Service Learning in the Curriculum: Preparing LIS Students for the Next Millennium

Abstract

Service learning promotes student mastery of conceptual material through active and problem-based experiences within a community service setting. The model has emerged across educational sectors as a powerful pedagogy that facilitates the development of highly integrated understandings of complex theoretical constructs. With structured faculty support, students are encouraged to develop meaningful and lasting connections between their experiences in the community and the theory presented in the classroom. This dynamic interplay typically promotes higher achievement and deeper learning and is especially conducive to the learning patterns characteristic of adult students. The model allows LIS educators, who are often criticized for their remote understanding of the practitioner's world, to bridge theory and practice within a construct that is fully congruent with the profession's value system. Service learning also has the power to create meaningful and visible roles for LIS programs within the community and their parent institutions. This paper considers the role of service learning in LIS education. An overview of the paradigm and its rationale is presented, as well as a description of a demonstration class that fully incorporated technology and service learning. The paper concludes with a synthesis of the implications for LIS education of linking theory and practice through service learning.