Kara:
You raise some interesting questions. I think at the heart of the debate is
whether service-learning is strictly to enhance student learning through
real-life applications, or whether its goal is to enhance students' sense
of community and civic responsibility. For what it's worth, the Health
Professions Schools in Service to the Nation project found that students
in the health fields (a form of professional training) benefitted
substantially from the non-skills-related tasks in which they were
engaged because these tasks provided opportunities to consider the
context for the health service -- e.g., getting to know clients in a
homeless shelter and understanding the stories each has to tell, as
opposed to simply coming in and doing blood pressure screenings
because that was a skill they needed to learn. Therefore, I think there is
real value in the "extra" hours. Further, it would be difficult to monitor
"service hours" for library research, etc., related to a specific project,
and trying to track those hours may encourage "bean counting" rather
than a holistic approach to partnering with a community agency, which
hopefully would help the student begin to identify with the agency's
mission and clients so that the project, hopefully, becomes more
internally motivated than externally motivated (i.e., for a grade).
Robyn Gibboney
Director of Development
Indiana University School of Nursing
1111 Middle Drive, NU 101
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5107
317-274-4293
317-274-2996 (fax)
rgibbone@wpo.iupui.edu