What is Community Service-Learning?
Community Service-Learning (CSL) is an educational approach that integrates service in the community with intentional learning activities. Within effective CSL efforts, members of both educational institutions and community organizations work together toward outcomes that are mutually beneficial.
Explore the VOICES OF COMMUNITY SERVICE-LEARNING webpage for audio interviews and reflection essays collected from various CSL partners involved in programs across Canada.
Known by a variety of terms (e.g., service-learning, community-based learning), CSL programs are most effective when including key elements drawn from experiential education theory, especially developing critical thinking and intentionally facilitating reflection. Carefully designed and implemented CSL programs and courses assist students to make meaning from their community experiences, to connect real-life experience to more theoretical classroom study, and to develop as individuals, in relation to their values, their sense of social responsibility and their leadership skills.
Community service-learning is relatively new to Canadian universities and colleges but has been extensively implemented in the United States over the past two decades, where it is most commonly referred to as service-learning. Here are links to the excellent web resources of two major U.S. national organizations that promote and support service learning in American schools and communities.
- Campus Compact U.S. national organization: Campus Compact
- National Service-Learning Clearinghouse U.S. national organization: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse