs and some likely needs in the community, you are ready to play matchmaker. At this point, if you are lucky enough to have an office of community service or support staff for service-learning, you will want to spend time with these people and pick their brains about specific sites that can meet both sets of needs and can accommodate your students without too much disruption. Clary and Snyder and their colleagues have shown that students respond best to community service when it meets their pre-existing motives (e.g., Clary & Snyder, 1999). While you will not be able to gauge individual students' motives, you can make some educated guesses about students' motives as a group.
First, they will want to succeed in the course, and if what they are learning on site helps them achieve that goal, they will appreciate that the service was worthwhile, even if they didn't always enjoy it.
Second, learning more about the world through direct experience is nearly always one of the top two motives identified by those who volunteer. Sites that allow your students to learn or improve skills - as opposed to stuffing envelopes and painting fences, no matter how worthy the cause - will more clearly address both of these motives.
Check out the Site Yourself First
We would not, I hope, think of sending students into a chemistry lab without having ascertained the safety of the ensuing experiment. For similar reasons, you should never send students to a site you have not visited yourself, and ideally you should spend some time talking to the supervisor, director, teacher, or whoever is in charge at that site, recruiting them as your fellow educators. I go to sites equipped with a short outline of the course I hope to link with the site and a list of learning objectives. I discuss these with the supervisor and invite her or his input. I have also learned from experience that it's wise to discuss expectations of the supervisor's role in advance - for example, to find out whether students will ever work alone with agency clients. While this might not deter you from using the site, it's wise for both you and your students to know beforehand. Think about whether students need to have regular one-on-one contact with agency personnel and discuss that with the supervisor. You should also check with your administration about liability issues. In most cases, though, students will be covered under the same provisions already in place for internships and co-curricular community service.
More Is Better, to a Point
The emerging evidence suggests that up to 20-25 hours per semester produces a good service learning experience. More time in the community service may or may not produce better service-learning. A one-shot experience may be interesting and informative (or, alternatively, traumatic), but it does not offer students much chance to understand the workings of the site or to develop their own sense of efficacy. A service commitment of two to three hours a week for ten to twelve weeks is in line with the time commitment of, for example, a lab associated with a science course, and most students seem to have little difficulty working this into their schedule. However, a well-planned short involvement can certainly be worthwhile. It depends on your learning objectives. For students to develop skills or forge relationships will take longer than for them to observe social dynamics or learn what an agency does. Long-term service also requires more thought about transportation. My students have walked to their sites or have used public transportation, college-owned vehicles, or carpools, and it has never been an insurmountable problem.
Orient Students to the Service and the Site
It seems not only fair but also wise to give students some sense of what to expect, in general and specifically, from the site they will serve. I put the service component clearly in the course description and in the syllabus and discuss it in general terms on the first day of class so that those taking the course are aware that this is an important requirement. The next week or so, I have a class devoted to orienting the students to service and to the site or sites we will be using. Again, if you have support staff for service-learning, they may be able to help with this. I also find that it is extremely helpful to invite students with experience at the site(s) the class will be serving to participate in the orientation session. Their honesty and enthusiasm prepares the new recruits for what they will experience far better than my colleagues or I could do alone.
To Be There, or Not to Be There
Most professors assume that they will not accompany students to their service site, but you should think through the pros and cons of going with them at least the first time. I prefer to go with first-year students, especially if the service is a one-time experience. I do not know if it diffuses their anxiety or not, but it allows me to see what goes on and sends the message that I take their service experience seriously. On the other hand, I do not go with my seniors, most of whom have spent more hours in the community than I have and are quite capable of fielding any curves they are thrown on the first, or any other day. Think carefully about the site - since you have visited and spoken with the supervisor - and about your students in deciding whether or not to be present for any or all of their service experience. An alternative that has worked well for me and my colleagues is to use experienced upper-level students as assistants who can orient inexperienced students and accompany them at least their first time or two on site.
Connect the Dots
When I began using service-learning in my classes, I assumed that the connections that were obvious to me were equally self-evident to my students. Wrong. Even professors, it seems, have to outgrow some egocentrism. Especially at the beginning of the course, structure your reflection exercises and class discussion questions to guide students' attention to the kinds of connections you want them to make, without actually making the connections for them, since the joy of discovery is an important motivator for further inquiry. Questions like, "What are the requirements for a potential client to receive service from this agency?" "Where in town is the agency located?" "What else is in the neighborhood?" "Who talked the most in the meeting?" "Who talked least?" help students become aware of key issues without giving them your interpretations. "Do you notice any patterns?" and later, "Compare this impression with your earlier ones. Do you see any differences?" draw the student from awareness into analysis.
Keep in Touch
Some students will have mundane experiences on site. Some will have very intense, even life-changing experiences, not necessarily pleasant ones. I use reflective journals as a way for to keep abreast of what students are encountering on site, and periodically I invite them to share their experiences in class. Since both of these happen only at intervals, I also have discovered that it is wise to encourage students explicitly to let me know if something significant happens - good or bad - in case the student needs some support in making sense of it. Although I do not grade students' participation at the site, I also encourage site supervisors to let me know if students are not keeping their hours, are not doing the work they are given, or are otherwise behaving in ways that are problematic for the agency. I require them to complete a certain number of hours, and if they complete less than that required number, they lose points, paralleling my approach to class attendance. Alternatively, you might make graded written assignments contingent on completion of a certain number of hours.
