The Journal of Effective Teaching

an online journal devoted to teaching excellence

Service Learning as an Instructional Strategy for

the Preparation of Teachers
Alisa J. Bates 1
Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, 97301
Dina Drits, Cathi Allen, and Peggy McCandless
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112

Abstract

This paper addresses the strengths and challenges of university-based service learning
projects, using preservice elementary teachers in an undergraduate social studies methods
course as a model for implementing service learning in university courses. The goal of
the project was to provide future teachers with the motivation and experience in
facilitating service learning projects as a means of promoting student equity, social
responsibility, and social justice. The carryover of this attitude and response to the first
year of the teaching career is considered. Three cases of teachers are presented to share
findings that focus on issues of context, teacher characteristics, understanding of the
service learning pedagogy, and the responsiveness of students to the approach.
Implications and recommendations for including service learning pedagogy in university
courses are discussed.

Keywords: Service learning, elementary teacher education, social studies methods.

Service learning is an instructional approach that engages K-16 students in servicerelated

activities while connecting the experience to course curricula so students have the
opportunity to learn academic content while applying that knowledge in service to their
community. This model is predicated on student involvement and student ownership of
the experience to make it meaningful and personally relevant. The study university
defines service learning as:

An experience-based form of pedagogy in which students, faculty, and community

partners work together to integrate and apply empirically-grounded knowledge in
authentic settings to address the needs of the community and meet instructional objectives
using action and critical reflection to prepare students for careers and to become
meaningful members of a just and democratic society. (University of Utah)
1 Corresponding author's email: [email protected]
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Over the last fifteen years, researchers have engaged in research that has resulted in a
groundswell of noise about the value of including service learning in the K-12 public
school, the university, and the college curriculum (Lewis, 2004; Wade, 1995, 2001).
Increased self-esteem and self-efficacy, as well as a stronger interest in school and a
sense of social responsibility, are a few of the outcomes that have resulted for students
given the opportunity to engage in service learning (Conrad & Hedin, 1991; Wade, 1995).
Historically, a significant responsibility of higher education’s role in society has been to
educate citizens for democracy (Kezar, 2005). Today, many universities and colleges
have started to embed service learning as a form of citizenship, and to fully engage in the
underlying values of their mission to promote social action, awareness, and justice
education (Kezar, 2005; Lewis, 2004). Participation in service learning is increasing at
the university level and learning more about it through research will enhance the quality
and viability of service learning opportunities and experiences (Billig, 2003).

At the focus university, a campus-wide commitment to service learning is developing

through emphasis in courses and professional development opportunities for faculty. For
university students, a service learning experience in a course is the chance to make theory
and practice come together in fulfilling a community need. Service learning has been
implemented in a variety of disciplines across the university and college setting. Subject
areas as disparate as geography, business, and nursing can utilize service learning projects
to enhance the undergraduate and graduate student, and faculty member experience
(Govekar & Richi, 2007; Lewis, 2004; Parece & Aspaas, 2007; Schwartz & Laughlin,
2008). Through these experiences, students gain an awareness of their connectedness to
the community and the relevance of the subject they are studying to the community and
society. Subjects studied in their university courses can begin to take on more meaning
and importance because of the direct applicability, and students can gain more intrinsic
motivation to understand the subject matter (Govekar & Richi, 2007; Lewis, 2004;
Schwartz & Laughlin, 2008).

Much of the research on service learning has focused on students in teacher education
programs (Anderson, Swick, & Yff, 2001). Their experiences, however, match the
experiences of other undergraduate students in courses that have a service learning
component. In addition, the experiences of university faculty members who elect to go
beyond their traditional classroom roles to learn how to incorporate service learning into
their university courses have parallels to those of future teachers in teacher education
programs, as both are learning how to engage a classroom of students in this new form of
education. Therefore, teacher education courses can serve as a powerful and effective
model for the process of learning about, incorporating, and assessing the impact of
service learning for both faculty members and university students.

For students in teacher education programs, therefore, and university faculty members,
service learning has particular relevance and importance because not only are they
engaged in the service learning process for personal growth, they also have the
opportunity to impact a classroom of students through this type of learning. For teachers,
in other words, service learning becomes a social justice enterprise that shows promise

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for helping them develop strategies for engaging all students in responsive and respectful
learning experiences, as is the goal of public and higher education (Kezar, 2005).
Further, engaging in service learning experiences as K-16 teachers helps one to
understand that teaching is both a moral and political act (Donahue, 1999). As a result of
this, faculty members and teacher candidates learn that service learning is one way to
engage students as active citizens (Kezar, 2005).

In this study, we focus on the strengths and challenges of using service learning in teacher
education courses as a model for the issues involved for faculty members and students in
any university or college course. The issues discussed can be applied to both faculty
members currently engaged, or considering using service learning in their courses, and
their students. When considering the need for research on service learning:
One question has to do with the relationship between K-12 and higher education. Service
learning has penetrated both sets of institutions, and therefore, has begged the question
about the relationships between these two sets of institutions, especially around their
service learning initiatives. (Howard, 2003, p. 8)

We endeavor to explore potential connections between these two settings in this research.

