Students sometimes come to some fairly sweeping new perspectives after these experiences. Two students in last semester’s class, for example, started the semester believing that no welfare program was justified. After getting to know homeless people suffering from mental illness, and despite reading Charles Murray’s work which supported their initial views, they revised their simplistic initial conclusion and allowed for the possibility that some type of public intervention should be undertaken for such people who can not help themselves. The course also prompted them to begin considering what types of intervention might be acceptable to them, and what types would still be insupportable.
Though the emphasis of service learning is not on information acquisition, knowledge is nonetheless obtained. Students come away from the course understanding and remembering at least certain aspects of welfare reform, for example, not because they had to memorize its elements but because they had to evaluate it. An assumption here is by making that evaluation more real, volunteering not only encouraged critical thinking, but also helped students to remember facts.
Students are generally pleased with the volunteer-related aspects of the course. The positive comment recorded on student evaluations most frequently pertains to the value of the community service. The only criticism heard regularly is that not enough class time is devoted to discussing their experiences.
Example Three
This exercise incorporates many of the active learning techniques cited in the literature. Specifically, the exercise is student-centered, with no dominant role played by the instructor, as in a lecture; it employs brainstorming as a way to illustrate that students come to the learning enterprise with some prior knowledge; it uses quick, in-class writing as a tool for generating thinking (as contrasted to the use of writing for presenting one’s thinking); it utilizes a popular press reading to engage students with a real-world topic, rather than reliance on a textbook. Additionallly, the exercise integrates cooperative learning groups which have been found to “enhance student achievement and ... benefit all students, particularly the poorer students, without disadvantaging the better students” (Cameron 1998 249).
The primary purpose of the exercise is to encourage the critical examination of social science data, hypotheses, and their connection to public policy. This exercise takes one class session and may be used in any introductory level social science course. Two instructional materials, with sufficient copies for each student, are needed: 1) A reading from the popular press discussing a controversial social issue, in particular one that implies or specifically articulates the cause(s) and/or consequences of the social problem, and 2) a statistical table (of reasonable complexity) with at least some data related to the topic of the reading. For the example described below, the specific topic chosen was the changing structure of the American family and the accompanying table provided data on household composition, from the Census Bureau.
Prior to any reading or examination of the table, the instructor facilitates a brainstorming session on the question, “What are some of the changes in the structure (or composition) of the American Family?” As various students respond to the question, the instructor lists their responses on the board; this list should remain on the board through the next step of the exercise. Examples of items that students will typically suggest are as follows.
• More divorced families
• More children living with just one parent
• More unmarried people living together
• Fewer Beaver Cleaver families
The purpose of the brainstorming session is to clarify the preconceived notions and assumptions that students hold about how the American family has changed. Further, the brainstorming list will be used – in conjunction with the statistical table - to illustrate our vague and imprecise thinking regarding the American family, despite the fact that this issue and its associated consequences are often seen as critical social problems and in need of a remedying social policy.