Service Learning - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... In this regard, service learning can be defined as the method that involves the teaching of students through active formal learning together with enhanced participation in the social contexts such as community development. In this regard, the principals and practices of the formal learning processes are run concurrently with the social practices that are mainly beneficial to the immediate community (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). Indeed, service learning is normally under the category of experimental education whereby its implementation occurs in the form of youth service. Due to its complex nature, service learning normally goes hand in hand with the interaction of various people of all diversity (Butin, 2008). Due to this effect, the academic service learning has proved itself beyond any reasonable doubt that it is certainly an effective program for preparing new teachers to work with people from diverse groups. This means that a number of specific skills and knowledge exist that both the students and the teachers acquire in the process. In this sense, these skills do a great deal of work in improving the educational outcomes of children from diverse backgrounds (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2011). This paper, with specific reference to Butin’s conceptual framework, analytically discusses the impact of academic service learning in promoting coping with diversity at the educational institutions in order to improve the learning outcomes of the students. Indeed, academic service learning is a crucial process of learning that incorporates both the formal and the communal components of the educational framework that the students undergo in order to be wholesome (Butin, 2008). While the students undergo thoughtfully organized learning, they in the process engage in such activities that are gainful to the community at large. This helps strengthen the bond between the teachers, students, and the locals of the communities with the schools being the epicenter of this mutual relationship. This service normally meets the needs of the immediate community through the integration of the academic curriculum of the students into the educational components that relate to the community in order to reflect an experience of service (National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, 2013). More often than not, the opportunities that service learning offers students range from the application of the learning of the classroom to the enhancement of the local agencies that are in existence for the benefit of the community (Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, 2011). Therefore, service learning broadly involves the deliverance of service to others through an organized academic learning criterion (Butin, 2008). A simple service learning activity may involve collecting trash in the urban areas to add value to the community before proceeding to a thorough scrutiny of the effect of the trash collected on the environment through a classroom and laboratory process. Afterwards, the students may opt to share the results of their findings as far as pollution is concerned with the local residents in an attempt to sensitize them on the need to protect and conserve the environment (Carrington & Saggers, 2008). Through such activities of service learning, both students and teachers are bound to cope ...Download file to see next pagesRead More