Service Learning in Teacher Education Programs

Although service learning can be used successfully in any teacher preparatory methods
course, social studies methods is an appropriate place for teacher candidates to have
service learning experiences because of the natural connection between service learning
projects that benefit the community and the civic goals of social studies education.
Service learning is an opportunity for teacher candidates to learn more about teaching and
learning by engaging students in projects that are meaningful and relevant to the larger
community. Doing so during teacher preparation offers the chance to prepare teachers
who may be more committed to service learning as a classroom teacher because they
have tools, knowledge, and experience in the model.

In many teacher education programs, there are emphases on culturally and socially
responsive attitudes towards teaching and instructors utilize these models as a component
of their courses. Often, an outcome of this in social studies methods courses is the
embedding of a service learning experience to help teacher candidates better realize the
social and cultural complexity of teaching, while exploring the issues of social studies
curriculum and instruction.

In the context of social studies methods in this teacher education program, instructors
chose to have students do service learning with their elementary students in the field.
This ensures that teacher candidates have the opportunity to try the pedagogy and reflect
on the outcomes for individual students as engaged members of the classroom and school
community. Instructors strived to ensure that students understood the difference between
service and service learning. Research has demonstrated that service learning is a
complex practice for a novice teacher to implement and that teacher educators must

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provide support and a realistic vision for implementing service learning in order to see
effective and consistent use in the future classroom (Cepello, Davis & Hill-Ward, 2003).

Instructors want to provide the support teacher candidates need to work with their
children so that they are guided in the experience of moving from the theories of service
learning to the actual practice and demonstrating relevance for university learning
experiences. Doing so allows further opportunity for reflection on students and their
needs to ensure that teacher candidates are conscious of their students as learners and
members of the classroom community and the larger community around them. Further,
this kind of experience is potentially relevant to preparing future teachers for the
complexities of diverse classrooms and communities (Boyle-Baise, 1998; Buchanan,
Baldwin & Rudisill, 2002; Donahue, 1999) because it forces them to stop and view the
world in which their teaching takes place and to recognize their students and their needs
as an active part of that teaching process.

Research Objectives
This study examines the stated and implicit philosophical social studies teaching and
learning stances of elementary teacher candidates and early career teachers. This is a
longitudinal study and data on both the attitudes towards and actual classroom practices
centered on service learning, an exploration of teachers’ rationales for choosing (or not)
to do service learning in the elementary school as well as the institutional conditions that
support or constrain such preferences, and the relevance of the university learning
experiences as an influence on classroom teaching. The goal is to determine whether
teacher candidates develop attitudes and instructional rationales that are in favor of
service learning as an effective practice of social studies instruction as a result of their
methods course experiences. Further, we attempt to determine whether these attitudes
play out in the future classroom practices of teacher candidates as they choose (or not) to
engage in service learning in their own classrooms to determine the lasting nature of
university learning experiences on actual professional practice, something missing from
the research and existing literature on service learning (Howard, 2003).

Methods of Data Collection and Analysis

This study includes data from the senior year in the teacher preparation program and into
the first year of a teacher’s career. The data collected represents materials from students
in two cohorts of the social studies methods course (N = 57 for the first cohort of teacher
candidates and N = 65 for the second cohort), taught in the fall. From the first cohort,
three teachers agreed to be followed for the first year of their careers to talk about their
experiences with service learning in their own classrooms. These three teachers
completed the social studies methods course as a part of the first cohort participating in
the study and are all teaching in school districts within 45 minutes of the university.

Surveys

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Upon completing student teaching at the end of the senior year, each teacher candidate
completed a survey that summarized their experiences with and attitudes towards service
learning. These surveys show whether teacher candidates did additional service learning
projects with their students during the spring student teaching semester. They also
describe the attitudes towards service learning as the candidates prepared to move
forward into responsibility for their own classroom. Finally, these surveys help us to see
whether teacher candidates appreciated the connections between service learning as a
pedagogy and the opportunity to create an equitable classroom learning environment.

Artifacts

During all phases, researchers also maintained a collection of artifacts from various
aspects of the study. These materials include field notes from the social studies methods
course collected by a researcher who observed all sessions related to service learning,
along with lesson plans with classroom materials and observation notes from the
instructor. Student produced artifacts were also collected, including: project proposals,
relevant emails, final project papers and brochures created by each group for presentation
at the end of the semester.

Interviews

During the first year of teaching, each participant was interviewed. These interviews
probe closely the understanding teachers have for service learning in their classrooms and
the affordances and constraints that make it possible or impossible for early career
teachers to engage in service learning. Further, these interviews help us to see if the
situation changes with time and familiarity with issues like context, core curriculum, and
student learning needs.

