Transforming Teacher Education through Service-Learning provides a fresh look at educational reform through the lens of teacher preparation. It poses the question “Why service-learning now?” as it discusses the meaningful ways service-learning pedagogy can transform the approaches used to prepare teachers to educate tomorrow’s children. The pedagogy of service-learning has significant implications for teacher education. Its transformative aspects have far reaching potential to address teacher candidate dispositions and provide deeper understanding of diversity. Knowledge of the pedagogy and how to implement it in candidates’ future classrooms could alter education to a more powerful experience of democracy in action and enhance the civic mission of schools. The current and ongoing research found within this volume is meant to continue support of the notion of educational reform. Because the vision we hold becomes the reality we experience, it is imperative to consider the question—Why service-learning now?—as we adjust teacher preparation programs to promote engaging opportunities for today’s youth.

This edited collection will stand as the first volume that specifically describes service-learning programs and courses designed as part of teacher education programs in the fields of literacy education, secondary English education, elementary language arts education, and related fields. The contributing authors describe the programs they have developed at their universities and/or in their local communities, providing information about the rationale for their initiative, the design of the course, the outcomes of the experience, and other matters that will help literacy educators develop similar courses and experiences of their own. Additionally, this edited collection will fill a great gap in the field’s knowledge of alternative forms of teacher education. It will provide descriptions of service-learning initiatives that have been field-tested with demonstrable results. Thus far the field has produced widely scattered articles in journals covering a variety of disciplines, but no definitive collection of papers in which service-learning designed to promote literacy instruction is housed in a single volume edited for cross-referencing and thematic categorization. The two editors have developed courses and received grants to support service-learning initiatives at their universities and believe that others might develop similar programs if they had better understandings of their value and design. Their intention with this volume is to promote service-learning more broadly among literacy educators.

The need for more empathetic and community-focused students must begin with educators, as service-learning has begun to grow in popularity throughout the years. By implementing service and community aspects into the classroom at an early age, educators have a greater chance of influencing students and creating a new generation of service-minded individuals who care about their communities. Teachers must have the necessary skills and current information available to them to provide students with quality service learning and community engagement curricula. The Research Anthology on Service Learning and Community Engagement Teaching Practices provides a thorough investigation of the current trends, best practices, and challenges of teaching practices for service learning and community engagement. Using innovative research, it outlines the struggles, frameworks, and recommendations necessary for educators to engage students and provide them with a comprehensive education in service learning. Covering topics such as lesson planning, teacher education, and cultural humility, it is a crucial reference for educators, administrators, universities, lesson planners, researchers, academicians, and students.

The issue of social justice has been brought to the forefront of society within recent years, and educational institutions have become an integral part of this critical conversation. Classroom settings are expected to take part in the promotion of inclusive practices and the development of culturally proficient environments that provide equal and effective education for all students regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status, and disability, as well as from all walks of life. The scope of these practices finds itself rooted in curriculum, teacher preparation, teaching practices, and pedagogy in all educational environments. Diversity within school administrations, teachers, and students has led to the need for socially just practices to become the norm for the progression and advancement of education worldwide. In a modern society that is fighting for the equal treatment of all individuals, the classroom must be a topic of discussion as it stands as a root of the problem and can be a major step in the right direction moving forward. Research Anthology on Instilling Social Justice in the Classroom is a comprehensive reference source that provides an overview of social justice and its role in education ranging from concepts and theories for inclusivity, tools, and technologies for teaching diverse students, and the implications of having culturally competent and diverse classrooms. The chapters dive deeper into the curriculum choices, teaching theories, and student experience as teachers strive to instill social justice learning methods within their classrooms. These topics span a wide range of subjects from STEM to language arts, and within all types of climates: PK-12, higher education, online or in-person instruction, and classrooms across the globe. This book is ideal for in-service and preservice teachers, administrators, social justice researchers, practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in how social justice is currently being implemented in all aspects of education.

