Implementing a service-learning project by satisfying state standards
Abstract
Service-learning enriches students academically, advances teachers professionally and strengthens the community. This effective practice offers examples of model programs in service-learning that incorporate the Maryland school-based service-learning best practices, and describes the best practices used at these replication sites. Excerpted from the report A Replication Guide for School-Based Service-Learning by the Maryland Student Service Alliance of the Maryland State Department of Education, compiled in June 1996.Issue
Implementing a service-learning project that fulfills the best practices of service-learning as defined by the state of Maryland.Action
Examples of model programs in service-learning that encompass the Maryland school-based service-learning best practices are as follows:
Serving Those in Need. While reading "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, middle school students focus on the theme of poverty. The main idea of the project is to provide short-term assistance for needy single mothers and infants. The students form a partnership with a local agency to determine what the mothers and babies need. As students collect items they hang a "Helping Hand" with their name on the "Giving Tree" to promote a sense of community spirit. The students distribute the baby items to the mothers either directly or indirectly. This project can be adapted to help any poor family with young children.
Serving Historic Sites. Middle school students research the lives of individuals buried in a historic mill town cemetery dating from 1841. Students go to the local historical society to locate original documents, such as deeds and census records, regarding their person. Students photocopy the original documents and laminate the copies for a permanent collection on the cemetery at the school. Students complete a photo document of the cemetery in its pre-restoration phase that shows others how to proceed at the beginning of the restoration. Students plot and line pathways through the three-acre site. They identify and remove trees to provide proper sunlight for low-growing, non-maintenance ground cover that they plant to prevent erosion.
Serving Senior Citizens. Serving seniors is a service-learning unit for middle school students that matches a list of objectives concerning the elderly with existing curriculum objectives. Lessons include readings, discussions, practicing communication and active-listening skills, sensitivity training, guest speakers, letter-writing, creating holiday cards, interviewing the elderly, planning and executing one senior party, and planning and executing a senior picnic in the spring in which all students are involved.
Service-Learning Through Themes in Literature. This service-learning program is integrated into the ninth grade English curriculum focusing on a teacher-selected theme in literature. In the past the literature chosen has been linked by the common theme of tolerance and the primary bibliography included: "The Contender," by Robert Lipsyte, "The Miracle Worker," by William Gibson, "Night" by Elie Wiesel, and "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare. Individual students from the English class pair up with students with disabilities from a partner school to engage in joint activities, including recreation, a service project, a dance, a scavenger hunt/field trip to a nearby mall, a field trip to Baltimore's Science Center, and either a picnic in the spring or a holiday celebration in December.
Serving Historic Sites and the Environment: Adopt a Wetland. In the past, ninth grade students worked with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Director of Education and a horticulturist at Historic Saint Mary's City (a museum in southern Maryland) to improve and maintain Key Swamp's environmental balance. The students also promoted plants and animals in the area that existed at the time of the first settlers. They documented and removed introduced invasive plants and created a living exhibit of the plants used by the original native populations and settlers.
Stream Restoration and Maintenance. Service-learning activities for middle school students included building an outdoor classroom and study area near the stream in front of the school, performing stream clean-up, maintenance and restoration. The project (which has been funded each year by the Chesapeake Bay Trust) has included: construction of an outdoor classroom; construction of animal habitats (bat and bird houses); construction of steps and retaining walls; sampling and studying of fish, water and plants; compass course construction, and trail construction and maintenance.
Kids Sew for Kids.This service-learning project has been integrated into an eighth grade Home Economics sewing semester class. Students work in pairs and select an outfit to make for a homeless child. The outfits are color-coordinated, and each partner sews one piece. Outfits have ranges from sweat suits to shorts sets to backpacks.
Replicable models of service-learning share several key characteristics:
- All Model Programs meet the seven best practices of school-based service-learning.
- The Model Programs meet the standards for credit-based service-learning in the estate by including the three essential steps of preparation, action and reflection.
- Any of the Model Programs are replicable and modifiable to different grade and ability levels.
- Each one of the Model Programs is an example of service-learning that is "infused" into the curriculum over a sustained period of time.
- Each Model Program provides teachers with an opportunity to integrate performance-based assessment and other education reform initiatives with service to the community and citizenship education.
Context
In 1992, Maryland became the first state in the nation to require participation in service-learning for all public school students. After the statewide service-learning graduation requirement was implemented in 1992, the Maryland Student Service Alliance (MSSA) created an assessment tool to give teachers standards, help them evaluate their service-learning and identify specific ways to improve their practice. To create Maryland's best practices, MSSA interviewed 80 teachers from around the state and the themes that emerged became the seven best practices. Schools that implement model programs are replication sites, using best practices as both a methodology and an assessment tool.
The best practices and various approaches to them are as follows: (A Replication Guide for School-Based Service-Learning, by the Maryland Student Service Alliance of the Maryland Department of Education, June 1996.)
- Meet a recognized need in the community.
Approach 1: Provide short-term assistance addressing a community need.
Approach 2: Provide ongoing assistance addressing a community need.
Approach 3: Work toward a lasting solution to a community problem.
- Achieve curricular objectives through service-learning
Approach 1: Incorporate service-learning into a unit
Approach 2: Use service-learning to unify the teaching of content and skills throughout the year.
Approach 3: Teach content and/or skills in different disciplines using service-learning throughout the year.
- Reflect through service-learning experience.
Approach 1: At the end of the experience, students contemplate their service-learning experience and receive response.
Approach 2: Throughout the process, students contemplate their service-learning experience and receive response.
- Develop student responsibility.
Approach 1: Establish choices for students in how they implement the teacher-planned service-learning.
Approach 2: Share responsibility with students for service-learning development and implementation.
Approach 3: Facilitate student definition, coordination and implementation of service-learning.
- Establish community partnerships.
Approach 1: A teacher consults with community partner for information and resources.
Approach 2: Students interact with community partners.
Approach 3: Students, teachers and community partners collaborate as an action team.
- Plan ahead for service-learning.
Approach 1: Plan service-learning independently.
Approach 2: Collaborate with colleagues, students and others to plan service-learning.
- Equip students with knowledge and skills needed for service.
Approach 1: Equip students with knowledge and skills at the beginning of the experience.
Approach 2: Equip students with knowledge and skills as needs arise or as the project changes.
Citation
The Maryland Student Service Alliance. Cemetery Preservation: A Replication Guide for School-Based Service-Learning. The Maryland Department of Education, June 1996.Outcome
As teachers carry out Model Programs they act as ambassadors of service-learning by speaking at local, state, and national conferences; they help create assessment tools and become a resource for service-learning in the school district. As a result, teachers advance professionally, students are academically richer, and the community is strengthened.Posted On
October 16, 2002For More Information
Resources
The following resource(s) are available at the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse Library:
Cemetery Preservation: A Replication Guide for School-Based Service-Learning
Item number: 110/GC/MSS/1996
Related Practices
Related sites
Maryland Student Service Alliance