1. Service-Learning to Enhance Academic Achievement
Shelley H. Billig
Stephany Brown
RMC Research Corporation
Introduction slide… put your name and affiliation on this slide.

2. For Title I, III, and VII
Why Service-Learning Should Enhance Academic Achievement
Evidence
How to Maximize Academic Achievement with Service-Learning
Making the Case
Key factors
Action planning
Crafting messages
Recent research confirms that service-learning can be an effective strategy for enhancing student achievement and therefore is an attractive alternative to those who wish to use service-learning to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind, particularly for Titles I (programs for economically disadvantaged students); III (English Language Learners) and VII (Indian, Native Hawaiians, and Native Alaskans). In this presentation, we will cover why service-learning should enhance academic achievement (the theoretical rationale); the evidence that service-learning does enhance achievement; how academic outcomes can be maximized through increased service-learning quality; and how to make the case for using service-learning as an instructional method, including key factors, action planning, and crafting messages to help convince decision makers.

3. Why Service-Learning Should Enhance Academic Achievement
How Service-Learning Works
How People Learn
How the Brain Works
Other Supporting Cognitive
Development Theories
Let’s start by examining why service-learning should enhance academic achievement. To make our case, we will look at the research on how service-learning works, how people learn, how the brain works, and other supporting cognitive development theories.

4. How Service-Learning Works
Service-learning is a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of planning, action, and reflection. Working with others, students acquire knowledge and skills and apply what they learn in community settings as they try to meet community needs. They experience consequences, both literal and emotional.
First let’s define service-learning. (Read definition.)

5. Relationship to Learning (Eyler and Giles, 1999)
Service-learning experiences:
are typically positive, meaningful, and real
involve cooperative rather than competitive processes, thus promoting skills associated with teamwork and interdependency
address complex problems in complex settings rather than simplified problems in isolation
There are six key features of the service-learning experience that helps to generate academic and other outcomes. First, the experiences are typically positive, meaningful, and real. The experiences are authentic, not contrived, and students feel that they are making a difference since they can see what they are contributing to those being served. Second, service-learning is based on relationships. In order to be successful, service-learning typically requires working with other students and/or others from a community agency. The work promotes teaming, working with others to accomplish a task, and working on a team that does not include competition but rather cooperation to complete a task. The experience tends to be positive since everyone has something to contribute, no matter what their skills are. Third, the service typically involves complex problems in complex settings – as such, students learn skills in real situations with real consequences. Such skills tend to be more easily transferred to other situations and lead to a more complex view of the world and how society operates.

6. Service-learning experiences (continued):
offer opportunities to engage in problem solving by requiring students to gain knowledge in specific contexts rather than drawing upon generalized or abstract knowledge
promote deeper learning because results are immediate and are not contrived (no “right answers” in the back of the book)
are more likely to be personally meaningful and to generate emotional consequences
Fourth, service-learning is also contextualized in a place. Students typically begin to understand the issues and challenges related to the context and the ways in which context plays a role in shaping behavior and attitudes. Students learn how to contextualize their knowledge, which also helps them with transfer and ability to analyze and apply skills and knowledge more appropriately in the future.
Fifth, typically deeper learning occurs because students experience results that are authentic. They realize and like the idea that there is no single correct way to accomplish tasks and that they can build on their own strengths and strengths of the team.
Finally, students tend to become more emotionally involved in the task because of the nature of the task and its relationship to society. Students feel that the task is more meaningful because they are contributing to the greater good.

7. How People Learn (National Research Council, 1999)
Understanding is much more than knowing facts.
People build new knowledge and understanding on what they already know and believe (scaffolding).
Now that we have reviewed some of the elements that make service-learning more attractive as a learning experience, let’s take a look at the research on how people learn to see if service-learning aligns with what the National Research Council (NRC) has found. According to a 1999 study, the NRC found that, no surprise, understanding is more than memorizing facts. All people learn by scaffolding, that is, building new knowledge and understanding on what they already know and believe.

