Research on service learning in public schools

Service-learning in K-12 schools works for teacher because it integrates classroom instruction with service by students. That service can go across the curriculum, touching more than one subject area. Because service learning is working on issues in the community it provides opportunities for students to enhance utilize critical thinking skills. It must have clearly stated learning objectives, meet real community needs, and include time for students to reflection.

In a study done by W. K. Kellogg Foundation, participating youths explained their benefits in service learning programs in personal and social responsibility, self-efficacy, motivation to learn, improved academic skills, leadership skills, avoidance of risk behavior, interpersonal skills, and connection with heritage. Read the report

Schools can implement service-learning programs in a number of different ways. They range from school-wide service learning, which involves every student in the school, to grade-wide service-learning, which involves all students in one or more grades, to service-learning as part of an individual course.

Interesting teacher facts on service learning…
- Nationwide, 83 percent of public schools with service-learning offered some type of support to teachers interested in integrating service-learning into the curriculum
- The most common types of support provided to teachers included support for attending service-learning training or conferences outside of the school (66 percent), financial support for costs associated with service-learning projects or programs (58 percent), and mini-grants for service-learning programs or curriculum development (45 percent)

Why do public schools participate in service learning?
The top three responses were as follows:
- 53 percent of schools said that they encouraged student involvement in service-learning to help students become more active members of the community.
- The other most frequently cited reasons were increasing student knowledge and understanding of the community (51 percent)
- meeting real community needs and/ or fostering relationships between the school and surrounding community (48 percent)

Information for this blog was obtained from http://nces.ed.gov.

Five top resources: service learning

Service learning provides time for students to work with each other and their hands to learn skills, understand social responsibility, and live their education. In a nutshell, this learning reaches beyond the textbook and builds essential life skills. Here are my five top resources:

5. Points of Light
Extensive information about volunteering that may not necessarily be involved with schools. However, the site does provide extensive resources: local; national; international; and faith based, that is organized by categories:

Assessment,Communications, Leadership Technology, Organization Management, Partnership Development, Risk Management, Targeted Volunteer, Engagement, Volunteer Management, and Volunteer Service Models

4. National Service Learning Partnership
A national network of members dedicated to advancing service-learning as a core part of every young person's education. Service-learning is a teaching method that engages young people in solving problems within their schools and communities as part of their academic studies or other type of intentional learning activity. This site has hundreds of free documents and papers to help educate yourself and others about service learning. Join their national network for free.

3. Learn and Serve Clearinghouse
Excellent site to understand what service learning is all about. There is plenty of good information to educate and link up organizations, including detailed student efforts underway. The site is split up into age groups which will help teachers better define appropriate material. If you are new or old to service learning there’s content to help you move your ideas/projects forward. Here are some of my favorite publications and there're many more:

- Guidebook for introducing service learning
- Faculty/Staff Toolkit for understand service learning
- K-12 Serve Learning Project Planning
- Partnerships For After-School Success Tool Kits

2. Reach Every Child
Excellent resource for every subject taught in K-12; provides loads of web sites with notes on how those sites can be used in service learning projects. This is the best site where teachers can get some comprehensive resources for integrating lessons around service learning.

1. Facing the Future
This organization offers curriculum, teacher workshops, and service learning opportunities to create and maintain positive, healthy and sustainability communities. The material is designed by and for teachers, and focuses on bringing critical thinking about global issues to students in every content area. They have some free downloads for high school that are units, get them here. The textbooks they offer must be purchased. The lesson and curriculum are matched to state and national standards here. They have a database of action oriented projects with domestic and worldwide information located here. This is a comprehensive site that will definitely get you educated and enable you to move forward with lessons and some action ideas too.

What is/are your favorite resource(s)?

Top five: revitalizing K-12 pedagogy

Teaching isn’t a job, it’s an excursion to train future leaders of our world.

Here’s my top five “musts” for teacher lessons to maximize student engagement: create learning opportunities.

