MetLife Foundation Issue Brief: Service-Learning Helps Middle School Students Grow

By Chris D'Agostino

Community service in all forms undoubtedly has great benefits for those who get involved, but a developing learning too called service-learning, which incorporates meaningful community service with learning objectives and reflections, has shown to have potentially even more powerful advantages for participants. The differences between community service and service-learning lie primarily in the focus on direct learning objectives in service-learning, but with various definitions for both terms, there are a number of key ways in which they differ:

Service-Learning	Community Service
Includes an academic component	Typically does not have an academic focus
Allows youth to plan their own service projects with group discussions and brainstorming sessions	Usually planned by adults or a party other than those participating
Focuses on learning about broader social issues outside the scope of the project	Learning occurs but is not intentional
Includes reflection on the project goals and outcomes through discussions, writing or presentations	Reflection is not an essential focus
Example: Students in a middle school environmental science program help preserve the natural habitat of animals living in a nearby forest	Example: Students take part in a community-wide park clean up event developed by the mayor’s office

A new issue brief released by the Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation discusses these differences and dissects the important benefits that service-learning-focused afterschool programs can have on middle school youth. Not only does service-learning present an enhanced and more practical understanding of school-day lessons, but it also provides opportunities for students to grow socially and emotionally. The brief entitled “Service-learning in Afterschool: Helping Students Grow and Communities Prosper” shows that when middle schoolers learn through hands-on service-learning projects that they have developed themselves, the potential for learning and development is limitless. Additionally, the issue brief displays how afterschool programs are perfectly positioned to fulfill middle schooler’s service-learning needs and to develop better students now and stronger service advocates for the future. Successful afterschool programs across the country are implementing service-learning in unique and inventive ways, check out our new brief to find out how your program can join in on the movement.

share this link: http://bit.ly/xjwZ28
learn more about: Issue Briefs MetLife Innovator Awards Service
Comments: (0)