What is Service-Learning?
To clearly establish what service-learning is, we must also take a look at what service-learning is NOT. We do that by distinguishing service-learning from other types of service programs (e.g. volunteer, community service, field education, and internship).
In order to distinguish service-learning from other types of service programs, a diagram is offered that illustrates where the different types of service programs lie. The placement of each service program in the diagram is based upon the primary intended beneficiary and its focus between service and learning.
Figure 1: Distinction Among Service Programs
- Volunteerism:
- Definition: Volunteerism is the engagement of students in activities where the primary emphasis is on the service being provided and the primary intended beneficiary is clearly the service recipient.
- Example: Students sign up to visit the local hospital to sit with Alzheimer's patients who need some company.
- Why it is not service-learning: The inherent altruistic nature of volunteer programs renders them as service focused, designed to benefit the service recipient. Although the student-volunteers may receive some benefits from the experience as well as learn something in the process, these outcomes are not intentional. If the hospital visits of the students become more regular, and the students begin focusing more on learning about Alzheimer's disease, the program becomes more like service-learning.
- Community Service:
- Definition: Community service is the engagement of students in activities that primarily focus on the service being provided as well as the benefits the service activities have on the recipients. The students receive some benefits by learning more about how their service makes a difference in the lives of the service recipients.
- Example: Students in a class provide food to the homeless during the holidays.
- Why it is not service-learning: The students' primary purpose for engaging in the service activity is to advance their cause although their engagement does allow them to learn more about the cause and what is needed to be done to ensure the cause is dealt with effectively. There is more benefit to the recipient of the service than the one providing the service. If the service activities become more integrated with the course work, and if the students begin to engage in formal intellectual discourse around the various issues around the cause, then the community service program becomes more like service-learning.
- Internships:
- Definition: Internship programs engage students in service activities primarily for the purpose of providing students with hands-on experience that enhance their learning or understanding of issues relevant to a particular area of study.
- Example: A political science major obtains a summer job at a city hall to learn more about how local government works.
- Why it is not service-learning: Although the student is providing a service to the city hall office, the student's primary motivations are clearly to benefit himself/herself. The focus is on learning. If the student places greater emphasis on the service being provided and the ways in which the service recipients are benefitting, the internship program becomes more like service-learning.
- Field Education:
- Definition: Field education programs provide students with co-curricular service opportunities that are related to, but not fully integrated with, their formal academic studies. Students perform the service as part of a program that is designed primarily to enhance students’ understanding of a field of study, while also providing substantial emphasis on the service being provided.
- Example: An education major spends a year as a student teacher at one of the local schools.
- Why it is not service-learning: While strong intentions to benefit the recipients of the service are evident, the focus of field education programs tends to be on maximizing the student's learning of a field of study. The program's primary focus is still on the student teachers' learning and their overall benefit. If more emphasis was placed on the service being provided and the ways in which the service recipients are benefitting, then field education becomes more like service-learning.
- Service-Learning:
- Definition: Service-learning programs are distinguished from other approaches to experiential education by their intention to benefit the provider and the recipient of the service equally, as well as to ensure equal focus on both the service being provided and the learning that is occurring.
- Example: A pre-med student, in a course on physiology of the aging, provides mobility assistance to seniors at a local senior citizen center.
- Why it is service-learning: The program is intended to help the student better understand how men and women age differently and how the physical aging of the body affects mobility. The focus is both on providing a much-needed service and on student learning. Also, the program intentionally benefits both the student who provides the service and the seniors for whom the service is provided.
Adapted from Campus Compact. Introduction to Service-Learning Toolkit.