- What is service learning? What does it mean for different stakeholders? The community you are serving? The faculty teaching the course? The DSS program? And yourself?
Accroding to Jacoby, he defines “service-learning as a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs, together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes (Jacoby, 1996c).”
I personally agree with Jacoby’s point of view. So, start from there, I think for different stakeholders Service Learning could mean differently. For the recipient, service-learning is more about service. For the provider, service-learning is more about study.
For the community you are serving, service-learning is more like a benefit, since the community’s needs often will determine what kind of services the students will be doing.
For the faculty teaching the course, service-learning are new ways to teach familiar material and to engage students more deeply in learning.
For the DSS program, the direction of service-learning become more precise. In the DSS program, service-learning will most likely be community services, which offers students opportunities to engage in local communities in Shanghai.
For myself, service-learning means getting engage with the local communities, profit organisations, or nonprofits organizations, and while providing my time and my resources, I will also be studying. In the service, I’m expecting to be both recipient and provider. For example, as I will be getting engaged with a local community, I will first find out the community’s need, and help them to fulfill their needs. At the end, what I will gain is the ability to find the needs and slove the needs.
- Time is very precious in our busy modern-day life. Why are you devoting your precious time to community service?
There are many reasons of why I want to devote my precious time to community service. First, as I said, community service doesn’t only means providing my time and my resources, community service also means a process of studying and growing. Second, I like to get engaged with communities, I’m good at socializing and I enjoy this process. Last, I think it is important to contribute my power to the society; I probably don’t have the power to change the world yet, but I can strat making contributions to my local communities, and if I have a chance to do so, I would definitely do it.
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