Analysis

The analysis of the study focuses on the development of cases of a teacher’s rationale and
practice in teaching social studies from teacher preparation during the senior year through
the first year of teaching experience. This longitudinal study looks at the bridge between
theoretical beliefs and classroom practices as these cases provide an in-depth study of the
choices and attitudes of a teacher as well as the actual experiences he/she has in
implementing service learning (Yin, 2003).

From the set of teachers, we present three cases of teachers that describe the larger issues
in becoming a service learning teacher. Initially, each case was analyzed independently.
Broad categories were identified in the data focusing on initial patterns and perceptions of
critical issues in the interview transcripts (Miles & Huberman, 1994) that were refined
through comparison with the artifacts from the preservice experience. Moving through
the cases, these categories were refined and each case was revisited by looking closely at
the experiences of both preservice and practicing teachers to illuminate issues of context
and position. We chose to engage in a cyclical process of analyzing and writing about the
data in order to provide ourselves with constant reminders of context and the influence it
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has on the experience. Memos on each category were compared and refined by looking
carefully at the overlap between the ideas reflected in each. After working on each step
of the data analysis process on a case by case basis, cross-case analysis was done to
identify broader themes and issues of service learning pedagogy and practice that exist
across cases (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The cases included here are representative of
issues presented and experiences as early career teachers. The next section describes each
teacher and her relevant personal and professional background.

Participants

Mindy, a first grade student teacher and then a first grade teacher, works in a year round
school that is currently overenrolled and has a high population of Hispanic students,
many of whom are English language learners. Mindy is one of eight new teachers of the
11 first grade teachers, taking on a leadership role in her team even as a beginning
teacher. She was a non-traditional student at the university and is in her 30’s with three
children. Prior to enrolling in the teacher preparation program, Mindy worked in day care
settings. Her passion for first grade is evident and her attitude towards her teaching role
is enthusiastically confident despite the challenges of her school context. Mindy feels
that the potential for support for service learning exists in her school context but is not
something she sought out.

Becky student taught in a second grade classroom in an inner city school and is teaching
fifth grade in the same school. Becky started at the university as an elementary education
major in her twenties after traveling and participating in service experiences around the
world. Her educational philosophy lends itself well to include service learning as a
pedagogy because of her personal belief that teaching is about giving back and
empowering her students. Becky’s school provides her with several support systems that
encourage service learning.

Amanda student taught in a sixth grade classroom and took a position at that school as
one of three sixth grade teachers. Amanda came to the education program with a drive
for the role of teacher as change agent, and found service learning to be a strong fit for
this personal philosophy. Her school, which has a moderate level of diversity for a
suburban setting, promotes inclusion of students with a spectrum of disabilities in general
classrooms. Her team and administrator are supportive of and have a high degree of
experience with classroom service, while are not particularly familiar with service
learning as pedagogy.

Findings
Our findings center on the teachers’ experiences as a member of two different
populations: (1) as teacher candidates when they were enrolled in the methods course and
conducting a service learning project as a course assignment and (2) as beginning
teachers in their own classrooms, striving to determine the role and place of service
learning as a pedagogy in their teaching practices. In both cases, teachers and teacher

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candidates are asked to consider the relevance of this pedagogy as a means of creating
equitable learning experiences in the elementary classroom. The three cases of Amanda,
Mindy and Becky are presented as examples of the challenges and strengths of the
transition from student teacher to classroom teacher. Two of the three teachers, Becky
and Amanda, have made service learning a part of the classroom learning experience. As
evident in the following

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descriptions, among the three teachers there is a mix of beliefs and experiences with
service learning as a pedagogy.

For all three cases, data revealed there are some common themes that transect the
experience of trying to do service learning. These themes include the following: (a)
influence of school context and climate on opportunities to engage in service learning; (b)
specific teacher characteristics that detail stance towards practice; (c) depth of
understanding of service learning as a pedagogy; and (d) recognizing service learning as a
powerful instructional tool for students who might otherwise be marginalized. For the
last finding, a clear understanding of and willingness to address each of the first three
findings is necessary for a deep and meaningful enactment of the model to support equity
in the classroom. Each of these issues will be detailed below.

Influence of Context

For each teacher, positive and negative issues of context influence the likelihood of
engaging in the service learning process with their students. The contextual influences
that seemed to make a difference for the three teachers are related to administrator
support, money and resources, time, school culture and tradition, and collaboration
opportunities with other teachers in the school.

School environment. A supportive school environment can be a significant factor in a

new teacher’s decision to implement service learning. Both Becky’s and Amanda’s
schools have a tradition of conducting service projects and a strong culture that supports
service learning. The majority of the teachers in Becky’s school are former students of
the university, and had been exposed to service learning in their teacher education
programs. The school also employs a service coordinator who helps teachers with the
logistical aspects of their projects.

