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Crucial Steps to Success

After planning comes implementation. By this point faculty have explored the concepts of SL, identified learning objectives for the SL, established community partnerships, and developed the syllabus.

Now the focus shifts to explaining SL to students, helping them get started, incorporating reflection, providing guidance, monitoring progress, and evaluating the experience. SL staff are available to assist during all of these phases.

Caile Spear teaching
Dr. Caile Spear discusses service-learning with her students
  1. Explain SL:  Help students understand why, what, and how of SL.
  2. Connect the SL with course content:   Student learning and satisfaction depend directly on students seeing themselves applying course concepts to their SL.
  3. Guide Reflection:  Please don’t “hope” students make the connections, take time to guide them. Many faculty use this simple DEAL model or start with standard reflection questions.
  4. Monitor Progress: There are specific ways to make sure students are on track.
  5. Evaluate & Assess:   Offer feedback, measure performance, assess teaching effectiveness.