Service Learning @ PVCC

The service-learning field is 50 years old in the United States. Much has been developed over that time in the fields of K-12 schooling, higher education, and community organizations. People who have been involved in the movement have worked individually and collaboratively to include service-learning as an effective pedagogy and program in educational settings. They have created opportunities for students, teachers, faculty, and community members to learn about academic content and personal commitment to serving others for social change and community impact. In this book we hear from individuals who have been involved in the effort for more than 30 or 40 years about what they have learned from their experiences and what wisdom they can share with others who will be involved for the next several decades. Their experience, insight, and understanding will hopefully help younger people to improve and expand on the movement and place service-learning and community engagement as a regular part of American education.

This book proposes community service-learning as a critical pedagogy that connects learners and communities to address key challenges in heritage language education. The book's purpose is two-fold: to fill a crucial gap in empirical research on community service-learning in the heritage language context, as well as to provide language educators and practitioners essential guidelines for designing community service-learning courses, with particular attention paid to the characteristics and needs of Spanish heritage language learners. This book presents compelling evidence demonstrating the central role community service-learning plays in developing heritage language learners' identities, connections to the heritage language community, language attitudes, and social, cultural, and sociolinguistic awareness. Importantly, this book also addresses the often-overlooked perspectives of community partners and liaisons. As the first original research monograph on community service-learning for Spanish heritage language learners, this pioneering book will undoubtedly aid students, instructors and administrators across all levels of language education.

The pressures upon students from employers are greater than ever. Demands for a highly skilled workforce in a digitalized economy mean that higher education institutions need to do more to prepare their student bodies for this new way of working. The geographical boundaries set by traditional on-campus courses prevent most universities from allowing online students to engage in community service. Online service-learning responds to this limitation by initiating the transfer of in-person community service to the online environment. E-service learning addresses the growing demand for flexible online courses and programs.  Anchored in research and supported by eight years of successful implantation, this book presents an award-winning e-service-learning model which allows students to enhance their employability with real work experience. Faculty can go beyond theory while building their service requirements, and may use e-service-learning to offer real world applications and hands-on experience. Clients benefit from pro bono services, and universities are able to fulfill their strategic goals, serve the community-at-large, and grow their online programs by offering students a unique online course experience.This book advocates a model and instructions for faculty to successfully integrate a remote service-learning and consulting component in an online course making this an illuminating text for higher education researchers and leaders alike.