When Amanda began teaching, her sixth grade teacher team had already established a
service tradition in their classrooms that involved knitting hats on looms for donation to
charities. This project has gained school-wide popularity, “the lower grades can’t wait to
get to sixth grade because they can’t wait to do the looms” (Amanda, interview, p. 4).
Other teachers in the school are also doing service projects in their classrooms, “I see a
lot of projects going on” Amanda explains, “and I’m sure they’re doing service learning
without really knowing it” (Amanda, interview, p. 7). Mindy’s school does not have this
established tradition or culture, and she mentioned no service projects taking place there.

Administrator and colleague support. Administrator support or opportunities to

collaborate with other teachers also appears to play a key role in new teachers choosing to
incorporate service learning into their schedule. Amanda’s sixth-grade host teacher
initiated the loom project by applying for and receiving a grant for her classroom.
Witnessing the project’s success, the rest of the sixth grade team too embarked on the
project. Amanda used this momentum to implement the project in her own classroom,

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adding a curriculum tie to enhance the learning component of the project. Becky has full
support and confidence from her principal for the project, including a request that she
repeat it the following year. She explained:

He was really supportive. I just laid it out for him…I told him where [the
students] are going, and that it’s right out of our core, so as soon as he heard that
he was like, sure, sounds good, but keep me updated on how it goes. (Becky,
interview, p. 3)

Mindy found little obvious support from others in her school, though she is certain that if
she were to receive an external grant to do a project, her principal would be supportive.
She explains that realistically for her to do a service learning project later in the year she
would “need someone to come in to help plan it…sit down and think it through” (Mindy,
interview, p. 4).

Obstacles of time, resources and money. The three teachers face similar logistical
obstacles to implementing service learning: lack of time, resources, and money.
Regarding time, Becky explained, “It’s hard to find time to balance everything and make
sure I’m getting in everything I need to teach…that’s my biggest stress” (Becky,
interview, p. 4). Her solution is to devote a set time every week to service learning and to
incorporate it into different content areas. Mindy describes often running out of time for
social studies.

She explains that as a first-year teacher, much of her:

Time is prep time and just thinking from day to day. I haven’t gotten to [service
learning] even ….it’s just finding the way to weave that into everything else that
I’m doing. Just establishing a routine that works. (Mindy, interview, p. 3)

Amanda’s many ideas for future service learning projects include establishing a pen pal
exchange with American troops in Iraq, and making books for writing personal histories,
but she feels she does not have enough time to plan them:

Just time to sit down and organize it. I get these ideas in my head…and I see all
the things I need to do and I start doing this thing and then this thing, and then it’s
out of my mind, so I guess [an obstacle is] having the time to really sit down and
focus on it. (Amanda, interview, p. 7)

A lack of resources and money has contributed to the difficulty Mindy has faced in
starting a service learning project. There are no obvious funds for service learning at her
school and she describes problems with attaining supplies for extra projects in general.
She knows of a district grant for service learning, and says the grant would be necessary
for her to get service learning going in her class. Amanda also describes problems with
money, such as supplying yarn to students who cannot afford to bring their own.

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These examples all demonstrate the importance of various types of logistical and collegial
support for beginning teachers in choosing to use service learning in their classrooms.
Another important factor that seems to influence teachers in the decision to utilize service
learning appears to be whether they have developed or possess certain teacher
characteristics.

Teacher Characteristics

Certain teacher characteristics seemed to lend themselves towards a greater inclination to

tackle service learning early in a career. Service learning is a time consuming and
complex model, in part because it relies on student ownership of ideas and
implementation of a project. To engage in such work is often challenging and so
confidence, vision and sense of purpose, and an understanding of how to tie service
learning into the curriculum are critical. All rely on the demonstration of a philosophy
towards teaching that views the role as one that contributes back to society.

Confidence. Amanda and Becky both started service learning projects early in the year,
and they attribute this in part to their successful experiences with the model as a part of
their student teaching experience. Amanda described the confidence she gained during
her student teaching service learning project:

As the weeks passed, and the service project started to progress, I started feeling
connected to my students, and a connection to the reason we were doing the
project. I learned that my students are very capable of caring for those that are in
more need than they are, that sacrifice is something that is important and can
change another person’s life. I chose to be in charge of organizing our
servicelearning project, and I learned how to manage the little time that I had to
work on this project…. I learned that I am a leader, and that I am capable of
organizing large projects within my school. (Amanda, reflection paper, pp. 1-4)

Becky has a history of successfully doing service projects on her own outside of school,
and considers it an important part of her life. She explained that she would have
introduced service into her own classroom anyway, but the service learning component of
her methods course taught her “a way to incorporate it, but also [how to] make sure
they’re learning what they need to learn” (Becky, interview, p. 4). Both of these
experiences provided her with the confidence to organize her own service learning
project.