Transformative Critical Service-Learning offers hands-on tools for implementing, reflecting on, and assessing critical service-learning in classrooms and community spaces. Answering a need from practitioners for a practical tool for making sense of critical service-learning, the authors introduce the Critical Service-Learning Implementation Model as a way to encourage conversations among stakeholders. Materials include specific criteria to examine, examples of application and context, and ways to incorporate the model into reflective practices. Valuing partnerships, reflection, and analysis of power dynamics, the research and strategies offered here provide an entry point for faculty new to critical service-learning, while also offering new ideas and tools for long-time practitioners. Chapters offer particular attention to strategies for engaging students, syllabus development, and reflective cycles. Additionally, the authors offer a model for faculty development in the area of critical service-learning at the institutional level, including suggestions for faculty and administrators interested in increasing engagement with social justice and community spaces. As institutions of higher education are focusing more on the ways in which they can meet the needs of the communities surrounding their campuses, The Carnegie Foundation's Elective Classification for Community Engagement provides a special-purpose designation for higher education institutions with commitments in the area of community engagement. Universities must commit to institutional change in order to improve the outcomes for the communities surrounding the campus. The classification framework represents best practices in the field and encourages continuous improvement through periodic re-classification. Service-learning has been identified as one of the more effective methods for engaging undergraduate and graduate students in community engaged scholarship, which facilitates development of critical inquiry, understanding needs assessment, and deep reflection on inequality. The authors intend this book to benefit university faculty endeavoring to begin or develop service-learning courses, higher education administrators who want to train and engage university faculty in adopting a more community engaged teaching model, and P-12 teachers, who often serve as community partners with higher education institutions to facilitate justice-oriented approaches to teaching their diverse students. Perfect for courses such as:Critical Thinking and Communication/Service-Learning │ Service-Learning Capstone │ Pathways to Effective Community Engagement │ School and Community Collaboration │ Teaching to Transform Society │ Food, Environment, and Sustainability │ Race and the Right to Vote in the US │ Education and Society │ Environmental Education │ Race, Place, and Memory

The Advances in Service-Learning Research book series was established to initiate the publication of a set of comprehensive research volumes that would present and discuss a wide range of issues in this broad field called service-learning. Service-learning is a multifaceted pedagogy that crosses all levels of schooling, has potential relevance to all academic and professional disciplines, is connected to a range of dynamic social issues, and operates within a broad range of community contexts. In terms of research, there is much terrain to cover before a full understanding of service-learning can be achieved. This volume, the first in the annual book series, explores various themes, issues, and answers that bring us one step closer to understanding the essence of service-learning. The chapters of this volume focus on a broad range of topics that address a variety of research issues on service-learning in K-12 education, teacher education, and higher education. Through a wide-scoped research lens, the volume explores definitional foundations of service-learning, theoretical issues regarding service-learning, the impacts of service-learning, and methodological approaches to studying service-learning. Collectively, the chapters of the book provide varying and, at times, opposing perspectives on some of the critical issues regarding service-learning research and practice.

This book presents the most recent theory, research, and practice on service learning as it relates to early childhood education. It describes several service learning programs, many of which were developed to better prepare pre-service teachers for the challenges they face in today’s early childhood classrooms, including class size, ever-changing technology, diversity, high-stakes testing, parental involvement (or the lack thereof), and shrinking budgets. The book shares stories of positive outcomes from pre-service teachers who, having participated in service-learning programs, report a shift in their attitudes and beliefs including an increased empathy for others, a heightened sensitivity to student differences, more democratic values, and a greater commitment to teaching. In addition, the book examines the effects of service learning and positive outcomes for children and teacher educators as well. Schools today face an increasing number of language learners, the mainstreaming of special population students, and working with a standards-driven curriculum. All of these present new challenges for teachers as they attempt to meet their students’ educational needs. As a result of this new classroom environment, and the educational needs they present, teacher educators must now seek different approaches to prepare prospective teachers to meet these needs because the traditional approaches to teacher preparation, such as coursework independent of fieldwork, are no longer effective in equipping teachers to address these issues. This book examines in detail the new approach of service learning.