Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education

INFLUENCE OF INTERNATIONAL SERVICE LEARNING ON DPT STUDENT PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOR DEVELOPMENT

Alison Kreger — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

Service-learning is a form of experiential-learning being incorporated into many academic programs to enable students to practice skills learned in class while providing a service to communities in need. Being able to justify the implementation of service-learning experiences can be a challenge. Some benefits include increased awareness of global health, development of comparing and compassion for the community and patients, development of critical and clinical thinking, and practice of skills learned.

This study assessed Core Value Self-Assessment of students from a cohort of entry level Doctor of Physical Therapy students who had a mix of participation in service-learning (local, regional, and international). It was hypothesized that students who participated in international service-learning experiences would score higher on the Core Value Self-Assessment tool (total score and each individual core value). One -Way ANOVAs were used to assess the data. Results found that international service-learning participants scored highest in social responsibility. The results were not statistically significant. Participation in service-learning is an option to consider for experiential learning to help develop professional behavior. Future research could consider Core Value Self-Assessment pre and post service-learning experience to consider more causative relationship between service-learning and Core Value Self-Assessment changes.

A Cross-Disciplinary Undergraduate Research Project: Bonding through Books with Incarcerated Mothers and Grandmothers

Dr. April N. Terry, Dr. Sarah Broman Miller — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

This study addresses two areas of need in the literature. First, we recognize the impact of experiential-learning on student outcomes and fewer opportunities within the social sciences. Second, as academics in criminal justice and education, we are aware of educational needs of incarcerated persons. The current study blended together experiential-learning alongside a reading program within one state’s women’s correctional facility, targeting (grand)mothers. Two faculty and 40 students, spanning two academic departments, completed a research-based experiential-learning project with one community partner. This undergraduate project sought to benefit students, incarcerated (grand)mothers, and the (grand)children of incarcerated (grand)mothers through a read-aloud program. Through student observations, themed results found incarcerated (grand)mothers had negative school experiences regarding reading. Subsequently, they did not read with their (grand)children prior to incarceration but used reading as a means to escape their incarceration. Students’ reflections demonstrated value to self, participants, and the community, through participation in research-based experiential-learning.

Using a Critical Service-Learning Approach to Prepare Public Health Practitioners

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

Training the next generation of public health practitioners to promote health equity requires public health graduate programs to cultivate students’ skills in community partnership. The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requires Master of Public Health (MPH) students to produce a high-quality written product as part of their culminating Integrative Learning Experience (ILE). Because CEPH recommends that ILE written products be useful to community partners, ILEs can draw lessons from the field of experiential education, especially the social justice aligned principles of critical service-learning (CSL). However, the current literature lacks descriptions of how to operationalize CSL’s principles within graduate-level culminating experiences. To help fill this gap, we discuss a CSL ILE for MPH students, called Capstone. We describe CSL’s key components and explain and assess how each is operationalized. We hope Capstone’s model will help educators engage more deeply with CSL practices to advance health equity.

Toward a Model for Service-learning in Advanced Writing Classrooms:

Cameron Bushnell, Henna Messina — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

This paper explores service-learning as a mode of cultivating student stakeholders in university education. Previous studies have examined increasing student engagement through experiential learning, writing across the curriculum, and recognizing the interdisciplinarity of general education classrooms, but few have brought these elements into conversation as contexts that might foster students’ sense of ownership of their education. While students are recipients of carefully planned faculty-designed curricula, this study suggests that cross-curricular programs, such as writing in the disciplines, could benefit from student input given their direct experience of writing assignments and expectations in multiple classroom environments. This study investigates, in hybrid mode (intersectional pedagogy and auto-ethnographic case study), a plan aimed at developing cross-campus knowledge about writing instruction through an inter-campus service-learning project. The featured project underscores the importance of experiential learning that enhances student estimation of writing as a mode of learning, involves students in the evaluation of campus writing curricula, and develops a sense of writing as highly valuable to university education and integral to all fields in subsequent professional lives.

Graduate Healthcare Student Perspectives of the Features of an Effective International Service-Learning Experience: A Mixed Methods Study

Monique Chabot, Maggie Mistek, Said Nafai, Elizabeth Stevens-Nafai — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

International service-learning provides valuable cultural and clinical experiences to healthcare students. Little is published on best practices regarding the design of international service-learning for maximum learning on this group. This study utilized a mixed methods approach to gather occupational therapy students’ perceptions of the pre-trip preparation and experience logistics, supports, and activities during an international service-learning trip to Morocco to guide future experiences for optimal student learning. The quantitative survey indicated participants desired more clinical activities on the experience while keeping the number of cultural activities the same. The qualitative interviews revealed a desire for increased traditional clinical activities that span population, lifespan, and setting. Careful attention to the itinerary to provide balanced time in activities and allow for rest was noted. Participants also indicated qualities of activities that would enhance their learning along with the importance of structured pre-departure meetings. Careful attention to the itinerary to provide a diversity of clinical and cultural activities with appropriate faculty support enhances student learning on international service-learning activities. Participants value quality over quantity, and proper experience design plays a large role in student learning during these experiences abroad.

