Learning to unlearn: How a service-learning project can help teacher candidates to reframe urban students

Trends in Higher Education Service-Learning Courses for Pre-Service Teachers: A Systematic Review

“…The selected research predominantly utilized S-L programs designed as components of various core curricula university courses, such as inclusive education and diversity courses (Conner, 2010;Carringtonm & Selva, 2010), introductory or capstone pedagogical courses (Chang, Anagnostopoulos & Omae, 2011;Coffey, 2010;Trauth-Nare, 2015;Sletto, 2010;Power, 2013), methods of teaching courses (Cone, 2012;Iverson & James, 2010;Kim, 2012), pedagogical research courses (Wallace, 2013), art education courses (Whiteland, 2013), thus corroborating the flexibility of S-L as a powerful curricular tool. Out of the total 15 approaches, 2 scholars designed the S-L experience as a summer program: a summer arts-based S-L with Australian Aboriginal people as beneficiaries (Power & Bennet, 2015) and a summer enrichment mentoring S-L program for developing pedagogical skills (Green, 2011).…”

“…Nevertheless, all studies included in the current qualitative synthesis are student-centred, focusing mainly on enhancing the preservice teachers' authentic learning experience (Green, 2011;Power & Bennet, 2015;Wallace, 2013) and their level of positive attitudes (Chang, Anagnostopoulos, & Omae, 2011;Carringtonm & Selva, 2010;Cone, 2012;Kim, 2012), as well as to ease the transition into practice per se (Coffey, 2011). Table 1 summarizes the subordinate enhancement aims which ranged from positively influencing students' assumptions or negative stereotypes (Conner, 2010) to increasing retention and learning success (Naidoo, 2012), enhancing critical thinking (Carringtonm & Selva, 2010), self-efficacy (Trauth-Nare, 2015), civic efficacy (Iverson & James, 2010;Naidoo, 2012), encourage introspection (Carringtonm & Selva, 2010;Whiteland, 2013) or addressing and maintaining a sustainable partnership with the community (Sletto, 2010;Whiteland, 2013).…”

“…The hosting environments varied from common schools (Coffey, 2010;Green, 2011;Trauth-Nare, 2015 Sletto, 2010) to schools placed in distressed neighbourhoods (Conner, 2010), community organizations that serve youth from marginalized groups (Chang, Anagnostopoulos & Omae, 2011),…”

Toward Self-Authoring a Civic Teacher Identity: Service-Learning in Teacher Education

“…Service-learning can provide candidates with a rich context for cultivating their pedagogical knowledge and skills and extend their understanding of student learning (Spencer, Cox-Peterson, & Crawford, 2005;Tatebe, 2013). Among other benefits, teacher candidates reported that servicelearning increased their understanding of literacy development (McMunn Dooley & Criss Mays, 2014), supported equitable science learning among diverse student populations (Cone, 2009b), strengthened their commitment to social justice education (Farnsworth, 2010;Tinkler, Hannah, Tinkler, & Miller, 2014), and extended their ability to respond to diverse urban student populations (Carter Andrews, 2009;Conner, 2010). In particular, preservice music teachers concluded that service-learning increased their confidence and commitment to teaching music and shaped their identities as music teachers (Burton & Reynolds, 2009).…”

“…In a similar vein, Conner (2010) contended that service-learning provides a context for teacher candidates to "unlearn" by confronting their prior assumptions about the recipients and by developing a habit to "constantly monitor their thoughts and behaviour, until sensitivity to the service recipients' experience becomes second nature" (p. 1171). Moreover, Carmen's reflection recognizes that students need opportunities to shape their own learning, a core element of 21 st century education (Schleicher, 2014).…”