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Service-learning is a hybrid curriculum that puts students in direct contact with the needs of a community around them. Taking an experiential approach to learning, service-learning provides an outlet for students to take their education from within the classroom and apply it to a real-world setting. When developed successfully, service-learning challenges students to use the knowledge and skills they gained as a tool in tackling real world civic and social issues. To be successful, these programs must have a component that requires students to actively participate in community partnerships. Effective service-learning acts as a bridge between university and community—giving students an opportunity to grow and develop in their civic positionalities, and offering communities external support and resources they can use to move themselves forward. This relationship sounds picturesque, but the practice is far from perfect. Research demonstrates that certain examples of service-learning curriculum ignore the community perspective or lack the opportunity for students to become actively involved. These issues often result in negligible impact, passive participation, and stunted civic development. To combat these deficiencies, then, universities should adhere to an accountability framework. One way to do this is by conducting comparative analyses of existing pedagogy. By conducting a critical comparative analysis of existing service-learning research and localized service-learning pedagogies/student experience, this thesis asks what happens when you put the student experience into conversation with the pedagogical research. What can this kind of dialogue reveal about the pedagogies that the research advocates for? How do these different pedagogies spark the potential for students and community partners to thrive in a service-learning environment? How do they limit them? Asking these questions will demonstrate how to maintain that service-learning practices, regardless of university differences, follow examples of effective service-learning that's established by existing literature.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Education for Community Building))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Service-learning is the merging of academic work with real-life community service activities that encourages students to reflect and think critically about their experiences. Although service-learning has been used in various disciplines, it has not been used extensively with English language learners. However, it offers ESL (English as a Second Language) students the possibility of expanding their potentials beyond the four walls of the classroom. This multiple-case study examined the unique perspectives of six adult ESL students from five different countries. Data collection consisted of the students' written work (journals, reflections papers, and projects) and semi-structured interviews. By offering ESL students opportunities to provide a service to others in authentic English-speaking environments, these students gained communicative competence and developed confidence in themselves. Although the participants were nervous about working in the community initially, they overcame their anxiety by using various strategies and realized that they do have the ability to communicate successfully with English speakers in the "real world," and they possess valuable skills that they can offer to the community. Additional benefits to the students included increasing their knowledge of American culture and history, developing a higher level of motivation, and forming connections to other human beings. Challenges included overcoming fear and feelings of incompetence and sustaining the same levels of confidence and fluency, once the service-learning project and the semester were over.

The purposes of this research are to investigate the situation and attitude of participation of the students in the volunteer services courses at National Sun Yat-sen University¡]NSYSU¡^, and to explore the influences of the students¡¦ personal factors on this issue. Besides, this research discusses the relation between the situation and attitude of participation in the service-learning courses. The population is students who enrolled in the volunteer services course in the second semester of 93 academic year at NSYSU. The research uses ¡§convenience sampling¡¨. A questionnaire designed by the researcher is distributed to 417 out of 538 freshmen who took part in volunteer services courses. After deducting invalid samples, the count of valid samples are 410. The statistic methods used in this research include mean, percent, standard deviation, t test, ANOVA, and kai square. According to the data collected, the important findings of this research are as follows. First, the descending order of the types of service-learning which the students on NSYSU participated is ¡§the service to beautify the school¡¨, ¡§community service outside of school¡¨, ¡§professional service¡¨, ¡¨the service to clean the surrounding of the school¡¨, and ¡§administrative service¡¨. Thus, the types of service-learning are centralized in the service within school, and the mostly is the labor. The descending order of the time-arrangement is ¡§regulation time¡¨, ¡§time arranged by myself¡¨, ¡§not sure, and must wait the notice¡¨, and ¡§the other¡¨ (had not serviced yet). In the aspect of reflection, the descending order of the types of reflection is ¡§reflection by myself¡¨, ¡§service note¡¨, ¡§group discussion¡¨, and ¡§reading the books about service¡¨. The ones who took part in community service outside of school are more likely to reflect during the process of the service. Second, the descending order of the score in attitude of participation is affection, action-tendency, whole, and cognition attitude. Third, genders, schools, and experiences in volunteer services course have significant differences in the types and the time-arrangement of service-learning. Fourth, ¡§the time-arrangement of service-learning¡¨ significantly relates to the cognition and affection attitude of participation in service-learning. And the reflection significantly relates to whole attitude and the sub-attitude of participation in service-learning (cognition, affection, and action-tendency).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Liberty University School of Education, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed March 2, 2010). PDF text: 1 v. (ca. 115 p.) ; 222 K. UMI publication number: AAT 3386552. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed February 25, 2010). PDF text: viii, 239 p. ; 12 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3386548. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.