Syllabus Tips

• Indicate Service Learning as part of the learning objectives.  Often, students are unfamiliar with service learning, so including it in the syllabus can help prepare them for what to expect during the semester. Provide rationale about why service learning is essential for the course and how the learning goals and objectives are connected.
• Describe clearly how service learning will be measured, and what will be measured.
• Describe the nature of the service aspect of the course.  Are students free to choose their placements, or will the faculty establish projects?
• Specify the roles and responsibilities of students regarding the community partner project (ie, transportation, time commitment, schedule, contacts, etc.)
• Define the goals and expectations of the project for students clearly
• Provide clear links between the course content, the service activity, and student success.
• Describe the critical reflection process. Whether journaling, discussing, writing papers, creating portfolios, or making presentations, students should be aware of how they will be demonstrating their learning.
• Describe if there are expectations for the public dissemination of student work.

An Exemplary Service-Learning syllabus should:

• Include service as an expressed goal
• Clearly describe how the service experience will be measured and what will be measured
• Describe the nature of the service placement and/or project
• Specify the roles and responsibilities of students in the placement and/or service project (e.g., transportation, time requirements, community contacts, etc.)
• Define the need(s) the service placement meets
• Specify how students will be expected to demonstrate what they have learned in the placement/project (journal, papers, presentations)
• Present course assignments that link the service placement and the course content
• Include a description of the reflective process
• Include a description of the expectations for the public dissemination of students’ work

Download Example-Syllabus.pdf

The Following is from Heffernan, Kerrissa

Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Construction. RI: Campus Compact, 2001, pp. 2-7, 9.

1. “Pure” Service-Learning

These are courses that send students out into the community to serve. These courses have as their intellectual core the idea of service to communities by students, volunteers, or engaged citizens. They are not typically lodged in any one discipline.

2. Discipline-Based Service-Learning

In this model, students are expected to maintain a presence in the community throughout the semester and reflect on their experiences regularly, using course content as a basis for their analysis and understanding.

3. Problem-Based Service-Learning (PBSL)

According to this model, students (or teams of students) relate to the community much as “consultants” working for a “client.” Students collaborate with community members to address a specific community issue or need. This model assumes that students will have some prior knowledge they can draw upon to make recommendations to the community or develop a solution to the problem. For example, architecture students might design a park, business students might develop a website, or botany students might identify non-native plants and suggest eradication methods.

4. Capstone Courses

These courses are typically designed for majors and minors in a specific discipline and are offered primarily to students in their final year of study. Capstone courses require students to apply the knowledge they have acquired throughout their coursework and integrate it with relevant community service work. The goal of capstone courses is usually either to explore a new topic or to synthesize students’ understanding of their discipline. These courses provide an excellent opportunity for students to transition from the theoretical world to the practical world, enabling them to establish professional contacts and gain hands-on experience.

5. Service Internships

Like traditional internships, these experiences are more intense than typical service-learning courses, with students working as many as 10 to 20 hours a week in a community setting. As in traditional internships, students are generally charged with producing a body of work that is of value to the community or site. However, unlike traditional internships, service internships offer regular and ongoing reflective opportunities that enable students to analyze their new experiences through discipline-based theories and frameworks. These reflective opportunities can be conducted with small groups of peers, in one-on-one meetings with faculty advisors, or even electronically, with a faculty member providing feedback. Service internships are further distinguished from traditional internships by their focus on reciprocity —the idea that both the community and the student benefit equally from the experience.

6. Undergraduate Community-Based Action Research

A relatively new approach that is gaining popularity, community-based action research is similar to an independent study option for the rare student who is highly experienced in community work. Community-based action research can also be effective with small classes or groups of students. In this model, students work closely with faculty members to learn research methodology while serving as advocates for communities.

To construct a service-learning course, faculty should consider four critical principles.

• Engagement
• Reflection
• Reciprocity
• Public Dissemination

When designing a course, ask yourself if it is addressing engagement, or more specifically, how the service component serves a public good. Understanding the course’s intent for the community should begin the process, as well as ensuring the service will be valuable.