5. Meaningful Content:
The context here is the wrapper that content is presented with: it must touch the life of students – in one way or another. As a student, would you pay attention to what is presented in class if no one told you the “why”? I wouldn’t. The job of an educator is the knowledge expert – absolutely, but that job also includes developing a “wrapper,” which can take many forms: story, presentation, or activity. Technology is interesting wrapper for any subject or concept, we have to realize that students today spend more and more time using technology. The content wrapper must capture their attention.

4. Peer Interaction:
There is plenty of research that demonstrates serious learning takes place when peers communication – connect. In this simple communication so much takes place: understanding, confidence in content comprehension, building social skills, and even argumentation skills. Every lesson – every day – must include some level of verbally working with other class mates. It can be paired sharing; it could be class discussion facilitated by the teacher or even table discussion that is then presented to class. Something as simple as a “ticket out the door” where students must talk to another student, then say one thing that student learned and one question they have about content covered today. This communication between students will also help build a “safer” class environment as students feel more at ease with each other.

3. Learning Confirmation:
Each class must have one pit stop where there is time for students to get a check on their comprehension of the material provided so far in the lesson. Going on and on in class with no learning check can lead a student to being overwhelmed. This check is really a vote, “Thumbs up if you agree with this statement”. There is nothing wrong with two/three checks per lesson. Another example is a short reflection period on one or more prompts, giving students a writing moment, then picking a few students to say what they wrote.

2. Do It:
Whether the class is doing history, math, or science students NEED an opportunity to do what is being taught. Students today are so active and creative. They NEED an outlet to express themselves. Again, this can be as simple as making a non-verbal drawing to a prompt the teacher provides. A complex level is providing time for them to design and/or build a model from a rubric provided. The possibilities here are completely adjustable to your lesson time and requirements. The point is, students must have some extended time to focus at least four of their senses (touching, seeing, hearing, talking, thinking) on the material to absorb it.

1. Promote Success:
Every student must get some positive feedback once a day. There is too much bad in the world, which begins in the hall outside of class. Acknowledge their effort. Let them hear some praise. Find something good about the class and speak it. One example, tell students, after the bell rings to signal the end of class, what a terrific job they did in focusing today and then dismiss them. Yes, it’s that easy.

Pedagogy: project based learning (PBL) in action

Today many teachers, like myself, find ourselves teaching to the test - Criteria Reference Test: CRT- because administrators think the combination of a pacing calendar and standardize lesson will produce improved test scores. On the other hand, project based learning (PBL) focuses on growing the student interest with learning opportunities that involve action, materials and core concepts. I think the best of both worlds is a standardized lesson that supports teachers using PBL.

PBL works great for me. An elementary teacher in FL challenges students to use certain groupings of coins to buy items from the classroom store as a playful and engaging way for them to meet state first-grade curriculum standards for learning coin values and equivalences. PBL engages students using the proven method of constructivism and enables students to apply concepts in real time about what they're studying.

Got 9 minutes? Check out this PBL video clip in primary and secondary education. You can see student interviews and hear from the experts ...... well worth your time.

MIT distinguished professor Seymour Papert is among a growing group of scholars who support project-based learning, in which students move from hands-on work to abstract thinking by solving real-world problems. See the video clip.

How much have you reading recently?

Clearly, an issue that's near and dear to all of us ... what does the future hold?

I was reading a recent National Endowment for the Art research report: To Read or Not to Read, November, 2007. I like to read but not as frequently and it seems I'm not alone. It seems young people and adults are reading less too. The below percentages have decreased since the last time this data was collected for a report published five years ago.

Age ............% reading a book for fun
18-24 ........52
25-34........ 59
35-44........ 59

But these percentages aren't bad - are they? The majority of people are reading something for fun.

As a teacher it's impossible for me to motivate students to read. I can assign it and still most students won't read. I think reading is a cultivated skill, like drinking coffee or using hot sauce.
The results of this report didn't bother me until I read the indicators around employment.....

- 38% of employers find high school graduates “deficient” in reading comprehension,
while 63% rate this basic skill “very important.”
- One in five U.S. workers read at a lower skill level than their job requires.
- in 2003 70% of adults contacted said that their reading skill is below their job requirements.

Now that scares me. If those adults are saying that today, then what are we going to be saying in 20 years when the teenagers now are the adults? Yet, what can we do to inspire students to care to read?

