Service learning is a pedagogy that links community service with academic study. It heightens the relevance of academic subjects by directly linking classroom learning to community experience.
The concept of service learning challenges traditional definitions of education and educators, as well as the locations where teaching and learning take place. Some of us take our students into the community to teach and learn. As students participate in service learning projects, they grow in their awareness of the community in which they live. Others of us invite community partners into our classrooms and offer students the chance to learn form community educators. In all cases we are empowering students to give back to the community that sustains them.
We began as mostly faculty and staff in higher education, but as we build an active broad-based organization committed to achieving a national voice, we welcome and encourage membership form out community partners and others involved in the service learning effort.
Members of The Invisible College actively explore teaching and learning through community service. We participate in learning circles and meetings such as the National Gathering that allow us to learn form other innovators and practitioners in the filed. Through sharing and learning we are inspired to bring new service learning opportunities to our own institutions and the communities in which we live.
You will have the opportunity to participate in and to shape a unique organization specifically created by and for educators in community service learning. You will have access to publications such as monographs, newsletters, as well as sourcebooks. You will be part of learning circle discussions centered on issues of service learning with the goal of enriching perspective and stimulating ideas. The topics of learning circles are chosen by the participating members and contribute to a growing interdisciplinary and interconnected field. Some possibilities for discussion include risk taking; pedagogy; race, class, and gender issues; disciplinary interests; action research; community issues; regional interests; collaborative projects; K-16 issues, and social change. A host of others are likely to emerge! Learning circles may take place via e-mail, at National Gatherings, or face-to-face. And, finally, you will have the opportunity to participate in ongoing working groups of the organization.
Easy. Just send in the application form and $50.00 annual dues. You will be contracted about joining learning circles, and you will receive notification of publications and conferences.