Once you have considered the engagement principle, it is time to turn your attention to reflection, which enables students to connect their coursework to their service. For reflection to occur, a mechanism must be in place, whether through journals or presentations.

Third, consider whether reciprocity is evident between the service and the community. Each participant should serve in both the role of teacher and learner, ensuring mutual benefits for the student, the organization, and the community.

Lastly, consider how your students’ service can be publicly disseminated so the public can see and benefit from the work of the students. Consider where the experience will exist after classroom learning is over and how the public can utilize it.

Campus Compact. Heffernan, Kerrissa, and Cone, Richard, “Course Organization.” Fundamentals of Service-Learning Course Construction. Providence, RI: Campus Compact, 2001. 

The pedagogy of service learning differs from traditional teaching. Because of this, the Service Learning Committee established qualitative questions and statements for those using service learning as a teaching strategy to use in the ‘questions’ section of the SET.

Faculty should use these questions to make a more effective attempt at measuring the impact on students across service learning courses. Additionally, the questions will help capture the impact of service learning more accurately for your evaluation purposes.

You may modify these questions to suit your needs, as classes and projects vary significantly across the spectrum of service learning. Please share with any faculty and let me know if you have any questions.

Questions/Statements to use:

1. Please describe how your community site placement or service learning activity/project enhanced your understanding of course content.
2. Please describe how service learning may have contributed to your professional and personal development.
3. Please describe any concrete areas of improvement for this course.

Schedule for SET:

The last class date of the term is Dec. 11, according to the Registrar’s calendar. The QP* for instructors teaching these classes will open 21 days before the end date (Nov. 20) at 10:00 am and close 7 days later (Nov. 26) at 11:59 pm, or 21 days before the last date of the term before finals week. The survey will open to students 14 days before the last day of class (November 27) at 12:01 a.m. and remain open for 14 days before closing (December 11).

Kuh (2008) identified ten “high impact practices” (HIP). HIP supports student learning and development in both professional and academic spheres, as well as in personal spheres. In reviewing the high-impact practices, Kuh does not address the interactions between them, which we consider a limitation. Therefore, we have demonstrated how service learning can and does support the various HIPs, encouraging faculty members and administrators to explore how they can incorporate these HIPs and service learning into their practices. We’ve documented the multiple ways in which service learning connects with the other practices beneath the model.

First-Year Seminars and Experiences

These often fall into two categories: courses focused on developing the necessary skills for academic and personal success in higher education, or exposure to cutting-edge research from the faculty member instructing the course. A highlight of both models is an intimate learning environment for first-year students. We believe that service learning pedagogy can be effectively integrated into both models of the course when implemented at the appropriate developmental level.

Learning Communities

Learning Communities are housing communities that are based on a common theme or academic question. There are usually courses associated with this community, and there remains an opportunity for service learning to be part of the course experience, supporting the holistic development goals of learning communities. Moreover, community service is often used in conjunction with learning communities, providing a foundation for student learning and learning communities.

Internships 

The dominant model of internships focuses on students entering a workplace and supervisors providing training and mentoring. The focus is usually on student learning; however, if a community partner identifies a need that a student intern can fill, there is an opportunity for the internship to benefit both the student and the organization. For pre-professional disciplines, there is a strong potential for this linkage as documented by.

Common Intellectual Experiences

Often, initiatives such as a “common read.” For faculty using the UConn Read’s selection as a core course text, the link between the book’s themes and social issues provides a ripe experience for service learning.

Collaborative Assignments

Focus on collective effort that emphasizes learning to work with others and the individual’s role in groups.  Project-based service learning is a strong vehicle for project creation in addition to the built-in pedagogical practices that support reflection.

Diversity-Global Learning

Kuh asserts that often the aims of increasing knowledge of our diverse world occur in community-based contexts, acknowledging the integral role service learning plays in supporting diverse learning. Additionally, study abroad experiences taught by UConn Faculty can include service learning as a framework for intentionally and rigorously increasing student learning. Campus Compact has assembled resources for those interested in global service learning.

Capstone Courses

Perhaps one of the best uses of service learning is utilizing the pedagogy as a culminating experience in their degree program. By incorporating service learning into the capstone experience, students can apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired over the course of four years to address a community-identified need. Students are often able to fill a critical skill-based need for organizations while reflecting on their learning and its applications as rising professionals.