Checking Back with Site Personnel
Depending on the nature of the service and whether or not you were there, you may not need the site personnel's feedback in order to evaluate the students' academic work (after all, in service-learning, it's the learning that is graded, not the service). However, it's important to check back with on site supervisors. They may have helpful comments or suggestions for future orientation or reflection. In addition, it reinforces the credibility of the partnership: you are in this together and you care what they think.
So How Do You Grade This Stuff?
Standard practice seems to be to require the service, but not to grade it, just as we might require attendance in class. I do grade the assignments that spin off their service, and after years of agonizing over how to respond to writing that feels more personal than the average psychology paper, I've evolved the following policy: Immediate reflection, whether in the form of a journal entry or a short (one or two page) response paper, is graded with a check, check-plus for outstanding work, check-minus for substandard work, and zero for late or missing work. I make comments mostly in the form of probing questions, such as: Why do you think she acted this way? What does this tell you about the challenges faced by this neighborhood? Papers and oral presentations that demand extensive incorporation of outside sources or other course material are graded on the same basis as any other such assignments, with the same standards for evidence, quality of argument, depth of interpretation and so on. Here again, I think it's helpful to think of the community experience as a text that students "read" and analyze with varying degrees of insight.
It Will Not Always Go Perfectly
Life is messy, and so is community service. There are a lot of variables beyond your control: people come in with attitudes and assumptions, communication sometimes breaks down, and as the saying goes, "stuff happens." Not only is this inevitable, but it is usually okay. For example, one year, the teacher of an adult education program I had relied on for service opportunities in a particular course went on maternity leave at the last minute. The teacher who replaced her was manifestly incompetent, and as the semester wore on, the students became increasingly frustrated with how badly the program's clients were being served. We had some productive class discussions about what can go wrong with a basically good program administered with every good intention, and the students learned a lot. They also were profoundly impressed by the way in which the clients handled the situation, and that seemed to add something extra to the tutoring experience. In the long run, I think those students learned more than those whose site assignments went completely smoothly.
Conclusion
The most important pay-off, of course, from service-learning, is what students learn. But how they learn it is also important. There is a compelling, no-holds-barred quality to community experience that makes what is learned more memorable than anything read or heard about second-hand. This also improves the quality of the time spent in class. Everyone, even the least confident student, has something to contribute to class discussion because everyone has had a unique experience. When students realize that the course material helps them make sense of these experiences, they also become more appreciative of what seemed purely academic before. This is the case in courses of all kinds. But perhaps psychology in particular should embrace service-learning, because we have an interest in human welfare. As a discipline, we have a history of focusing on the well-being of individuals rather than of society as a whole. Following Isaac Prilleltensky's (1990) suggestion, perhaps it is time we engage students in conscientization - the process of becoming "[insightfully aware] of the socio-economic, political, and cultural circumstances which affect their lives as well as their potential capacity to transform that social reality" (p. 311). The students, the community - and we ourselves - stand to benefit immensely.
References and Recommended Readings
Boss, J. A. (1994). The effect of community service work on the moral development of college ethics students. Journal of Moral Education, 23, 183-198.
Campus Compact (2000). Introduction to service-learning toolkit. Providence, RI: Author.
Clary, E. G., & Snyder, M. (1999). The motivations to volunteer: Theoretical and practical considerations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(5), 156-159.
Heffernan, K. (2001). Fundamentals of service-learning course construction. Providence, RI: Campus Compact.
Kendall, J. C., & Associates (1990). Combining service and learning. Vol. II. Raleigh, NC: National Society for Internships and Experiential Education (NSIEE).
King, R. M. (2002). Managing teaching loads and finding time for reflection and renewal. APS Observer, 15(1), 13, 14, 35, 36.
Kretchmar, M. D. (2001). Service learning in a general psychology class: Description, preliminary evaluation, and recommendations. Teaching of Psychology, 28 (1), 5-10.
Prilleltensky, I. (1990). Enhancing the social ethics of psychology: Towards a psychology at the service of social change. Canadian Psychology, 31, 310-319.
Rowe, M. M., & Chapman, J. G. (1999). Faculty and student participation and perceptions of service-learning outcomes. In J.R. Ferrari and J.G. Chapman, Educating students to make-a-difference (pp. 83-96). Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.
Strage, A. A. (2000). Service-learning: Enhancing student learning outcomes in a college-level lecture course. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 7, 5-13.
Vogelgesang, L. J., & Astin, A. W. (2000). Comparing the effects of community service and service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 7, 25-34.
ELIZABETH WEISS OZORAK is associate professor of psychology at Allegheny College. She chairs the Values, Ethics and Social Action program, an interdisciplinary academic program designed to foster civic engagement. She has taught a wide range of courses with service learning.
Teaching Tips, a regular feature in the Observer, provides the latest in practical advice on the teaching of psychology and is aimed at current and future faculty of two- and four-year colleges and universities. Teaching Tips informs teachers about the content, methods, and profession of teaching.
Chief editor Baron Perlman and co-editors Lee McCann and Susan McFadden, all of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, welcome your comments and suggestions. Send article ideas or draft submissions directly to Baron Perlman, Teaching Tips Editor, Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI 54901-8601; 920-424-2300; Fax:920-424-1204; or perlman@uwosh.edu.
