Best Practices

• Academic credit is for learning outcomes, not service
• Do not compromise academic rigor
• Establish learning objectives
• Establish criteria for selection of service placements
• Provide educationally sound learning strategies to harvest community learning and realize course learning objectives
• Prepare students for learning from community
• Minimize distinction between students’ community learning role and classroom learning role
• Be prepared for variation in, and some loss of control with, student learning outcomes
• Maximize the community orientation and community responsibility components of the course
• Rethink the faculty instructional role

Jeffrey Howard, ed. Praxis I: A Faculty Casebook on Community Service Learning.

The process for integrating service-learning into your course should involve understanding the important elements and how each will be reflected in the course.  As well, one should examine which model of service-learning will you work from as you develop “clear sense of how to structure the service component and why this service activity is being utilized in this course” (Heffernan, iii-iv).
 
For more in-depth material on the integration process, look to the following sections: Course Development, Course Designation, and Best Practices.