Boise State’s strategic plan encourages departments and faculty to offer students more experiential learning and career education. If you plan to design a class or shift your current class to include more experiential learning and or career education, contact the CTL’s Service-Learning (SL) team for support. They help faculty explore SL, an evidence-based teaching practice in which students meet class learning outcomes by serving the larger community. To get you started, SL Director Kara Brascia offers a few tips, steps, and guiding questions.
Tips
- Start small or use campus-based projects
- Plan far ahead — at least one semester in advance — to give plenty of time
- Lean on the SL team; they can support you in connecting with community partners, designing a project, and much more
Getting Started
Before you start, reach out to Kara at KaraBrascia@boisestate.edu. She will walk you through the planning steps, including:
- Clarify learning goals for the service experience, including career education outcomes
- Find and involve a community partner
- Carefully design SL experience with the community partner
- Integrate reflection and adapt your course assignments
- Apply for SL designation
- Allocate time to guide students
Questions to consider
The central question to ask yourself is “considering my learning outcomes, what activity might help students apply course concepts to their communities?”
Other questions might be:
- What type of project might fit well with my current course structure?
- What community connections do I have now, and what community issues are relevant to my students?
- What does the community need?
- What do I want students to learn?
- What skills and strengths can students contribute to the community?
- What constraints might students bring?
- How much time can I invest in managing SL?
Continuing Support
Kara and the SL team can continue to support you as you design your SL project. Ask the SL team for help with:
- Identifying SL approaches that fit your discipline and type of course
- Introductions to community partners
- Logistical support
- Templates for project scoping
- Connecting to other faculty who can share ideas for SL
- Publishing on SL
- Gaining recognition for SL efforts and achievements
Benefits of SL
Teaching with SL takes an upfront investment of time. Is it worth it? Faculty find that SL offers these benefits:
- Increased student motivation
- Invigorated teaching
- New community connections
- Grants and funding opportunities
- Opportunity to apply your discipline to local community issues
- New publishing opportunities
- A way to meet your department’s goals of expanding experiential learning and career education.
So take the leap. You will find yourself part of a supportive and inspired community of faculty who are enhancing students’ learning and strengthening our community.
You are welcome to contact SL Director, Kara Brascia (KaraBrascia@boisestate.edu) to brainstorm what SL could look like in your class.