"Incorporating service-learning in my course is much easier than I imagined. The office assists in finding appropriate projects, supporting students, and ensuring effective partnerships to support student learning - it makes the opportunity accessible for faculty and valuable for student learning.”
-Eric "Luke" Krieg, Professor of Sociology
Do you need community partners for a spring course? Fostering good relationships takes time. In order to effectively identify community partners for the spring semester, the CCE must be aware of your service-learning course and need for community partners by August 18, 2022. We cannot guarantee that community partners can be identified after this date. Our goal is to help you establish meaningful community experiences for your students, and positive outcomes for the community. Contact us today to discuss your partner needs.
Community-engaged learning and service-learning at our institution is driven by faculty who choose to incorporate a community-based learning project into a course that provides students with hands-on opportunities to learn course content while engaging with local communities. The Civic and Community Engagement Office provides a strong support system and services for our community-engaged and service-learning faculty.
The Civic and Community Engagement Office can provide faculty who are interested in incorporating service-learning into their class with any of the following services:
assistance in identifying and designing relevant community-based projects;
support for syllabus creation and alterations;
assisting with course conversion and service-learning course designation process;
developing partnerships with community partner agencies, as well as providing community organization contact information;
assistance with coordinating and facilitating faculty and community organization meetings;
ongoing communication with community organizations throughout the semester;
coordinating student schedules and assisting students with logistical arrangements;
providing service-learning orientation sessions to introduce students, answer questions about community partner agencies, scheduling, logistics, and safety, in efforts to ensure the success of the partnerships;
problem-solving and troubleshooting issues that arise;
offering student and community partner assessment opportunities to help determine the effectiveness of the service-learning component of your course;
conducting faculty training and other professional development opportunities, including a faculty fellowship program and a conference on service-learning in partnership with the Western New York Service-Learning Coalition;
faculty training on service-learning pedagogy and implementation;
identifying resources (articles, books, reflection activity examples);
connections to resources such as our resource library, professional development opportunities and training, new facilitation of the service-learning course designation process, forms, documentation, and assessment and evaluation tools;
networking with Buffalo State College service-learning faculty members and faculty members at other regional institutions through the Western New York Service-Learning Coalition;
recognizing faculty and students who have demonstrated excellence in service-learning at the annual Celebration of Community Engagement.
"Service-learning is education in action: developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills; taking on real issues such as hunger, homelessness, and diversity; and valuing people of all ages as citizens with talents to offer." (www.nylc.org)
Service-learning courses have the potential to be some of the most meaningful courses in a student's academic career. Service-learning courses offer faculty members the opportunity to provide students with the chance to apply course concepts in a real-work situation and see the value of their education in preparing them to improve the community and world. Service-learning is a method of instruction in which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully designed service that
Service-learning projects do not replace class time and instruction; they are offered to enhance classroom learning. Class is not to be canceled for students to complete community experiences independently during scheduled meeting times.
The Civic and Community Engagement Office staff is delighted to meet with you throughout the semester to discuss anything related to incorporating service-learning into your course work. Please feel free to contact Laura Hill Rao, Director, or the Service-Learning Faculty Coordinator (TBD) at (716) 878-3919 to begin the conversation.
Civic and Community Engagement
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