{"id":242,"date":"2023-12-11T16:38:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T16:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/?p=242"},"modified":"2023-12-11T16:44:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T16:44:26","slug":"rethinking-service-learning-to-be-more-public-and-more-creative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/firstpublics\/2023\/12\/11\/rethinking-service-learning-to-be-more-public-and-more-creative\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking Service-learning to be More Public and Creative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In higher education, instructors are encouraged to incorporate service-learning into their curricula\u2014 activities that provide the chance for students to assist local organizations and learn while they do so. Typical service-learning can run the gamut: anything from a small trip to a community garden to help weed while learning about food systems to holding a survey to assist the local cultural center\u2019s seasonal programming. Service-learning<\/a> cultivates a sense of civic responsibility within students that enhances what\u2019s being learned in the classroom, increases students\u2019 emotional support, and so on. It also increases student retention<\/a> by cultivating their connections with the university and local community\u2014 something many of us are concerned with, given decreasing enrollment and retention on a national scale<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instructors also face pressures to hone students\u2019 saleable skills as they prepare to enter an ever-technologizing job market. Most universities push programs to advertise themselves in terms of the jobs a graduate may attain and how the program caters to those potentials. My department,<\/a> for example, notes possible careers on the front page<\/em> of our website\u2014just to underscore our focus on this facet. And we are not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compounding these demands is a growing call from our field to engage more with the public\u2014to expand the boundaries of our work and the discipline itself. To do public sociology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With these pressures in mind, I developed a class project that could address all of these items: service-learning, saleable skills, and public sociology. Students receive hands-on training as they work with a local organization, and then create informative digital, print, in-person, and\/or media content about that work to share with the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we kill all three birds with one stone? Expansive creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expansive creativity, I argue, is the bedrock for a project of this sort. What I mean is that if we instructors expand our ideas of what service-learning projects look like through incorporation of technology and art, we can create new opportunities for our students to engage with the public. So, rather than service-learning that focuses solely on assessments and volunteer work, consider the incorporation of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n