From the report there were some straightforward findings .....
- students who read for fun just once or twice a week score significantly higher in tests
- student who have books in the home are more likely to read more often

Despite the range of employer-respondents, a clear majority viewed two basic skills
as “very important” for new workforce entrants, regardless of education level those
skills are reading and writing.

We have to get back to the basics in K-12 schools. Improving reading and writing is bound to positively impact all the other subjects, along with producing life skills as pointed out by this report.

Read the report here.

Make Your Own Report

Yesterday someone sent me an email to tell me about a few web sites where report cards can be completed. To me their intention was to alert me about the site so I can then tell my readers, fair enough. But, I have report cards that like better right here on my site. That email did help me remember I should tell you about them so here is my plug ....

My reports cards are unique and comprehensive, not a checklist. I want the 411 so please use then to tell me the scoop. I'll keep what you say in confidence. Use 'em all or just one or two.

At my site, on this page, you can create a free account.

BTW, if you complete reports cards we'll send you free pencil. I have to admit we are back logged on getting those out but you WILL get yours. If you tell your friends about the report cards I'll send you a nice pen.

Login using that free account and you can complete these type of report cards:

If you're a K-12 teacher complete a report card on....
- Teacher Grading Administrative Team
- Class Education Quality
- Technology in Education
- Curriculum & Assessment Teachers
- Teacher Report on Student
- Teacher Report on Parent

If you're a K-12 parent complete a report card on....
- Parent Grading Teacher
- Parent Grading Administrative Team

If you're an K-12 student complete a report card on....
- Student Grading Teacher
- Class Education Quality
- Technology in Education
- Curriculum & Assessment Students

I look forward to hearing from you.

Change is Commonality: USA K-12 education & USA economy

Nothing but the bad sate of the economy in the news today. I’m no expert there but listening to the facts, it sounds like us folks living in the USA will have to borrow money from another country to “stimulate” our own economy. Somehow that just doesn’t sound right at all.

Are you wondering why I’m talking about the economy in my blog that deals with K-12 education?

The economy and K-12 education both need change to benefit the citizens. For example, let’s look at the schedule and curriculum of K-12 education. The schedule today is the same as it was in the 1950’s. Students start school early in the morning and get out in the afternoon. Is that still the best structure? Has anything else changed in the last 60 years? Everything about cars has changed since the 1950’s; except they still ride on four wheels. Wardrobes have changed more than once. The power of the dollar has change many times. What is considered to be nutritious has changed and so has our idea of smoking.

Computers and iPods weren't even available 10 years ago. Why is it we can't fund some research on what schedule works best for young people to optimize their time tables? After all, their brain is still growing as research has already detailed. Perhaps, maybe, they might retain more and participate more in class if the schedule began later and ended later in the day?

Then there is the curriculum. Today, just like in the past, states are still driving their own Standards for what needs to be taught. Classes are still taught in segments; math in one class, reading in another, science in a different one, and so forth. What about cross curriculum schedules where students learn multiple content areas while working in a class or project? Here's a novel idea, what if students worked on a project team to build a robot that competed with other student teams; where the awards are based on demonstrating respect and gracious professionalism in your team and with other teams? We’re talking about science, math, reading, writing, and serious life skill building now. Cool idea – right? I think so. BTW, this already exists at FIRST.

Another perspective, are we teaching K-12 students what they need to know when they graduate? I’m not sure we can answer this question since we are busy focusing on getting them prepared to pass a test based on locally determined education priorities. What about the basics? Can they balance a checkbook? What about a profit and loss statement, can they understand the differences and plan accordingly? Based on recent research of small business failures I think not.

There's a long way to go on answering the questions here and I know there's no quick fix. Yet, we didn't know how to get to the moon and we did it in a relatively short period of time with a focused effort. For some background material on the state of education there are links to five key reports produced by leading education researchers available at the ERI web site.

I’m no pundit. I do think we deserve to give our K-12 students the best education possible. When we do that, the future for this great country will get brighter.

Here is a great read on the questions raised: Are Schools Failing Kids in 21st Century Skills?