Service Learning

What is service-learning?

Service-learning is a teaching method that enriches learning by engaging students in meaningful service to their schools and communities. Young people apply academic skills to solving real-world issues, linking established learning objectives with genuine needs. They lead the process, with adults as partners, applying critical thinking and problem-solving skills to concerns such as hunger, pollution, and diversity.

"Service-learning is education in action." — Sen. John Glenn

Service-learning connects the needs and problems of the local, domestic or global community with students who are engaged in experiential education.

Service-learning projects are as widely varied as the issues they address; economics, education, environment, health, housing, politics, religion, etc. The criteria are:

Identifying Community Needs

Inter-disciplinary Learning

Reflection

Partnerships

Implementation

Haiti outreach trips
Montrouis & Cange

This trip is part of the Sewanee/Haiti Initiative.  A dentist and dental assistant from Sewanee will be leading a small group to Monytouis, Haiti located sixty miles north of Port-au-Prince.  The group will be providing dental services to residents in the village through at an Episcopal Church.  Students interested in dental or medical care may want to take advantage of this opportunity, although it is open to all students. Leaders: Dr. Bruce and Sandy Baird.  The trip is limited to 7 and costs $990.00.

Other courses:

Art 263. Intermediate Documentary Projects in Photography
The course introduces students to documentary methods and issues pertaining to photography and related media used in the making of photo-documentaries.  Class projects and discussions examine the cultural and socio-political impact of this genre, as well as the genre’s core triangulation points of subjectivity, objectivity and truth.  Prerequisite:  ArtS 103, ArtS 161, or permission of instructor.  (Credit, full course.)  Malde

 
Biology 109. Food and Hunger: Contemplation and Action

A study of food and hunger from a biological perspective. The interactions among scientific, ethical, and cultural aspects of hunger are also examined. The readings, lectures, and discussions in the course are supplemented with work with local aid organizations and exploration of the contemplative practices that motivate and sustain many of those who work with the hungry. This course cannot be used in fulfillment of any general distribution requirement. Prerequisite: None. (Credit, full course.) Haskell

Economics 347. Microfinance Institutions in South Asia
More information: http://www.sewanee.edu/economics/South_Asia_broch.pdf
The course provides an overview of the microfinance industry: its origins, evolution, theoretical underpinnings, and empirical evidence. It focuses on both the tools of microfinance operation such as financial management and lending methodologies, and on the basic issues and policy debates in microfinance, such as impact assessment, poverty targeting and measurement, and sustainability. The course cannot be used in fulfillment of the general distribution requirement in social science. This course is being offered as part of the Summer in South Asia Program. (Credit, full course.) Mohiuddin

Education 161. Introduction to Educational Psychology

An introduction to psychological theories of learning and development with a focus on their application to teaching and parenting. Includes study of moral, personality, language and cognitive development, learning styles, intelligence and creativity and cognitive and behavioral learning theories. Includes observation in local schools. An active learning experience. (Credit, full course.) Wallace

Education 204. Anthropology of Education (Writing-Intensive) (Also Anthropology 204)

A school-based research course through which we study the cultural contexts of schools and classrooms, families and youth cultures, multiculturalism and diversity. Also includes service learning in a classroom and reflection on responding to diversity. (Credit, full course.) O'Connor, Wallace

Education 341. Methods and Materials of Teaching

Study and practice of secondary school teaching focusing on a wide variety of planning, teaching, assessment and improvement strategies. Also includes work with instructional technologies, media and materials and classroom management techniques. Students observe and reflect on local classrooms and develop and teach their own lessons. Prerequisite: permission of instructor. (Credit, full course.) Staff

Education 342. Student Teaching

A full time, fifteen-week student teaching apprenticeship experience in the student's major field(s). The student is supervised by effective teachers at the middle and high school levels. Art and theatre students, working toward K to 12 certification, also work with teachers at the elementary school. Prerequisite: Education 341 and permission of the Teacher Education Committee. This course must be taken concurrently with Education 401: Senior Seminar. (Credit, two full courses.) Staff

Environmental Studies 201. Organic Agriculture

A study of the principles and practice of organic agriculture. Topics include the scientific and economic meanings of sustainability in agricultural systems, the ethical and spiritual dimensions of growing food and fiber, the effects of agriculture on native biodiversity, and the roles of activism, marketing, and government policy in the production and sale of organic food. Class involves reading, writing, discussions, invited speakers, field trips, and the development and care of an organic garden. (Credit, full course.) Haskell

Environmental Studies 302. Ecology, Evolution, and Agriculture

An investigation of the reciprocal interaction between humans and the organisms that nourish us. The class examines the origins and subsequent evolution of domesticated plants, animals, and agricultural pests, and the ways in which these organisms have shaped our bodies and communities. The class also focuses on the relationship between food production and hunger. Class involves reading, writing, and discussions, invited speakers, field trips, and the study of ecological processes and natural history in and around an organic garden. (Credit, full course.) Haskell

Philosophy 235. Medical Ethics

This survey of moral issues surrounding the practice of medicine emphasizes the role of both implicit and explicit assumptions in determining what qualifies as an ethical issue. Topics may include human genome research, abortion, the practitioner/patient relationship, the distribution of care, institutional effects on practice, decisions to terminate life, and the use of animals and fetal tissue in experimental research. (Credit, full course.) Peterman

Political Science 410. The Politics of Poverty
An introduction to the study of a significant social problem: poverty. Course topics include the development of an economic underclass in the United States and the programmatic response of government, the feminization of poverty, the causes of persistent rural and urban poverty, race and poverty in the South, and the connections between poverty in the U.S. and the international trade regime. Prerequisite: None. (Credit, full course.) Schneider

Religion 100. Memory, Place, Life

A field-based class that examines the relation between land use and social forms. Weekly field exercises consider the impact of farms, churches, cemeteries, roads, paths, and trails on the shape of the land. There is an emphasis on reading the land as a form of memory. Field sites are selected and visited as part of engaging the story of the land and the people who have lived on it. The focus area is Sewanee and the surrounding plateau, coves, and valley. Some interviews with local residents are part of the class experience. Selected readings continue the general theme of memory in relation to life and place. Prerequisite: none. The course is open to first year students only. (Credit, full course.) Smith

Last updated on October 24, 2006 by Tom Howick