What are the benefits of service-learning?

• Makes learning come alive and enables connections between course material and real-life issues
• Allows exploration of career possibilities
• Develops many career-related skills, including communication and leadership
• Teaches patience, tolerance, and empathy
• Enables interaction with people from diverse backgrounds
• Makes a difference in the community by addressing real community needs
• Builds a sense of civic responsibility
• It's FUN!

How can you get involved?

1. Take a service-learning course
   Several instructors at WCC have implemented service-learning components into their courses,    enabling students to affect real community change while fulfilling course requirements. These courses include:

   Lifespan Psychology	Laura Overstreet
   Lifespan Psychology	Kristin Conley
   Social Psychology	Carol Wilkinson
   Environmental Issues and Human Behavior	Bob Riesenberg
   General Psychology	Kristin Conley
   Intro to Education	Debra Seabury
   English Composition I	Wendy Borgesen
   Spanish 123	Angela Enderberg
   Cultural Anthropology	Dominique Coulet du Gard
   Art: Faces, Hands and Feet	Caryn Friedlander
   Energy: Use and Consequences	Tran Phung
   Environmental Physics	David Kern
   General Biology	Kirsten McDade
   The Biological World	Doreen Dewell
   Survey of Environmental Science	Doreen Dewell
   Survey of Environmental Science	Wendy Borgesen
   Intro to Nutrition	Laurie Gill
   Communication in Healthcare Systems	Christine Markowski and Lynnette Bennett

2. Join the Service-Learning Club
   This new ASWCC club organizes monthly service events based on the interests of club members and the needs of the community. Possible service locations include YMCA, Bellingham Food Bank Farm, and Habitat for Humanity. Check out the club's website here.
3. Participate in one-time service events, such as Make a Difference Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.
4. Become a Students in Service member and receive an educational award of $1,132 or more by completing at least 300 hours of service over a year.  Find more information about the Students in Service program here.
5. If you're looking for a more individualized way to get involved in the community, contact Whatcom's Service-Learning Coordinator VISTA at SL@whatcom.ctc.edu or 360.383.3072, to discuss additional service opportunities.

What are the benefits of service-learning?

Besides the benefits listed above for students, there are many benefits for faculty and the institution, including:

• Engages more students by connecting to various learning styles
• Offers professional development challenges
• Increases satisfaction with the quality of student learning
• Connects faculty across disciplines through a shared teaching strategy
• Creates partnerships that foster positive campus-community relationships
• Increases retention as students engaged in service-learning are more likely to graduate

Tips for including a service-learning component in your courses:

• Consider the learning goals of the courses and how service could help students reach those goals and enrich the learning experience.
• There are plenty of needs in the community, the Whatcom Volunteer Center works with over 300 local organizations.
• Service-Learning shouldn't be an add-on to an existing course - the service experience should be fully integrated into the course in order for deeper learning to occur.
• Student assessment should be based on learning not service - just like in traditional assignments, students should be assessed on their demonstration of learning the core concepts, not simply on finishing a set number of hours.
• Engage students in meaningful reflection, which allows students to make deeper connections to the academic content of the course, gain a better understanding of how they were personally affected by the service, and increase their commitment to civic responsibility. Reflection can take the form of journaling, writing a paper, class discussions, presentations, multimedia projects, etc.
• The Service-Learning Coordinator is available as a resource during all the steps of creating a service-learning component in your course. She is available to make connections with potential community partners, to promote and explain service-learning to students, to provide resources on creating a meaningful reflection piece, and much more. She also tracks service-learning participants through an initial information form and an evaluation at the end of the experience. Contact her at SL@whatcom.ctc.edu or ex. 3072.

What are the benefits of service-learning?

• Provides organizations with reliable, skilled volunteers
• Creates future volunteers, because those involved are more likely to volunteer in the future
• Meets real needs and provides volunteers for jobs that wouldn’t otherwise get done
• Allows community to be a part of the education process of students

Interested in involving service-learning students in the community work your organization does?                                                                                                            

Send a position description with contact information to Whatcom's Service-Learning Program at SL@whatcom.ctc.edu.