Graduate-level service learning experiences come with unique advantages and risks. With advanced training, graduate students hold advanced knowledge and specialized skills. Such knowledge and skill, when applied to work in community settings, could run the risk of colonization and virtue signaling if not informed by community wisdom and if not responsive to the community's requests for services. Graduate students' specialized skills may be particularly valuable to community partners and could also risk the exploitation of graduate student labor if not carefully planned. Memorandums of understanding (MOUs) are tools by which partners can clearly communicate from the outset of service-learning initiatives by collaboratively establishing guidelines that protect the interests of both community partners and graduate students. In this chapter, the authors introduce colonization and exploitation of graduate student labor as two risks that could be associated with graduate-level service learning experiences. They describe MOUs as tools that can reduce risks.
TopSl Outcomes
Reciprocal benefit to students and community partners is an intended consequence of effective service learning. Existing research finds associations between SL and a multitude of student benefits (Daniel & Mishra, 2017; Hatcher et al., 2016; Litchke et al., 2020; Prentice & Robinson, 2010; Warren, 2012). A large meta-analysis demonstrated that experiential learning, in general, is associated with significantly superior learning outcomes; learning outcomes were almost a half standard deviation higher (d=.43) in classes using experiential learning pedagogies versus alternate learning pedagogies (Burch et al., 2019). SL, in particular, is associated with superior achievement of learning outcomes and higher scores on measures of teamwork, civic responsibility, academic development, and educational success (Prentice & Robinson, 2010). For example, in a pre-posttest study comparing students who participated in SL to students who did not, Hébert & Hauf (2015) found that students engaged in SL demonstrated more academic development around course concepts, greater improvement in civic responsibility, and improved interpersonal skills.
Community partners can experience positive outcomes from service-learning partnerships as well, although there is a dearth of literature addressing this subject. Focus groups conducted with 99 community partners revealed perceived benefits of SL to be enhancing an organization’s capacity to fulfill its mission, gaining access to new information and academic research, expanding an organization’s community networks, improving client outcomes through impactful relationships with university students, transforming theory into practice, and effecting social change (Sandy & Holland, 2006). Similarly, Worrall (2007) found that community-based organizations benefit from working with service-learners by increasing the workforce and resources available, learning from students’ novel perspectives for community operations, and exposing community members to positive role models. Furthermore, community partners expressed satisfaction in serving as educational partners to service-learners, by which they help shape future generations of citizens and professionals (Worrall, 2007). At the K-12 level, identified benefits of SL partnerships were having opportunities to implement special projects, raising organizational energy, forming lasting supportive relationships with students, and broadening an organization’s visibility (Geller et al., 2016). Importantly, community partners who report having a voice during program planning and execution perceive greater benefits from SL (Miron & Moely, 2006).