As Kansas State University puts forward its strategic plan with emphasis on applied learning, how can our faculty prepare to engage with community and create stronger, efficient, mutually-beneficial relationships that enhance the student experience and fulfill a community need? One way is through service-learning.
In spring 2023, the Staley School of Leadership welcomed Lori Kniffin, former K-State instructor, to campus for a guest lecture on engaged learning experiences. Here, we asked Lori to reflect on her personal experiences a little more in depth, and share more examples of service-learning.
This is the first blog in a series about service-learning, its origins, and how to incorporate service-learning into classrooms and programs. Read more posts from this series: What is service-learning?
What is service-learning?
In junior high and high school, I volunteered many hours through student organizations and my church (as lots of students do). I cleaned parks, served food, visited with the elderly and did many other activities that I can’t recall today. I logged many hours and made a difference in my community. Volunteering is a vital aspect of civic life; yet, it is often separate from one’s academic life.
The first time I connected service to my academic life was in my undergraduate education at K-State through service-learning. “Service-learning can be defined as both a pedagogy and change strategy that engages students, community members, and instructors/staff in co-creating relationships that integrate academic material, community-engaged activities, and critical reflection to advance public purposes and to achieve clearly articulated academic learning, civic learning, and personal growth goals” (Kniffin et al., in press). These Venn diagrams can be helpful in breaking down the major components of service-learning and categories of learning goals.
One of my most powerful service-learning experiences included academic material about leadership, paired with relevant engagement at a daytime homeless shelter in Texas through a co-curricuular program called alternative breaks. Our group volunteered during the day, attended some dinners and events in the evenings, and reflected as a team each night. My biggest take-away from that experience was the vast network of partners that collaborated to address the issues of homelessness, including daytime and nighttime shelters, social workers, the Salvation Army, food pantries, local businesses, hospitals, law enforcement, politicians and other individuals and organizations. The partners worked together by creating strong relationships, shared data systems, and joint educational programs. Addressing complex issues like homelessness requires multi-sector, collective approaches. Thirteen years after this service-learning experience, I am a leadership educator and scholar with a focus on this kind of leadership.
Clearly, I had academic learning around leadership. I saw leadership from a new perspective that truly embodied it as a collective activity. For me, that was deeply connected to civic learning and how civic organizations provide essential functions in society. I also had personal growth in many ways, but one way was developing my identity as a civic donor. As part of my service, I entered a large stack of people’s contact information into a donor database for the daytime shelter. I had never regularly donated to an organization before, but through that simple task, I realized the importance of lots of small and large donors coming together to support an organization. I became a donor myself to this organization for many years following.
Revisiting the definition of service-learning, it is both a pedagogy and change strategy. There are many ways to teach academic learning goals such as assigning readings, having discussions, lecturing, or creating labs. As a pedagogy, or teaching and learning strategy, service-learning helps students achieve academic learning goals by also advancing community goals. When education partners and community partners co-create goals and work to achieve them, it can be a strategy for change in both arenas.
Here are some examples of relevant service that meet academic and community goals across different disciplines:
| Discipline | Academic Learning Goal | Relevant Service/Engagement | Community Goal |
| Biology | Accurately identify plants in the wild | Identify and pull noxious weeds in parks | Maintain vibrant community spaces |
| Modern Languages | Translate written English to written Spanish | Translating brochures for a domestic violence shelter | Extend reach of shelter services to Spanish speakers |
| Education | Effectively apply classroom management techniques | Teach a lesson on how to apply to college in the local high school | Reduce anxiety for students about higher education |
| Construction Science | Gain mastery in pouring concrete | Pour concrete for the library to use for summer outdoor story time | Increase literacy for children |
Higher education institutions are part of those multi-sector collaborations that can address complex challenges—this is especially true for land-grant institutions like K-State. Service-learning and other forms of applied learning can bring together academic and community partners to advance learning goals and community goals and create more engaged citizens. This kind of learning can help students learn in real contexts alongside people already doing the work so that college does not put off real life for four years, but rather enhances real-life with academic, civic, and personal learning while also being a strategy for change in communities.
References
Clayton, P. H., & Kniffin, L. E. (2017, January 24). An introduction to service-learning and community engagement as co-inquiry. [Blog post]. Elon, NC: Center for Engaged Learning, Elon University. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/an-introduction-to-service-learning-and-community-engagement-as-co-inquiry/
Kniffin, L. E., Botkin, H. M., Whitney, B. C., Clayton, P. H., & Bringle, R. G. (in press). Curricular service-learning by and for students. In C. Baik & E. Kahu (Eds.), Research handbook on the student experience in higher education. Edward Elgar Publishing.
