Service Learning and Community-Based Research: Implementation, Benefits, Challenges, and Future Directions

Rationale: Service learning and community engagement are a natural fit for many disciplines. Service learning projects provide students with an opportunity to apply course content to real world situations (Harder, 2010), developing projects that will benefit clients, agencies, and communities. Service learning is used across a variety of disciplines including social work (Hostetter, Sullenberger, & Wood, 2013) nursing (Murray, 2013) and business (Payne, Campbell, Bal, & Piercy, 2011). Working in a group within a service learning context provides a multitude of benefits including greater interest, motivation, and engagement; improved communication skills; real-life application of course content; and skills acquisition (Murray, 2013; Payne et al., 2011; Postlethwait, 2012). Panel Purpose: The purpose of this panel is to describe how four faculty members incorporated service learning into their social work courses. This panel is unique in that three of the four faculty began conducting service learning projects while at the same institution and are now integrating service learning into their respective university settings in a variety of ways. Goals: Five goals exist for this panel. By the end of the Panel participants will understand (1) how to implement student-led community-based research projects, (2) how to build partnerships with diverse stakeholders/agency settings, (3) benefits and challenges of student-led research within a community-based agency, (4) how to use projects to support agency change, and (5) future directions in service learning. Specifically, the panel will provide the audience with information on how to incorporate student-led community-based research projects into their courses. First, the discussion will focus on how to prepare for a community-based research project. The panelists will describe how to: (a) develop an assignment that is consistent with learning outcomes and meets the need of the partner agency, (b) create a project that is feasible to complete in one semester and results in a high quality project, (c) manage and plan for difficult group dynamics, and (d) incorporate measures of student learning and engagement into a service learning course. Second, the panelists will describe the art of building relationships and engaging diverse stakeholders/agencies in the community-based research project, highlighting key strategies. Next, the panelists will discuss the benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from implementing service learning into their courses. For example, one panelist will describe the challenges of partnering with a rural agency, while another panelist will highlight how agency politics influence students’ abilities to conduct agency-based research. Lastly, the panelists will discuss how to use service learning to support community change and explore future directions for service learning. Participant Engagement will occur through questions designed to elicit discussion related to the five Panel goals. Participants will also be asked to share their experiences with the various topics covered during the panel