Undergraduate Research

Historically, it has been a dominant practice in the hard sciences, but is now increasingly accessible to more students across a variety of disciplines. While often viewed through a co-curricular lens, a service-learning course grounded in community-based research can provide students across many disciplines with the opportunity to engage in the scientific process while using service learning as a framework to promote development toward the common good. Stoecker, Loving, Reddy, and Bolling (2010) provide a useful conceptual model to rethink service learning and community-based research.

Writing Intensive Courses

Service learning can be integrated as a pedagogy within the writing curriculum. Service Learning can be a vehicle to propel students to practice writing for different audiences —community partners, the general public, policymakers, and themselves through reflection. Composition.pdf contains its own body of research on service learning, which can help guide faculty members in integrating service learning into writing courses.

A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy’s Future, National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement

Crucible_508F.pdf

• Heffernan’s Six Models for Service Learning
• The Craft of Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning – Marshall Welch and Star Plaxton-Moore
• Reconceptualizing Faculty Development in Service-Learning/Community Engagement – Becca Berkey, Cara Meixner, Patrick M. Green, and Emily Eddins Rountree
• Campus Compact Resources for Faculty: sample syllabi and model programs
• Integrating Service Learning into Course Syllabus – Northeastern University
• Integrating Service Learning into Course Assignments – Northeastern University

• Whitely, M. (2014). A draft conceptual framework of relevant theories to inform future rigorous research on student service-learning outcomes. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 20(2), 19-40.
• Democratic Dilemmas of Teaching Service-Learning – Christine Cress 
• Traditional vs. critical service-learning: Engaging the literature to differentiate the two models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 14(2), 50-65.
• Bringle, R. G., & Hatcher, J. A. (2002). Campus–community partnerships: The terms of engagement. Journal of Social Issues, 58(3), 503-516. 
• The Student Companion to Community-Engaged Learning – David M. Donahue and Star Plaxton-Moore
• We are currently working on providing an article resource page.  Please check back at a later time. If you have any questions, please contact engagement@uconn.edu.

Campus Compact

Campus Compact is a national nonprofit organization and the largest, oldest higher education association dedicated to advancing civic and community engagement. Through partnerships between colleges, universities, and communities, Campus Compact empowers institutions to align their academic and civic missions to address complex social challenges. With a network of thousands of presidents, faculty, researchers, students, and community engagement professionals, Campus Compact works to promote equity, justice, and shared prosperity for all.

The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN)

The Research University Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN), established in 2008, brings together R1 research universities committed to advancing civic engagement and engaged scholarship. TRUCEN is an affinity network within Campus Compact, leveraging the expertise, resources, and innovation of top research institutions to address society’s most pressing challenges, thereby fostering partnerships that create lasting social impact.

Engagement Scholarship Consortium

The Engagement Scholarship Consortium (ESC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization dedicated to promoting collaborative partnerships between higher education institutions and their surrounding communities. Comprising member institutions from public and private sectors, ESC fosters university-community partnerships rooted in scholarly excellence. The consortium’s mission is to enhance community capacity through engaged scholarship, addressing societal challenges and creating sustainable, mutually beneficial outcomes.

Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) is a membership organization dedicated to advancing the mission of public research universities. With nearly 250 member institutions, including public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and affiliated organizations, APLU fosters a collaborative community of university leaders. Spanning all 50 states, the District of Columbia, six U.S. territories, Canada, and Mexico, APLU works to strengthen public higher education, promote innovation, and address societal challenges through research, education, and community engagement.

American Association of Colleges and Universities, Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement

The Carnegie Foundation’s Elective Classification for Community Engagement recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an institutional commitment to community engagement. Unlike awards, this classification is an evidence-based documentation of how community engagement is embedded in institutional policies, practices, and culture. Institutions apply through a rigorous process every two years, showcasing their dedication to community partnerships, curricular and co-curricular programming, continuous improvement, and the engagement of faculty, staff, and students. UConn received the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement in 2024, affirming its commitment to fostering meaningful, reciprocal partnerships that address societal needs