Engaging Students through Service-Learning

Sheila Cordner

Service-Learning Project Goals

• To gain a new perspective on your study of literature.

• To bring literature in some way to a group of people in our city outside of Boston University.

• To become more engaged students of literature.

• To relate what you are learning as college students to important issues in our contemporary society.

Service-Learning vs.

Community Service

Service-learning:“a form of experiential learning where students and faculty collaborate with communities to address problems and issues, simultaneously gaining knowledge and skills and advancing personal development” -- UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute

“While service-learning may have been taken up originally (and enthusiastically) by faculty in occupational fields such as business and education and social science fields such as sociology and political science, we believe that community service learning certainly can play an equal role, and may even play a larger one, in humanistic disciplines such as philosophy. In order to thrive, these fields need to demonstrate their relevance to a new generation of young adults, and community service learning represents an important vehicle for doing so.” --Scott Seider & Jason Taylor

EN 220: SEMINAR IN LITERATURE

Seminar theme of EDUCATION

Course texts included:

• Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B”

• William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned” and “Expostulation and Reply”

• Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes: A Love Story

• Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

• Margaret Edson, Wit 

 

EN 220 SERVICE PROJECTS

Students participated in 4 educational projects in Boston:

 – Book Club at Hale House, a low-income senior

center and nursing home.

– Writing workshop for inner-city youth at 826 Boston.

– Prison Book Program

– Sudanese Education Fund

Project Requirements

 1) Sign up for project

2) Participate with a group in one of the service projects

 3) Report back to the class 4) Write a reflection relating the experience to

course texts and class discussions

Student Feedback

“…Seniors need to expand their minds the same way students do. I point this out to prove that seniors and students may seem very different, but at the core, we are all humans and need to fulfill the same basic need for education.”

-- Seminar in Literature Student (Computer Science Major; Hale House Book Club participant)

Service-Learning in Your Courses?

• Introduce the idea early in the semester – build up to the service project

• Use resources to build partnerships:– Boston University Community Service Center – Boston Cares – www.bostoncares.org – www.volunteerboston.org

 • Service projects in upper-level courses:

– Students choose placements and submit proposals– Specialized projects – Research element

Brainstorming Service-Learning in Different Disciplines

Possible ideas… 

• Foreign Languages – partner with elderly immigrants looking for people to speak their native language

• Sciences – participate in a project with Science Club for Girls

• Film – screen a film and lead a discussion at a homeless shelter

Why Service-Learning at Boston University?

“We remain dedicated to our founding principles: that higher education should be accessible to all and that research, scholarship, artistic creation, and professional practice should be conducted in the service of the wider community—local and international.”

--Boston University Mission Statement

“My service project with the Prison Book Program truly put our study of world literature into perspective … the prisoners were simply looking to become more educated and more aware of themselves and those around them, which is an important part of being human: the drive to learn. . .”– World Literature Student (Biochemical Engineering Major; Prison Book Program participant)

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“Personal experience truly gives meaning to education because it connects you to the subject that seems so far away in the books or on the chalkboards.”

– Seminar in Literature Student (English Major; Hale House Book Club Participant)

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Thank you and feel free to contact me: scordner@bu.edu

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