Serving Students through Service-Learning

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a California public university launched the Pandemic Histories Archive Project (PHAP) in collaboration with the library. This online service-learning opportunity empowered undergraduates to describe and reflect on their pandemic experiences and represent their communities by contributing to the library’s digital archive. From 2020-2021, nearly 300 undergraduate students completed PHAP’s asynchronous online training modules and documented the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice issues by producing materials such as field notes, interviews, photographs, and reflections. According to open-ended surveys, students responded favorably to this novel project, valuing the creative freedom, knowledge, and skills gained through community archiving. This case study summarizes the literature on online and service-learning, presents the pros and cons of each, and offers recommendations for creating a student-centered learning environment. PHAP’s teaching approaches, which emphasized student wellness and strengths, can be applied beyond the pandemic in future online, hybrid, and in-person courses.

Critical Experiences in an Intercultural Immersion Program in Kenya

Julie Maakrun, Sean Kearney — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

The degree to which international immersion programs affect participants can be influenced by and attributed to their experiences in the host country or community. Embedded critical experiences allow participants to immerse themselves within the breadth and depth of humanity, thus fostering connections and relationships. Further, critical experiences can heighten emotions and disrupt values discourse. A mini-ethnographic case study of 20 Australian pre-service teachers’ immersion in Kenya explored the impact of embedded critical experiences on participants’ values, emotions, and relationships. Analysis of participants’ journals, researcher's field notes and recorded debrief sessions identified key themes: emotions are heightened; values are questioned; relationships build community through positive connections; and relationships and understanding are at the core of teaching. Embedded critical experiences allowed for points of comparison across the data, which illustrated that while the participants valued the immersion for many reasons, the cultural interface of those experiences had the most significant impact.

A Comparison of Healthcare and Non-Healthcare Service-Learning Environments on Interprofessional Learning in First-Year Pharmacy Students’ Experiential Curriculum

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

The purpose of this study was to quantify and compare interprofessional skills among first year pharmacy students who participated in healthcare and non-healthcare setting service-learning experiences. This was a survey-based pre/post comparison of interprofessional attitudes among student pharmacists during a first professional year service-learning course comparing two cohorts at healthcare-related sites versus non-healthcare sites. The Interprofessional Attitudes Scale (IPAS) was administered to students in fall 2021 and spring

2022.

Healthcare and non-healthcare sites were compared using unpaired t-testing comparing the mean sums of Likert scores. This longitudinal cohort survey encompassed a total of 110 of 117 eligible first-year pharmacy students completed the pre-survey, (96% response rate), and 78 of 112 eligible students completed the post-survey (71% response rate). From pre to post survey, there was a positive increase of the mean Likert scores in all five IPAS subsections. There was no significant difference of mean Likert scores displayed between the sample of healthcare and non-healthcare students from the pre-survey to the post-survey in each of the five IPAS subsections. There was no difference in pre/post mean Likert scores of the five subsections of the IPAS in first-year pharmacy students, regardless of placement at healthcare or non-healthcare related sites.

Mindful Service-Learning: An Innovative Pedagogical Approach

Helen M Damon-Moore — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

Why Mindful Service-Learning?

While 30 years of service-learning has yielded many benefits, I have found that students today are more stressed than ever, that effective preparation for meaningful service-learning can be lacking, and that an exclusively Western perspective could be expanded to include Eastern views, thereby better preparing students for a global world. Mindful Service- Learning draws on established service- learning practices, the Eastern practice of mindfulness, and Asset-Based Community Development to foster healthful student learning and meaningful university-community collaboration. Specifically, mindful service-learning utilizes Eastern tools—being present, beginner’s mind, deep listening, compassion--in addition to more individualistic and analytical practices, to broaden the contemporary approach to service-learning. Focused on an intersectional perspective, it is an innovative way to address privilege, oppression, identity and power dynamics in all environments, but especially in complex urban settings. As I will demonstrate through a review of past practice as well as a study of contemporary student experience, this approach can help students from different backgrounds and various academic disciplines to learn lifelong wellness skills as they engage in authentic partnerships.

Foreward to the 19th Edition

David Yarbrough — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700

COMPLETE ISSUE JSLHE Volume 19 Summer 2024

David Yarbrough — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0700