Trading the classroom for the community: the benefits of service learning
February 20, 2019
The first time Dr. Elissa Mitchell and Dr. Veronica Huggins, assistant professors of social work, taught SOCW 344 - Social Work Practice with Macro Systems, they assigned a 20-page end-of-semester paper. But they weren't satisfied with the results.
"It just seemed like it was about having this large paper finished and not about the content of the course," explained Huggins. "Students were more focused on meeting page and reference requirements than on the experience of learning about agencies and communities."
Mitchell agreed-it was time to move away from traditional assignments and papers. "This course is about community practice, so we wanted our students to engage more in the community," she said.
Mitchell had already been brainstorming ways to collaborate with Dr. Erin Gilles, assistant professor of advertising, and those conversations led to the idea to partner Mitchell and Huggins' macro social work students with Gilles' public relations students. All three professors restructured their courses to allow students to work together on service-learning projects involving community partners that would enable them to apply classroom knowledge to real-life situations.
"Macro social workers do not work in isolation," said Mitchell, "so it was important to have a spirit of collaboration and cooperation in this project. This has worked out well from both perspectives." Added Gilles, "It gives my students an identified 'client' to focus on and allows them to practice meeting client expectations while collaborating with others."
Examples of service-learning projects students have completed with community partners include:
- Creating a new outreach Facebook page to solicit donations and engage volunteers for St. Vincent de Paul in Jasper, Indiana
- Coordinating a hygiene and winter items donation drive for the homeless with ECHO Housing Corporation in Evansville, Indiana
- Creating a new brochure for First Choice Health Clinic in Washington, Indiana
- Creating a flyer for churches in the Foster Care Coalition in Southwestern Indiana that will be used in hard copy and on websites
- Creating a flyer for the Evansville YMCA to publicize a need for donations to fund childrens' swimming lessons
- Creating a brochure for Head Start of Gibson County that addresses the importance of male caregivers in the lives of children
Working with these community partners helped students realize that their collaborative efforts can make a difference far beyond USI's campus. "The main thing that stuck with me from this project is how it will benefit the lives of children," said one student. "We, as a community, can make a huge impact when we come together to help others." Another reported "feeling better prepared to work within the community and with others toward a common goal."
Mitchell, Huggins and Gilles consider their first public relations/social work partnership a success. "But we also want to know what the students think about it," Mitchell explained. "We have completed a survey and are currently analyzing the results for a manuscript on interdisciplinary service learning."
Some students continued working with partner organizations as interns or volunteers once their projects were completed, and one student even received a full-time job offer. All three professors plan to build upon this experience as they consider future service-learning courses.
As for that 20-pager paper? It's not coming back any time soon.
Learn more about USI's Service Learning Program
(Will Sanders, graduate assistant in Service Learning, Dr. Elissa Mitchell, assistant professor of social work, Dr. Veronica Huggins, assistant professor of social work, and Dr. Erin Gilles, assistant professor of advertising, also contributed to this story.)