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Learn, Serve, Earn!Students in Service Tuition Awards About Community Based LearningForms |
Frequently Asked Questions |
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What is community-based learning?Often referred to as service-learning, community-based learning is defined by Barbara Jacoby and Elizabeth Hollander, two of the leading scholars on community based learning, as follows: (Community-based) learning is experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Reflection and reciprocity are key concepts of (community-based) learning.
The engaged campus, like the community-based learning student, recognizes that knowledge cannot be separated from the purposes to which it is directed. The engaged campus is not just located within a community, it is intimately connected to the public purposes and aspirations of community life itself. The engaged campus is unable to separate its unique responsibility for the development of knowledge from the role of knowledge in a democratic society to form the basis for social progress and human equality.
These quotes introduce the report and recommendations of the Disappearing Task Force on Community-Based Learning. This essential document details the history of community-based learning at Evergreen, and the process and findings of community consultation that produced recommendations leading ultimately to the establishment of the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action. That's nice, but can you give me some examples?Sure. Students in Lin Nelson and Anne Fischel's Local Knowledge program worked with homeless youth to create a documentary on sexual abuse and victimization among youth who were homeless. This project was at the core of a strategy of involving homeless youth in reducing sexual victimization on the street. Other students in the program organized the Gleaners' Coalition, which is gleaning left-over food from local farms and distributing the produce to food banks and organizations working with low income people in Olympia. The group has formed a non-profit and is planning to open a "Gleaners' Café" to feed homeless and non-homeless people together. Students in Sonya Weidenhaupt and Cynthia Kennedy's program "Waste and Want" worked with a variety of projects, including the Thurston County Food Bank, the Olympia Greenway Project, and Providence Missions International to explore the connection between consumption, waste and poverty - while providing important community service. Residents of Evergreen's Community Action House took part in organizing peace activities against the war in Iraq, participated in a community garage sale to benefit victims of the tsunami in SE Asian in December 2004, and organized a fundraiser to help build a new fire station in Shelton. What's the place of community-based learning in an Evergreen education?The five foci of Evergreen's pedagogy and curriculum include two that are really at the core of community-based learning: personal engagement in learning, and linking theory and practice. In addition, community-based learning has the potential to contribute significant to the balance of the foci: interdisciplinary study, collaborative work, and teaching/learning across significant differences. Evergreen faculty and students have integrated community-based learning and other forms of community service into Evergreen's academic life since the first year of classes. Is community-based learning the same as internships?At Evergreen, we make a distinction between community-based learning and internships. Because the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action is relatively new, this is still evolving. Right now, we are defining the difference as follows. Community-based learning includes one-time or shorter-term projects that expose students to community-based issues and work. Examples include academic program-related community service days or volunteer service performed by students. In addition, community-based work can include longer-term research or advocacy and community-development projects on community issues that are not tied to a particular organization's mission or ongoing work. Examples include research on a community issue, media work or other community arts, or other issue-oriented community organizing. At Evergreen, many faculty and students learn and use theories and practices of participatory research strategies in their individual or group projects. Internships generally involve work by a student one-on-one over a longer-period, like a full quarter, that supports the mission or work of a community-based organization or business and gives the students hands-on experience skills. Generally, if the work is sponsored and supervised by a community organization, takes place 10 hours or more a week over a full quarter, and is linked to academic learning outcomes, it's an internship. Is community-based learning paid?Usually not directly. However, there is a program called Students in Service that makes educational awards of between $1,000 and $2,250 for community-based volunteer work. This can include work completed as part of community-based learning experiences. |
Related Links
Center for Community-Based Learning and Action Resource Room Coordinator Community Catalyst |
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