8. Learning is mediated by the social environment in which learners interact with others.
Effective learning requires that students take control of their own learning.
The ability to apply knowledge to novel situations, that is, transfer of learning, is affected by the degree to which students learn with understanding.
The social environment mediates learning, and interacting with others typically helps the learner to make meaning of what he or she experiences and gain a deeper understanding. Research has also repeatedly confirmed that when students take control of their own learning, they learn more and retain the learning for a longer period of time. This type of learning with understanding also leads to much greater transfer, that is, the ability to apply what one learned to a novel situation. For example, if students learn geometry by building a playground, they are more likely to remember what they learned and do better on written tests that feature geometry.

9. Learning and Memory
Learning is the act of making (and strengthening) connections between thousands of neurons.
Memory is the ability to reconstruct or reactivate the previously-made connections.
The research on memory and how the brain works also shows why service-learning can be so effective at helping students learn and retain information and skills. Learning is about making and strengthening connections between neurons and forming what are called neural nets. Memory is the ability to retain the information that was already learned.

10. Memory is a Process Pat Wolfe. (2001).
Rehearsal
Sight
Sound
Elaboration & Organization
Sensory
Memory
Long-Term
Memory
Working
Memory
Smell
Initial Processing
This diagram shows how memory works. We take in stimuli from our senses and that information goes into sensory memory. If it simply stays there, it is often forgotten rather quickly. If, however, information is moved into working memory through use and rehearsal, it is likely to be retained for a longer period of time. That’s why so many teachers engage in drill and practice. However, soon after the rehearsal stops, the information is forgotten. (Can you remember all those facts and figures from high school?) Moving knowledge and skills into long term memory requires more organization of the information and more elaboration. Gaining knowledge experientially and engaging in reflections about that knowledge tends to help elaborate and organize the information (and contextualizes it, too). Once information is in long-term memory, it is easier to retrieve and easier to transfer to other situations.
Retrieval
Taste
Touch
Forgotten
Forgotten

11. Other Supporting Theories
Multiple Intelligences
Constructivism
Developmental Theories (youth need relationships!)
Experiential Learning Theories
(show me…involve me)
Other theories also address why service-learning can work so well as a vehicle to improve student achievement. Multiple intelligences theory by Howard Gardner reveals that people learn differently, with some having greater abilities to learn using different modalities. Most school-based learning only addresses linguistic and logical styles. Rarely do we consider kinesthetic learners or those who learn through music or other means. Service-learning typically stimulates all of the different “intelligences” so learning is possible through multiple modalities.
Constructivist theories reveal that people learn best when they construct meaning from their experiences. Often young people do not know how to interpret an experience, so they use their background knowledge to figure out what is going on and how to interpret the world. Working together with others and having teachers facilitate learning means that students can become more able to learn what context clues mean and better understand what they have learned.
Developmental theories such as those by Piaget or many others show the need for young people to affiliate and to learn from peers, especially when they are adolescents. Cooperative learning theories capitalize on this need, as does service-learning.
Finally, Kolb and others have shown that experiencing something typically results in much deeper learning than rote memorization and other forms of learning.
A lot more could be added on each of these theories, but the point is that all of the theories serve to illustrate that service-learning has great potential to help students acquire more knowledge and skills and retain the knowledge and skills for longer periods of time.

12. Evidence
Service-learning has been found to make an impact on state tests in:
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia service-learning programs)-reading/language arts and science;
Michigan (all Learn and Serve programs) – writing, social studies, historical perspective, earth science, inquiry and decision making;
New Hampshire (environmental programs) – language arts, math, science, and social studies; and
Vermont (environmental programs) – reading.
Recent research on the impact of service-learning has been conducted where students who engage in service-learning are matched with students who do not engage in service-learning. Typically these studies match students on the basis of demographics (similar age, gender, and socioeconomic status) and achievement profiles (similar test scores at the onset). In each of these states, students who engaged in service-learning had statistically higher scores than those who did not. These scores were on the state assessments, not on customized measures. While the impact was not everywhere for every grade, there were many differences that favored the service-learning students.

