Community Service Learning
Putnam University Center
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301

(503) 370-6807 voice
(503) 370-6407 fax
service@willamette.edu

Teach with Service Learning

The principles of service-learning are similar to that of experiential education, in that students are most apt to retain course content when they are given an opportunity to actually see the discipline functioning in "the real world," so to speak. Each discipline taught at the university level can be made relevant to the complexities of our communities and, indeed ought to be made relevant if there is not a direct and obvious correlation between its theoretical base and today's social, political, economic and even scientific interactions. It is the very relevancy of the disciplines taught at Willamette University that give the pedagogy of service-learning a natural foothold in our diverse courses.

Patricia Varas, Professor of Spanish, on incorporating service-learning in her Spanish Composition course.

SL fosters an environment of respect and openness in the classroom. Through it the students become aware that we are not value free in our judgments and that language acquisition is part of learning a culture.

David Craig, Professor of Biology at Willamette, shares his thoughts on service-learning in his General Ecology course.

My birdhouse community project is not about teaching bird names, providing habitat, or how to define a niche; it is about learning about the relationships, connections, and interdependence every organism has with one another. Service-learning is recognizing that every person is a life-time learner and most are hungry for knowledge. As a scientist I feel a special responsibility to make my technical expertise available to people outside of my lab or classroom. Outreach keeps me grounded in my scholarly work. When I can't easily explain what I do to a 7th grader, a 17 year old, and a 70 year old, then I probably don't really know what I am doing!