Mindy, on the other hand, emerged from student teaching with low confidence in her
abilities to successfully implement service learning in the classroom. She considers her
student teaching project to have been unsuccessful, and believes her students did not
learn. She explained:

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The [students’] lack of understanding on a social, ethical, and academic level was
my own doing. In hindsight I see that the students did not learn because I did not
structure the project in a way that would have allowed them to learn. I gained new
insights into how to “not” do a service learning project. (Mindy, personal
reflection, p. 3)

This description reflects her understanding of the potential for service learning to be a
powerful form of learning, and also her lack of personal success with it.

Vision and sense of purpose. The teachers who started service learning projects share a
vision and a sense of purpose for their projects. Becky feels a strong personal and
philosophical need to do service in her own life, and to impart this experience to students.
She was determined that her students take ownership of the project from the beginning:

It’s about them deciding what they want to do and walking away feeling like they
don’t just have to live in a world where they have no power, that they can walk
away realizing that whatever situation they’re in they can make a difference.
(Becky, interview, p. 4)
She had a vision of how to organize her project, and took several steps to ensure
that students were deeply involved, engaged, and committed to it. This included
using literature to initiate dialogues about helping others, assigning homework
that required students to contribute to the project design, and in-class voting.

Amanda, too, has a vision for the lessons she wants her students to learn through service
learning:

I think that it teaches students the skills to be selfless in their community…if

students learn about service early, and learn what kinds of things they are capable
of doing, they will take this understanding throughout their life. (Amanda,
personal reflection, p.3)

Before she began teaching her own class, she described her ideal situation:

I would allow my students to brainstorm activities, and projects in order for them
to have ownership of the projects. I would implement my own idea for the first
project of the year to serve as an example. I will build community in my
classroom before I expect them to work well together right away. (Amanda,
personal reflection, p. 4)

The current service learning project follows this vision—it was developed by a teacher,
and serves as an example to her students. She also describes how working on the project
together has created a sense of community in the classroom. After completing this
project, she plans to begin one that the students develop themselves. She wants, however,

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to point them in the direction of where she sees missing knowledge, such as learning
about the war in Iraq (pen pals).

Although Mindy claims to have enjoyed doing service learning as a student teacher and
believes it is a valuable experience for students, she questions the utility of using it in her
classroom, “I like it, so it would be hard to just forget it, I just don’t know how practical
it is” (Mindy, interview, p. 4). She also described the many challenges of implementing a
successful project, but did not offer a vision for how to circumvent them to create service
learning opportunities.

Fitting it into the curriculum. The teachers who chose to use service learning have an
understanding of how service learning fits into their curriculum. Becky explains that
social studies as a discipline can inform students on how to be a part of a community, and
that service learning “brings social studies to life. It’s what’s happening now, what
they’re doing now to impact history” (Becky, interview, p. 4). She teaches social studies
concepts through her service learning lesson once a week. She also integrates service
learning/social studies into content area lessons, such as writing about social issues
during language arts lessons.

During her service learning lessons, Amanda discusses issues of need, charity and being
civic-minded citizens, and believes that service learning “gives kids a good awareness of
their surrounding and their community and the people that they’re involved with”
(Amanda, interview, p. 3). Although she does not regularly incorporate these lessons into
her social studies curriculum, she consistently fits them into her teaching schedule where
appropriate. Lessons on community, humanity, and history are a regular part of
Amanda’s curriculum, creating natural links to service learning.

Mindy’s schedule and the demands of her position often prevent her from having time for
social studies, which in turn leads to fewer opportunities to tie service learning into her
curriculum. She finds that in a good week she spends one hour on social studies. Like the
other teachers, she believes social studies is valuable in that it, “allows the children to see
that there is something outside their little world…it also takes the classroom outside of
the school and lets them real world apply it…they see that they can be a part of that
community” (Becky, interview, p. 3). Although she understands that service learning can
be a way to teach students about community, she also believes it may not be the most
practical way to accomplish this at this point in her career.

The two teachers who chose to implement service learning shared certain characteristics
and experiences, including confidence in their abilities to use it successfully, a vision and
purpose, and a commitment to tying it into their curriculum. What all three of these
teachers share is an understanding of what service learning means as a pedagogy,
discussed next.

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Service Learning as a Pedagogy

Throughout the social studies methods course, we encouraged teacher candidates to work
hard to understand the distinction between service learning and service. For the three
teachers described here, it seemed that their during their methods class their overall
experience with service learning as a concept mattered more than the specific content or
focus of the project that they did. Each was able to see it as a pedagogy and recognized
that the power of student ownership made the difference in their understanding of the
model and its relevance to their classroom.

Service learning vs. service. A challenge faced in the methods class was to help teacher
candidates distinguish between service understood as volunteerism and service learning
with a strong connection to the core curriculum required of each grade level by the state
office of education. Mindy and Becky understood the potential of service learning to
achieve standards relevant to their required state curriculum. Mindy recognized that the
service learning experience teaches students about multiple things and offers them a
variety of opportunities to apply their knowledge in learning experiences:

They can say, okay, this really does happen in real life, or what’s happening in
school really can relate to what’s going on in life and it’s not just reading, writing,
math and big deal, I go home and that’s it. I think that’s a big part of that, to let
them see that and see that they can be a part of that community. (Mindy,
interview, p. 3)

The course instructors hoped teacher candidates would realize this and recognize their
role in the process of facilitating a service learning experience with their students.
Further, Becky understood that it was critical that her service learning project was
relevant to her instructional and curricular responsibilities as a teacher, “They’re going to
be learning and it’s right out of our core” (Becky, interview, pp. 3-4). Becky credits the
methods class with helping her to make the transition from service as “something that is
really important to me outside of school” to understanding that “through the methods
course I learned a way to incorporate it, but also make sure they’re learning what they
need to learn” (Becky, interview, p. 4) and appreciating her own responsibilities as the
teacher.

Amanda struggled with the connection between social studies and service learning in her
sixth grade classroom. At the time of the interview, the sixth grade was engaged in the
hat-knitting service learning project for the local homeless shelter. She felt this was
service learning because the students were learning to knit and use looms. She also felt
that some of her social goals for her class were met because her project included all
students in the activity, particularly those who often left for resource support and her
English Language Learner. However, she did not see this as a part of the curriculum she
was required to teach her sixth graders. While she recognized the academic potential in a
project she was considering for spring semester, writing letters to soldiers overseas, she

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Bates, Drits, Allen, and McCandless 18

also struggled with how to best accomplish her curricular standards while working on the
service learning project.

I thought like if I did some kind of pen pal thing with soldiers or something like
that, I think it would really get the kids thinking and thinking about, you know,
past wars, we learned about WWII, in social studies and just thinking like that,
this is happening generation after generation and this is the generation that you’re
in and you need to know about it. (Amanda, interview, pp. 1-2, 6)

Her comment shows that she sees a civic engagement purpose and a social studies agenda
for understanding war. In the same interview, however, Amanda said, ” I don’t know
quite how I tie social studies into service learning” (Amanda, interview p. 1), indicating
that there is some confusion about her understanding of the relationship between service
learning and social studies instruction.

Student ownership. The issue of student ownership of the ideas for and implementation
of the service learning project was something that was heavily emphasized as a
fundamental component of the service learning pedagogy in the social studies methods
class. Uniformly, the teacher candidates recognized that this was a critical part of their
service learning pedagogy. However, Mindy and Becky were more verbal about this than
Amanda who only commented that she knew it was important to “get your kids
brainstorming” (Amanda, interview, p. 1). As Mindy said, “I think my biggest thing I
learned from that [1st grade] class is how much they enjoyed it and I felt they really had a
say in what to do and there is not a whole lot of curriculum where they have a say”
(Mindy, interview, p. 1). Becky understood that her class was empowered through the
experience and had the opportunity to really think about their potential to change the
world:

We started with the literature and talked about … little service things that they’d
done for other people. I took it from what they were already familiar with to:
What are some things that…you want to change in the world, which you want to
be different? So they thought about that—it’s kind-of empowering for kids to
think, “Yeah, I can do something about that.” At first, they think, “No—there’s
this going on and we can’t change that.” But then if we start to pick it apart, they
really can. And they can change pieces of it, so we talk. (Becky, interview, p. 1)

This opportunity to learn and see their potential was something that Becky valued most
about the pedagogical approach of service learning. As Becky described her
philosophical approach to service learning, she pointed out:

I could make my kids do a ton of service projects, and they’d have to do it

because I say so, but that’s not what it’s about, it’s about them deciding what they
want to do and walking away feeling like they don’t just have to just live in a
world where they have no power. (Becky, interview, p. 4)

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Service Learning as an Instructional Strategy 19

For Mindy, the brainstorming experience in the methods class where students visualized
their community and recognized the needs present helped her understand the need to
include her students in decisions about the project:

When we talked about letting them brainstorm. When we sat there and said this is
what we need to do with the kids, they need to come up with the ideas. (Mindy,
interview, p. 1)

The influence of the methods course on Becky’s and Mindy’s understanding of service
learning and their belief in the critical nature and influence of student ownership for the
project suggests that there is potential to further develop this understanding through the
course. The awareness of this critical role for students leads us to our fourth finding that
focuses on the teachers’ understanding of the pedagogy as a way to engage traditionally
marginalized students.

Responsiveness to Students

Each teacher who had a powerful experience with student learning by witnessing the
engagement of students who seemed otherwise uninvolved or disinterested in school
during student teaching developed a greater personal commitment to do service learning
with their students. They did so regardless of the complexities of implementing the
pedagogy. This experience with student learning resulted in deeper reflection on the
nuances of the model and an enthusiastic response to continue service learning.

