Service-Learning: A Balanced Approach to Experiential Education

THE SERVICE-LEARNING STRUGGLE FOR OVER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY, education researchers and practitioners have struggled to determine how to best characterize service-learning. In 1979, Robert Sigmon defined service-learning as an experiential education approach that is premised on "reciproca1learning" (Sigmon, 1979). He suggested that because learning flows from service activities, both those who provide service and those who receive it "learn" from the experience. In Sigmon's view, service-learning occurs only when both the providers and recipients of service benefit from the activities. Today, however, the term "service-learning" has been used to characterize a wide array of experiential education endeavors, from volunteer and community service projects to field The Corporation for National Service provides a narrower definition that sees service-learning as a "method under which students learn and develop through active participation in ... thoughtfully organized service experiences that meet actual community needs, that [are] integrated into the students' academic curriculum or provide structured time for [reflection, and] that enhance what is taught in school by extending student learning beyond the classroom and into the community ... " (Corporation for National and Community Service, 1990). The confounding use of the service-learning term may be one reason why research on the impacts of service-learning has been difficult to conduct. In 1989, Honnet and Poulsen developed the Wingspread Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning (Honnet & Poulsen, 1989, TODAY, HOWEVER, THE TERM "SERVICE-LEARNING" HAS BEEN USED TO CHARACTERIZE Appendix B). While these guidelines offer a useful set of best practices for service oriented educational programs, they are not solely germane to service-learning and could easA WIDE ARRAY OF EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION ENDEAVORS, FROM VOLUNTEER AND