13. Evidence
Students have made gains on problem solving essays in Hawaii, Colorado, and Pennsylvania;
Students have shown increases in attendance rates and decreases in dropout rates in many states; and
Students have shown increases in affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement in Hawaii, Colorado, Michigan, Florida, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the higher performance on state tests, other measures of student achievement have also been found to favor service-learning students. Problem solving essays show that service-learning students had higher cognitive complexity scores, came up with more solutions to problems, and showed greater realism and empathy in their problem solving approaches.
Students tend to like service-learning so on days when there is service-learning, attendance is higher. Several studies have also shown that students that participate in service-learning tend to complete high school more often than their nonparticipating peers.
Finally, there are dozens of studies that show that students are more engaged in school when they participate in service-learning. They tend to like school better (affective engagement), follow the rules more (behavioral engagement), and become more interested in the subject matter (cognitive engagement) when they are involved in service-learning as compared to their peers who do not participate in service-learning.

14. How to Maximize Academic Achievement with Service-Learning
Link to standards;
Use instructional strategies with the greatest effect sizes; and
Create a nurturing learning environment.
Not all service-learning has positive results, though. Rather, only high quality service-learning approaches have the impacts we reviewed. What is high quality? The research reveals that you can maximize service-learning by ensuring that you have linked directly to content or process standards, that you use instructional strategies that have been shown to have the greatest effect sizes, and when you create a nurturing learning environment. We will talk about each in turn.
The linkage to standards is straightforward, and teachers just need to remember to do it. Often linkage is accomplished particularly well when students are told the standards that will be addressed and they create an assessment.
Which instructional strategies work best? Let’s look at the next slide.

15. Research-based Strategies Effect Sizes and Achievement Marzano, et al
Identifying similarities and differences
1.61
Summarizing and note taking
1.00
Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
.80
Homework and practice
.77
Nonlinguistic representations
.75
Cooperative learning
.73
Setting objectives and providing feedback
.61
Generating and testing hypotheses
Questions, cues, and advance organizers
.59
This slide shows the results of a study by Marzano and his colleagues. Analyzing results from multiple studies that calculated what works best for student learning, Marzano et. al. found that the strategies on this slide produce a greater effect size, that is, a portion of a standard deviation higher than what you would expect. If, for example, most students scored at the 50th percentile, an effect size of one means that the students perform about 34.13% higher on average. So for an average class, if you institute more summarizing and notetaking, students are likely on average to perform 34% higher than they would if you did not use this technique. You can see that the effect size is highest for identifying similarities and differences, but that many techniques work well at raising test scores. Even the lowest one presented here, questions, cues and advanced organizers, has an effect size of .59, or about 21% higher than average While it is not important to explain how to derive effect sizes, the main point is very important: weaving these instructional strategies into the service-learning planning, action, reflection, and demonstration/celebration cycle should increase test scores.

16. Encourages Risk-taking
Creating a Climate for Learning
Safe
High Challenge
Low Threat
Nurturing
Inclusive
Encourages Risk-taking
Finally, creating a nurturing environment is important to success. Each of the factors listed on this slide should become part of the learning experience so that young people acquire and retain knowledge and skills.
Stimulating
Multi-sensory
Collaborative

17. Making the Case Where are you on the developmental continuum?
Awareness
Motivation to adopt
Deepening practice
Scaling up
Sustaining
Where is your state, district, and/or school in implementing a Title I, Title II, or Title VII service-learning approach? At different stages, you will need to concentrate on different issues. Those in the awareness/motivation stages will need to make the case for service-learning. Those in the deepening practice stages will need to concentrate on improving quality. Those in scaling up or sustaining need to examine how innovations are diffused and institutionalized.

18. Key Factors Who will be the champions?
What type of leadership support will be needed at the school, district, and state level?
What evidence of success is needed?
What professional development will be provided?
What will the infrastructure for support (resource allocation, expertise, problem solving) look like?
How will you get the necessary visibility for your efforts and when should you become visible?
What incentives are available?
How will a macrostructure (norms and cultural values) be developed?
How will collaborative partnerships be developed and maintained?
Take a look at your state, district, or school and consider each of these questions. These are the factors related to adoption, implementation, and sustainability.

19. Dialogue
Discuss your own situations. How would you answer each of the questions about key factors at the SEA level in your state?
With the answers, develop an action plan for getting started, scaling up, or sustaining your current partnership at the SEA.
What are the key messages that you need to develop that will resonate best in your state?
In small groups, use the handouts and consider each of these questions. The action planning guide in the handout helps you walk through each phase step by step.