Mindy has not completed a service learning project beyond that required of her as a
teacher candidate in the methods course. Additionally, her project was school-wide and
she feels this limited her ability to get her first grade students genuinely involved as they
collected and mailed supplies to schools affected by Hurricane Katrina. As such, she did
not see a significant impact on the learning experiences of many of her students who felt
removed from the project.

However, Amanda and Becky have both realized the potential of service learning to
provide access to equality in the classroom by creating learning opportunities that are
socially aware and civically responsive. Each described special needs students and
English language learners in her class who have benefited in ways that gave them
academic and social access to their peers.

Becky described how her service learning project helps her to build and expand her
classroom community by including all students in the process. She has a student new to
the country with extremely limited English language that the students have learned to
include in their activities, “My new kid who doesn’t speak any English, the kids even
went specifically out of their way to make sure he got [included]” (Becky, interview, p.
5). She realizes the potential to help her build community around him, “I think it

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Bates, Drits, Allen, and McCandless 20

definitely will help. Especially with how we’re utilizing team building stuff. That’s very
hands-on and working with people” (Becky, interview, p. 5). Additionally, her project
focuses on working with the senior assisted living center and relies on communication to
create biographies of the seniors, a skill that could further her ELL student’s language
skills.

Both Becky and Amanda also recognized the potential of their projects to further include
the students who often spent hours out of the classroom for resource support in both the
social and academic aspects of classroom life. Becky observed that her three resource
students were contributing a great deal to the project and were right in the midst of all
that was going on:

They’ve been just as involved in this as anybody else and they’ve had just as
fabulous ideas when it comes down to it. (Becky, interview, p. 5)

This positive regard and inclusion can go a long way to clearly communicating that all
students are equal and have valuable ideas to contribute to the experience.

Although Amanda did not like the structure of resource in her students’ individualized
education program, she realized that her service learning project offered them social
support and positive regard from other students:

They really like the looms. I like it because it’s something they can do just the
same as all the other kids. They’re not saying, “Sam can’t do the looms because
he’s Sam,” you know. He does them just the same and it’s good because it gets
them interacting with the kids. (Amanda, interview, p. 5)

This opportunity to collaborate on something that matters to all students is the kind of
social support that helps to create attitudes that are equitable and that recognize that all
students have something to offer. Becky and Amanda both recognized that their project
had lasting positive impacts on the development of an inclusive, nurturing classroom
community.

Implications and Recommendations for

Teaching and University Education
These findings demonstrate the complexity, strengths, and challenges for teachers in
learning how to implement service learning as a pedagogy in both the university and the
K-12 pubic school setting. There are several recommendations and further directions for
practice that result from these findings for K-16 education (recognizing the limitation that
not all of these ideas will transfer directly to all disciplines).

Recommendations for University Service Learning Programs in Multiple Disciplines

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This section considers issues specific to teacher education service learning experiences as
a result of our research and also considers how these issues might be broadly construed
for other university courses and disciplines.

The four findings in this research provide us with a stronger resolve to continue to engage
in and advocate for service learning during methods courses. The findings inform us of
the types of learning experiences and support instructors in teacher education programs
should provide for teacher candidates, and raise awareness of what types of school
support are needed for beginning teachers to implement service learning as a pedagogy.
The three cases described here suggest that regardless of whether or not the teachers used
service learning in their classrooms, and two of three had, having powerful service
learning experiences in methods course clearly can create teachers who understand the
value of service learning. All three developed the attitude that service learning matters
and continued to express this perspective after completion of the methods course in the
midst of the complexity of their first year of teaching. This would be a potentially
important outcome and attitude for all university students to develop if we advocate a
society committed to supporting each other.

Further, stressing the distinction between service and service learning in the methods
course seems to have been internalized to some degree by each teacher. While there are
concerns that Amanda did not make the connection to social studies, she did recognize
that there are things that she wanted her students to learn about the world around them
and that learning is a relevant component of the pedagogy, not just service. This suggests
that instructors need to be careful to explicitly describe and define this connection in
order to ensure that teachers understand the relationship between curriculum and service
learning. For other disciplines, this suggests that the connection between course content
and service learning needs to be thoughtful and detailed as well. Clearly explicating the
thinking between such curricular and instructional choices on the part of faculty can
support students in developing a cognitive framework for the service learning experience
that moves it forward in a way best suited for carryover to future opportunities and
learning experiences.

Our findings support the notion that instructors in teacher education programs must be
aware of providing the necessary support systems for teacher candidates that will ensure a
successful service learning experience. Encouragement for teachers to continue service
learning across the entire final year of the teacher preparation program, rather than
confining it to the methods course, is an option to help teachers build a strong foundation
and comfort level with service learning pedagogy to carry with them into their early
career years. Again, linking multiple courses together to support depth and awareness
throughout general education courses would also serve students and faculty well.
Developing a system of education that builds a course sequence that incorporates service
learning and allows projects to foster and build over time would support students in
developing deep relationships to stakeholders and a stronger footing in the value and
potential positive and lasting outcomes of such an endeavor.

