Engaging the Learning Community
Course
Example: Service Learning & Volunteering [6:02]
In this example about the community of learners, we're going right to the community and we'll talk about service learning and volunteering.
It was really a great structured way to work through service projects and have the children give back to the community. Service to others is part of the developmental assets across age groups. So, developmental assets are identified by the Search Institute as building blocks of healthy development that help young children grow up healthy, caring and responsible. There are both internal and external developmental assets. Service is actually part of the external asset of empowerment for children and young people.
So, when we connect with service or empowering children across age groups, according to a national study on young people and volunteering, dosomething.org found that for a young person having friends that volunteer regularly is the primary factor influencing a young person's volunteering habits. So, more so than the actual cause was that social context. Further they found that the social nature of volunteering is a theme. This is true for finding out about volunteer opportunities. Only 19% of those who volunteered came up with the idea to volunteer themselves, over half, 57%, were invited by someone: a friend, family member or other adult. So, can you see that here is the room for inviting volunteerism and community awareness into the school?
So, what might be the roles for the library here? The library program or you as the librarian might work to guide students in researching the needs of the school or the community; maybe connect students with volunteer opportunities. They can apply their information skills embedding opportunities. You might connect with library stakeholders or school stakeholders at large to identify areas of need and what might be appropriate for students who volunteer.
In the school library we can help students learn resources for best practices for fundraising or for project planning. There's a lot involved in a fundraising or service project and these will be useful skills for students, not only in their information gathering, but in that authentic context. We're evaluating information for real life here. Sharing information with the school and community is another aspect of where we might get help from the library program. This is media production in practice. So, creating newsletters, blogs, websites. This might be something that students might work on in free time or before or after school time in the library or maybe part of a more formal lesson if this is conducted in collaboration with the classroom teacher.
Along with the media production come those requisite skills, so maybe photography, maybe app smashing to share information about an upcoming opportunity and to report back to the community. For service learning projects that might be in the context of a more formal in-class activity, the school librarian can collaborate with classroom teachers to design the inquiry process, or identifying a problem or concern, maybe at the school level or community level, and researching and implementing solutions.
Many schools have a service learning project as a graduation requirement or something that all students at a certain grade level do, so here would be a really great connection and a way to foster that community of learners by demonstrating your students' interest, involvement and really investment in the school.
For engaging the wider community, so beyond the K-12 audience, re-visit that needs assessment, consider partnerships with community groups for ongoing events or one-time service projects. This is a great opportunity to bring in others as leaders. So, don't feel as though the librarian must be the point person on all matters community service. You can serve as a bridge connecting stakeholders as well as curricular areas and needs.
Another angle to volunteering and thinking about the community of learners, is building your network of parent volunteers. So, rather than your students and your staff as volunteers, flip the page and consider opportunities that reflect a range of interests and needs. Often times we think of people to help me re-shelf books, and that's certainly a great part of volunteering, it sure serves a need. But there may be volunteers who aren't available during the school day or maybe not on a regular basis. So, consider lots of ways to bring volunteers into the library, short and long term and in the library or from home. This serves parents' interests in supporting their child's education and it addresses needs for the school library program on two levels; both functional, the day-to-day operation, as well as advocacy oriented, so modeling and explaining what the library program does for students and for student learning.
And that's our look at the community of learners in the community.
The "learning community" is a wide group that encompasses people in the school environment, as well as local and global opportunities outside the school doors. This lesson focuses on "community" as in the people, groups, and organizations local to the school and suggests ways to engage with community partners for volunteering and service learning. According to the Search Institute, service to others is a Developmental Asset that fosters empowerment in children and young people.
Review the resource, The DoSomething.org Index on Young People and Volunteering (link provided in Resources below). This document presents data and discussion from a study described within as, "the first comprehensive national survey of teens and volunteering that incorporates respondents as young as 13–15 years old."
Share the checklist on what volunteering means today with a colleague, school counselor, or administrator. Consider your potential community partners. What opportunities might exist to link student interests with service learning or volunteering in your community?
Dosomething.org. The DoSomething.org Index on Young People and Volunteering. 2012. https://www.dosomething.org/sites/default/files/blog/2012-Web-Singleview_0.pdf
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Engaging the Learning Community: Identifying Volunteer Opportunities." School Library Connection, November 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2018656?learningModuleId=2018650&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2122864
Additional Resources
About the Author
Email: rmorris@schoollibraryconnection.com
Twitter: @rebeccajm87.
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Engaging the Learning Community. Example: Service Learning & Volunteering [6:02]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, June 2016, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2018656?learningModuleId=2018650&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2018656?learningModuleId=2018650&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 2018656