Why do Service-Learning?

Service-learning provides an opportunity for Tidewater Community College to demonstrate what it means to be a true "community" college. By bridging the gap between academia and its surrounding community, service-learning provides students with a better understanding of why education is important and applicable to everyday life.

Service-Learning benefits the student

• Makes the connection between academic work and real life experience
• Provides empowerment by allowing students to "make a difference" through active and meaningful contributions to their communities
• Fosters civic responsibility and engagement in students' lives
• Broadens perspectives and enhances critical thinking skills
• Improves interpersonal and human relations skills, which are increasingly viewed as the most important skills for achieving success in professional and personal life
• Provides guidance and experience for future career objectives
• Provides "employment" experience and future job contacts

Service-Learning benefits the college

• Increases exposure of the college's interaction within the community
• Improves relations between the college and community agencies
• Enriches curriculum and learning opportunities by providing constant change and opportunity for growth in our learning environments
• Changes teacher role from the expert on top to the expert on tap, providing a new relationship with students and a new understanding of how learning occurs
• Increases awareness of current societal issues as they relate to academic areas of interest.

Service-Learning benefits the community

• Increases human resources by providing talented, energetic and enthusiastic college students to meet educational, human, safety, and environmental needs
• Creates a spirit of civic responsibility - a renewed sense of community. Students often begin to identify with their communities and continue to foster development by staying civically engaged after their service-learning projects have ended.
• Provides agencies the opportunity to participate in an educational partnership

 

See: Campus Compact: Building The Service-Learning Pyramid for further information regarding current service-learning initiatives (http://www.compact.org/Service-learning/)

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