Overview and Benefits

Service Learning is a teaching-learning method that integrates community engagement into the curriculum. Some benefits include:

  • Discipline content enrichment: Connect real world to the classroom instruction.
  • Student engagement.
  • Student opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, empathy, and a sense of civic responsibility.
  • Student retention.
  • Promotion and tenure support: Service Learning activities can be included in these portfolios.

Sample Projects

  • A graphic design course creates posters for events for a non-profit.
  • An environmental science course writes a proposal to make a small business more “green.”
  • A technical writing course performs a usability study on a set of instructions or an organization’s website.
  • A communications course offers a seminar on interpersonal problem-solving in the workplace.
  • A math course collects trash and recycling from an area to calculate locations with the most litter, then presents the data in a presentation.

Faculty Institute

The Service-Learning Faculty Institute helps faculty members develop an understanding of Service Learning as a pedagogical tool and develop a service learning project for a class. To get started, faculty members should follow these steps:

  1. Submit an application. The application for the Institute is emailed to all faculty (full- and part-time) toward the beginning of each semester. Please email the director if you can’t locate this email. While the application does have a deadline, we are willing to review applications after the deadline.
  2. After the application has been approved, the faculty member will be given access to Learning Modules via Canvas. Faculty will work independently on the modules throughout the semester and will also meet with the Service Learning Director twice - at the beginning and end of the semester. The modules and conferences will be completed by the end of the semester in which the faculty member begins the Institute so projects are ready to implement the following semester.
  3. Upon successful completion of the Service-Learning Faculty Institute, the faculty member will be recognized as a Service-Learning Fellow and will serve as a member of the Internal Advisory Team and as a mentor to other faculty exploring service-learning.

Office Resources for Faculty

  • Campus Compact - Mid-Atlantic (CCMA)
    • Its mission: CCMA mobilizes the collective commitment and capacity of higher education to actively advance our communities through civic and community engagement.
    • Prince George's Community College is a member of CCMA. Faculty and staff members alike attend CCMA conferences and events in order to advance their knowledge and application of Service-Learning into the classroom. 
  • National Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Action Network
    • A network of national civic learning and higher education organizations that collaborate to make civic learning a focus of higher education.
    • The Civic Learning and Democratic and Democratic Engagment Action Network offers conferences, publications, joint projects, research, webinars, and other resources.