Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?

Rating:
Summary: Cutting edge research on active learning pedagogy!
Review: For years, many educational researchers and practitioners have been looking for research that helps us understand how the engagement of students in service-learning activities - community service activities that are integrated with academic learning - affects students' learning. Based on the findings from two large service-learning research studies, the book presents a comprehensive discussion of the dimensions of "learning" and then provides a thorough analysis of how service-learning affects the development of each dimension. This well-written and thought-provoking book provides important answers to the most asked question in the field of service-learning: Where's the learning in service-learning? This book is certainly one of the best books in the field of experiential education. I highly recommend it for any interested in understanding how active learning pedagogies, such as service-learning, affect students' learning. Although the book focuses on students in higher education, the findings from Eyler and Giles's research have implications for understanding how service-learning affects K-12 students.

Rating:
Summary: if you are a true believer, you'll love this book
Review: This book does not offer an objective analysis of service learning. It is written by proponents of such pedagogy in order to promote it.

The major problems:

Related to the issue of objectivity, there are literally hundreds of student quotes sprinkled liberally throughout this book; none are hostile to the project of service learning. As a teacher who has had students participate in such projects for the last five years, I can assure you that the authors simply chose to not include students' harsh assessments of their service learning experiences.

The authors repeatedly criticize traditional instruction methods, and then cite studies supporting their views. When you look up the citations, you find that those authors are also true believers in service learning. No critical voices are treated seriously.

The authors again and again extol the benefits of "learning by doing", and denigrate other, more traditional, academic practices. Isn't writing a formal paper, however, a form of learning by doing? It is applying and using knowledge in a creative way, but the authors are clearly not interested in such assignments--at least not to the extent that they could replace or challenge the dominance of "service" in terms of "learning by doing." My favorite quote from the book in this context is the following: "Students who are by temperament active learners may be less than enthralled by writing, but some noted that in spite of the work of sitting down to write, this was a productive process..." This is classic educratese: when you have a poor writer, you label him/her an "active learner by temperament"; and when the writing assignment turns out to be productive, this is treated as a news flash. Obviously, education majors don't do much serious writing.

Perhaps the most seriously for those of you thinking of implementing service learning in your classes, this book offers no analysis of which types of courses work best with service learning, and which do not. The authors repeatedly use the "soup kitchen" and "homeless shelter" examples, as though those placements would be of use to a course on Greek history or Organic Chemistry. One striking sentence in this context is the following: "Finding service that roughly matches course content is fairly straightforward." As an instructor with much experience in this field, I can tell you that this is just not true. Further, this quick sentence is the beginning and the end of their discussion of finding good placements.

This book shows why Education departments are widely considered among academics to be of generally poor quality.

Rating:
Summary: if you are a true believer, you'll love this book
Review: This book does not offer an objective analysis of service learning. It is written by proponents of such pedagogy in order to promote it.

The major problems:

Related to the issue of objectivity, there are literally hundreds of student quotes sprinkled liberally throughout this book; none are hostile to the project of service learning. As a teacher who has had students participate in such projects for the last five years, I can assure you that the authors simply chose to not include students' harsh assessments of their service learning experiences.

The authors repeatedly criticize traditional instruction methods, and then cite studies supporting their views. When you look up the citations, you find that those authors are also true believers in service learning. No critical voices are treated seriously.

The authors again and again extol the benefits of "learning by doing", and denigrate other, more traditional, academic practices. Isn't writing a formal paper, however, a form of learning by doing? It is applying and using knowledge in a creative way, but the authors are clearly not interested in such assignments--at least not to the extent that they could replace or challenge the dominance of "service" in terms of "learning by doing." My favorite quote from the book in this context is the following: "Students who are by temperament active learners may be less than enthralled by writing, but some noted that in spite of the work of sitting down to write, this was a productive process..." This is classic educratese: when you have a poor writer, you label him/her an "active learner by temperament"; and when the writing assignment turns out to be productive, this is treated as a news flash. Obviously, education majors don't do much serious writing.

Perhaps the most seriously for those of you thinking of implementing service learning in your classes, this book offers no analysis of which types of courses work best with service learning, and which do not. The authors repeatedly use the "soup kitchen" and "homeless shelter" examples, as though those placements would be of use to a course on Greek history or Organic Chemistry. One striking sentence in this context is the following: "Finding service that roughly matches course content is fairly straightforward." As an instructor with much experience in this field, I can tell you that this is just not true. Further, this quick sentence is the beginning and the end of their discussion of finding good placements.

This book shows why Education departments are widely considered among academics to be of generally poor quality.