Academic Service Learning - Literature review Example

RUNNING HEAD: ACADEMIC SERVICE LEARNING Academic Service Learning Name Institution Date Introduction Academic service learning is promoted as an effective program for preparing new teachers to work with people from diverse groups. It is basically a teaching and learning strategy meant to enhance the understanding of the formal classroom teaching through community service that is of importance to the subject material as well as meaningful to the society. Academic service learning basically makes theoretical course work meaningful through practice as a way of having quality education, as argued by the critical social theorists (Butin, 2005 p. 57-71). In view of this therefore, this paper intends to examine how service learning prepares teachers to work with people from diverse backgrounds. In addition, it will highlight the specific skills and knowledge acquired through service learning and describes how the skills and knowledge can be used to improve the educational outcomes of children from diverse backgrounds. Academic service learning alongside other forms of experiential activities such as practicum and field trips are very important to the students. Experiential activities such as field trips, practicum, and internship are primarily meant to develop the vocational training of learners and enhancement of skills for a particular profession as Butin (2005) highlighted. On the other hand academic service is meant to focus on both the development of the student and the community agency. For instance, groups of student who go out to clean the river banks benefit the community through creating awareness in environmental degradation and its effects as well as enhancing the understanding of the environmental theories and ideas developed in the course work thus making them meaningful. As argued by Carrington & Saggers (2008), Service learning has additional civic learning aspects which offer students the knowledge, skills and values needed to be a well rounded civic responsible citizen. Service learning can be carried out throughout the various levels of learning including secondary schools, post secondary institutions, and technical training institutions and can involve a group of students or even the whole school. Students become active participants in solving real life problems in the society thus developing creativity as well as gaining more skills such as observation, criticality and analyzation that assists in creating a healthy community later on in their careers. Consequently, each community member benefits from the service of the learners as well as getting more knowledge on the issues at hand. Cooskey et al (2010) advise that the learning activities must have goals and objectives which lead to learning as expected and further emphasize that the program must be well monitored in order to realize the set goals. Learning is manifested in the analysis reports developed by the students at the tail end of the service learning. According to Butin (2005) service learning prepares teachers to work with people from diverse backgrounds. Consequent to service learning, the teacher is exposed to different diversity of community participants who hold varying opinions, ideas, values, attitudes and even religious affiliations. As diverse as the community participants so are the students that the teacher will be teaching later on in their career. Lieberman et al (2011) further highlights that pre-service teachers learn to accommodate each and every one in the group respectfully taking into account their opinions, ideas and personality. This will enhance the teaching and learning among students who the Preservice teachers will be exposed to later on regardless of their diverse differences. The great diversity of students will be taken as a benefit rather than failure since those differences will be used in making concepts meaningful by having group discussion sessions where course work is the main agenda. During the discussion periods, many points of view are likely to arise due to diversity of cognition thus broadening the thinking scope of the pupils. This in turn will lead to efficiency in transfer of learning. Gay, (2010) noted that this enhances self efficacy among the learners and reinforce self esteem because of the meaningfulness of the learnt knowledge. Through the great reflection developed by the pre-service teachers in their service learning creative and critical thinking is highly developed. This magnifies the problem solving skills of an individual and through this pre-service teacher is able to solve the problems that may arise due to the diverse opinions and personality predisposed by learners. Also through it the teacher is able to develop better instruction skills and strategies which are the products of the reflective skills developed during academic service learning. This is because reevaluation, criticality and creativity are applied on the teaching method analysis thus forming a better basis of performance. This is as explained in the technical lens of the of Butin’s technical lens(Butin,2005, p. 90) which functions as better teachings for better learning. Through the effective and efficient teaching strategies inclusive teaching is emphasized leading to the molding of a well rounded student who in turn becomes a reliable citizen. For example pre-service teachers will involve the students and enrich the learning environment by all means thus leading to discovery of knowledge. This will eliminate the attitude that the learner is a passive player in the learning process and is always waiting to drink from the teacher. The pre-service teacher learns to appreciate and being sensitive to the diverse culture of the learners that he or she will be exposed to later. These varying cultures lead to predisposition of different behaviors and belief by the students. The teacher will have known in advance the genesis of such behaviors and therefore respond to them appropriately as well as being an agent of change of such behaviors that do not correspond to the societal norms. One becomes conscious of the social environment from which the learners comes from thus being empathetic while handling them. Again the teacher is able to understand and to know the kind of language assistance to give to different student who may be monolingual and the language of teaching is a second one to them. (Lieberman & et al, 2011) At times a pre-service teacher may poses stereotyping character where they have misplaced unexamined assumption, beliefs, attitudes and values as said by Carrington & Saggers, (2008). For example a teacher may have beliefs that the students who perform poorly in academics is as a result of deviant behaviors like drug abusing. The exposure provided by service learning may prove otherwise and justify failure to varying reasons for example physical disability, socio economic status drug abusing and many others. The diversity in intellectual capacity may also justify failure in academic work. The pre-services teachers critically analyses their beliefs, attitudes and values so that they can be in line with reality and not being based on biased knowledge ignorance and false grounds. This leads to the real realization of the better approaches taken towards different categories of students as advised by Butin, (2010). This is because they would not just go by the labels given to different students but will act based on the real reasons for behavior. Skills learnt in academic service learning by pre-service teacher Empathy A pre-teacher is expected to gain the skill of empathy which is more than sympathy in that it is beyond the emotional aspect and the teacher is expected to take on other people’s perspectives and to imagine themselves in the same position so as to be in a position to draws the best conclusion on the matter at hand. Giving judgment drawn from other varying point of view other than one single point of view which may not adequate enough all the same. This approach is very important in giving solutions to the diverse problems encountered by the pupils (Learners) who are equally diverse in characters, beliefs, attitudes, value expectations and many others. When handling the different types of students in the classroom for example the gifted children, the disadvantaged, the morons etc, they should adopt a caring attitude and should carry every one on board as they teach the content rather than being discriminative and using favourism (Butin, 2005) Good leadership skills The aim of academic service learning is to impart leadership skills to the teacher so as to be able to carry out the teaching learning process efficiently and effectively. To some point teachers are leaders of a group. They guide learners on how to carry out learning activities by for example using discussion groups, field trips and being role models among many others. Pre-service teachers also manage classrooms so as to achieve an exclusively optimal learning environment for every learner. Butin (2005) noted that the teachers professionally devout their lives in helping others and therefore should have outstanding leadership skills. Reflection and analyzing skills Both self and society reflection should be adopted by any academician and in this case pre-service teachers in the programs of service learning. this improve and intensify one’s creative and critical thinking thus being re-evaluate their different ideas, values and attitudes so as to change for the better. Also this challenges them to question the existing theories and reconstructing them for the better. In the instruction strategies for example teachers are expected to give sound judgments and to have good problem solving skills and decision making. Handling learner who predisposes so many varying, diverse opinions and characteristics calls for a very reflective mind so as to be able to accommodate every person thus developing the best environment for growth both intellectually emotionally (Darry, 2011) Objective observation Objective observation is the bases of information searching and therefore the genesis of knowledge. Any pre-service teacher should optimize in any service learning in developing their objective observation skill. Through it one is able to note abnormality or normality of a situation and in turn employ the necessary actions so as to explain and describe reasons behind it all. In a situation of diversity like in classroom context the teacher should be very observant so as to be able to note among many things students who are different, maladjusted behaviors in students etc. The teacher is also able to observe expertise skills in particular students and recommend them to other student as models. Also as a teacher observation helps one observe the most effective instructional method and in turn specialize in it. (Lieberman & et al, 2011) Professional Competency skills The motive of any academic practice is to enhance and develop professional skills meant for any professional. As a profession, teaching faculty requires one to have teaching skills which are very effective and efficient as Swennen & Van der Klink (2008) argued. In any educational setting, every teacher should have an obligation of assisting and guiding student in the achievement of knowledge as wells education. The knowledge and skills gained in the process of training as a teacher is very sensitive of the great diversity in classroom context and therefore should be highly embraced as part of any person training to be a teacher. The teacher should embrace teaching responsibly and be aware of their role that is disciplinarian, parent surrogate, counselor, evaluator and a judge among many others. (Butin, 2005) Confidence Service learning boosts the self efficacy of pre-service teachers helping them to be able to confront and to solve any problem they encounter. They are never shy to confront new and unfamiliar situations encountered on the way. The application of criticality and creativity and right mind set natured in the academic service learning helps one to handle situation at ease not foregoing the weight they hold. The diverse career that awaits the pre-service teacher is very mysterious and any kind of behaviors can be manifested. This calls for an individual who is confident and is ready to tackle any situation this is highly supported by (Cooskey & et al, 2010) Conclusion Service learning involves the process of learning through the community service. Both the community and the learners benefit unlike other experiential learning activities where benefit is primarily meant for the learner. This procedure of learning is helpful such that learner gains skills such as creative and critical thinking, objective observation, reflection and professional competency as well as leadership skills. In this particular case a pre-service teacher gains more knowledge to handle students who predispose very diverse culture including personality, beliefs, needs, attitudes, social economic activities etc. pre-service teachers dispose all the unfounded characters, beliefs and attitudes and adopts those that improve their professional competency. This in turn helps in the realization of the social goal of education and helps in nurturing of students to be better productive citizens. References Butin, D. (2005). Service-Learning in Higher Education: Critical Issues and Directions. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Butin, D. (2010). Service-Learning in Theory and Practice: The Future of Community Engagement in Higher Education. Palgrave: New York Cooksey, A. & Olivares, T. (2010). Quick Hits for Service-Learning: Successful Strategies by Award-Winning Teachers. Indiana University Press: Rogues Darry, K. & Clement, N. (2011). Values Pedagogy and Student Achievement: Contemporary Research Evidence. Springer: New York. Gay, G. (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press Lieberman, A. & Miller, L., (2011). Teacher Leadership. John Wiley & Sons: New York City. Saggers, B. & Carrington, S. (2008). Outcomes of a service‐learning program for pre‐service teachers: links to Butin's conceptual model. Teaching Education, Vol 19 (1), p. 57-71. Swennen, A & Van der Klink, M. (2008).Becoming a Teacher Educator: Theory and Practice for Teacher Educators. Springer Read More