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Additionally, selecting site teacher educators with a commitment to service learning or a

willingness to grant their teacher candidate time and resources to engage in a quality
project will go a long way to facilitate growth as a teacher. Also, if possible, selecting
school sites with a commitment to service and civic engagement, where principals and
teachers believe in and support service learning, would provide a context that values the
work required of the teacher candidates. Positive regard and enthusiasm for service
learning as a pedagogy is just as meaningful for teacher candidates as it is for their
students, and will help in developing teachers with the confidence, self-esteem, and
knowledge base to do service learning in their own classrooms. For faculty, enthusiasm
over the service learning component of the course will likely result in greater interest and
commitment on the parts of all involved. It will also be critical to choose community
partners and agencies that are supportive of the novice efforts of university students and
willing to engage in the time necessary to support their learning about the discipline
content at the same time as they attempt to learn about and meet a community need.

Findings suggest that issues of time and the intensity of service learning projects require
that we do much to help them build a philosophical belief that encourages them to
persevere with service learning in the face of significant classroom obstacles. The
pressures of time and a mandated curriculum for standards-based testing have
complicated attempts to introduce service learning into the classroom. However, findings
also suggest that most teacher candidates were able to see the value and purpose of
engaging in service learning when they did their service learning project with their
students. This will likely be true for students in any collegiate major or program – the
demands of work, school, and family are significant so the burden lies in part with the
faculty to provide time, energy and rationale for moving forward with complex,
innovative, creative and meaningful projects that truly have the potential to make a
difference for stakeholders. Quality learning of any kind requires a fundamental
commitment to these goals and endeavors on the part of both faculty and students. The
same is true of service learning.

Finally, the two beginning teachers in our study who implemented service learning in
their classrooms shared several fundamental beliefs and circumstances that contributed to
their decision to use this form of pedagogy. Both had supportive school site contexts,
both were confident in their ability to implement service learning in their classroom, and,
perhaps most importantly, the two who tackled projects were very conscious of the
influence the pedagogy was having on issues of social and academic access for their
students with diverse learning needs. This is one of the most important and currently
relevant issues for public schools as they become increasingly diverse. Ensuring that
pedagogies that are culturally responsive and accessible are used in classrooms is a
critical part of all instruction, regardless of K-16 level. Service learning seems to have
the potential to help teachers see the capabilities and possibilities in their students.
Continued and more explicit attention to this potential in the context of the methods
course will help teacher candidates make the transition to teachers who are aware of the

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individual students present in their classrooms. Hopefully, this would be true for all
disciplines and be one way that university faculty can come to better know, understand,
and teach their students by engaging in pedagogy that responds to the needs of a diverse
range of learners.

It would be ideal if teacher education programs with commitments to service learning

pedagogy could provide continued support to their graduates through professional
development experiences, access to the university’s resource base through the service
learning center, and communication about the opportunities and projects available for
collaboration with other graduates in the local school systems. While these steps require
money and additional time, scarce resources in teacher education, the need to encourage
teachers who are committed to the pedagogy but challenged by the tasks of the first years
of teaching is significant. Further research on such issues would do much to illuminate
the best uses for these valuable resources. Further research could also explore the
potential for continuing resources in a variety of disciplines that help university graduates
carry a stance of service and community engagement into their professions, be it biology,
engineering or professions such as social work.

Recommendations for Faculty and Students in All University Courses

The findings demonstrate the necessary components for teachers to implement service
learning in their classrooms, which we believe can easily be transferred to the
components and conditions necessary for university faculty members to successfully
implement service learning in their university courses. Like the K-12 teachers, faculty
members need a supportive workplace climate (departmental, college), specific
characteristics that detail stance toward practice (a commitment, for example, to include it
in course syllabi, an understanding of one’s role in the facilitation of service learning in
the classroom), a depth of understanding of how service learning can serve as a powerful
learning tool for undergraduates, and a commitment and understanding that the service
learning pedagogy benefits students who are traditionally marginalized in the
undergraduate classroom (socioeconomically, ethnically, etc.) .

For university students, the findings from this study demonstrate the power of service
learning as pedagogy for post-secondary learning. For the student teacher participants,
regardless of the eventual enactment outcome in their own classrooms, the service
learning component of the teachers’ university methods courses contributed to their
becoming more aware of the impact their actions have in their community and in society.
Instead of being confined to learning in their university methods classroom and through
readings, these teacher candidates experienced learning through involvement in
community projects. Further, as a general pedagogy for university students preparing to
enter any field, service learning experiences create the conditions for students to become
aware and actively engaged in the community they will soon serve.

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