Learning Through Serving ─ A Student Guidebook for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Across Academic Disciplines and Cultural Communities

Cress (postsecondary, adult, and continuing education, Portland State U.), Collier, and Reitenauer offer a guidebook that helps college students understand and reflect on their community service experiences, preparing them for their roles as future citizen leaders, as well as assisting faculty in facilitating the development of compassionate expertise through the context of service and applying subject knowledge to community issues. They show students how to provide service to a community agency or organization while gaining new skills, knowledge, and understanding as an integrated aspect of their academic program, explaining what service-learning and civic engagement are, building and maintaining community partnerships, and the concept of community; interacting with diverse groups and creating cultural connections; how to use reflection, what to do when things go wrong, and how to connect course concepts to the experience; and assessing the outcomes of the experience. Each chapter includes theoretical information, as well as questions, techniques, and case study examples. This edition more fully addresses issues of social justice, privilege/power, diversity, intercultural communication, and technology, and it includes more examples from various disciplines, additional academic content for understanding service-learning issues, and information on issues related to students with disabilities and international students. It adds four new chapters on mentoring, leadership, becoming a change agent, and short-term global and immersive service-learning experiences. An instructor's manual is now available online. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)