Teacher modeling of active citizenship via service‐learning in teacher education

Abstract

A cacophony of voices is continuing to place mandates on education and yet the voices of teachers are seldom heard. Teacher education can attempt to address this issue by facilitation of advocacy experiences via service‐learning. The experiential and transformative nature of service‐learning is illustrated through three case studies in which graduate students, namely in early childhood education, address educational issues such as class size reduction, Universal Pre‐K and the No child left behind Act, through self‐determined advocacy efforts in early childhood education courses. The seven elements of service‐learning include integrated learning, student voice, high quality service, civic responsibility, collaboration, reflection and evaluation. These elements serve as a framework for structuring the data collected from students' written reflections. Selective highlighting is utilized to generate the emergent themes from the data. In these case studies, the students who engaged in advocacy efforts through service‐learning experienced transformations in their own perceived empowerment, the value of their voice, and their commitment to continued advocacy efforts.