Context and Importance of Track Two

Service-learning and civic education have become popular pedagogical themes as higher education attempts to embody diversity and innovation in our teaching models. This trend, however, has resulted in disagreement over the means by which service-learning and the civic education theme should be incorporated into the classroom. Some educators have sought to jump on the bandwagon without really attempting to learn exactly what these tools entail, resulting in a diffusion of their effectiveness.

The APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, through its establishment of a track dealing with service-learning and civic education (Track Two), supports the validity of these pedagogical tools and the engagement in reflective critiques of their usefulness and applicability in subdisciplinary areas such as international relations, methods, and American Government. An in-depth forum for discussing and establishing the definitions, usefulness, and criteria for analysis of service-learning and civic education is particularly important in the discipline of political science. Of all the disciplines that seek to incorporate service-learning and civic education, it is particularly imperative that political science takes the lead in addressing these matters since it is this discipline that should be the forerunner in addressing the theory and practice of democratic participation and civil society in the classroom.

Highlights and Themes

The highlights and themes that emerged from the conference panel have relevance for educators, students, and other communities. Faculty members need to consider whether or not the push for service-learning and civic engagement derives from a singular ideological focus on the part of faculty members. In many cases, service-learning and civic education are value-laden objectives whose roles have to be understood and evaluated in the classroom setting.

In addition, the necessary resources involved in these pedagogies are costly and thus often prohibitive for many faculty. Given that many colleges and universities place higher value on traditional data-based and normative research than on teaching when making tenure and promotion decisions, should untenured faculty be encouraged to engage in developing time-consuming pedagogical tools?

A number of themes emerged at the conference. The concept of being involved in politics often has a negative connotation for many young people, especially in contrast to the feeling of good will often fostered by service to one's community. Therefore, the link between political activism and service-learning should be a focus of service-learning courses.

In addition, appropriate categories of service-learning should be utilized in accordance with carefully planned learning outcomes and an awareness of the students' capacity to engage in a particular project. Service-learning should not be used simply because it is trendy or appears innovative, but because it will further the learning process for the student. The panel discussed many different service-learning categories and ways in which each could be applied to different learning outcomes. Reflection/analysis throughout a semester and at its conclusion is necessary to ensure that a service project has achieved its objective. Although a sense of personal fulfillment may result for the student, inclass reflection can help to ensure critical analysis of a particular service project.

While the panel consisted of educators, attention was also given to relationships with the community. Although community partners may benefit from student output, students should not feel like they are experts patronizing a needy organization. At the same time, the balance between sensitivity toward and analytical distance from community partners is particularly delicate in the learning process. An organization's structure, issues, and capacities are some of the criteria that faculty need to consider in choosing a community partner for a service-learning or civic engagement project. The level of commitment that the community partner feels in contributing to the learning process could also be an important consideration.

Obtaining the perfect balance of control over the service-learning or civic engagement process between faculty, students, and community partners is often challenging. An issue related to this balance that needs to be addressed deals with the schedule or time-line of a project. The ideal balance will result when the faculty member outlines clear learning objectives and assessment procedures, the student is able to perform the goals of the community partner and fulfill the academic course requirements while maintaining analytical distance, and the community partner and the academic partner feel they both benefit from the shared interaction.

Lessons Learned

Although the panel participants were already practitioners of service-learning and civic education instruction, there were still many lessons to be learned through evaluating and sharing experiences related to the application and assessment of these themes. Discussing teaching/learning experiences with a broader audience facilitates the sharing of pedagogical tools, successes, failures, misperceptions, and lessons learned. In every sense, participants felt that this type of panel/workshop enhances the goals of the political science discipline.

One important lesson is that the service-learning model is not “filler” that can be placed capriciously in political science courses, but rather a process/tool requiring a disciplined consciousness of both teaching techniques and learning outcomes. This is not a simple pedagogical instrument that faculty use to reduce lesson preparations, but rather a complex mechanism for directly applying lessons to the real world. Ideally, service-learning will be respected as such in the discipline. Having an influential organization like the APSA facilitate the discussion of the service-learning model in a conference setting enhances the stature of this pedagogical tool.

In addition, the far-reaching implications of both service-learning and civic education for students beyond academia should be considered. In many cases, students become more than observers in the political process. Their lives and career goals may even be changed as a result of these learning opportunities. Therefore, instructors need to consider any ethical issues as well as any personal biases that may be present in steering students toward a more political expression of the learning process.

A perception held by some political scientists has been the discipline's irrelevancy in the political arena. One benefit for the discipline of political science arising from renewed attention to service-learning and civic education is that politics becomes more connected to the political environments that are being analyzed, thus becoming more relevant both for students and society at large. In addition, a more positive model regarding the role of politics is imparted to a broader audience, whether students, community partners, or other disciplines.

Importance of Conference and Expectations for the Future

The conference was important for bringing together faculty who are interested in reflective self-examination of pedagogical tools. The rigorous selfreflective research presented by the conference participants dealing with service-learning pedagogy and why civic engagement is important was impressive in its scope, establishing the groundwork for future research. Publication of this research will hopefully raise awareness of alternative pedagogies among those who were not able to participate in this year's conference and help to establish the legitimacy of these research questions.

As a pilot conference, this meeting was particularly important for developing a model meeting for the future. For example, the European conference model of intensive tracks seemed to be quite popular among the participants. It provided significant networking opportunities for faculty that are committed to alternative pedagogies. Participants moved away from academia's tendency to focus on the individual researcher at such meetings toward acknowledgment that committed faculty can benefit from a group-oriented workshop. Participation at this conference generated substantial benefits including extended, in-depth group analysis of different pedagogical models.

One beneficial modification for the future would be to separate some of the general themes to ensure particular attention to each. In Track Two, for example, attention to service-learning seemed to dominate over civic education. In addition, while it was helpful to have these topics considered in a joint session to increase the networking potential, they could be separated in the future to allow for more conference participants and to assistin moving each panel from a survey of broad themes toward core specialization and practical classroom applications.

Finally, it is important that future panels on these topics move beyond just rehashing this year's debates, questions, and themes. The groundwork has been laid for a conference model. Using participants from this year's conference to facilitate next year's panels will ensure that the APSA Conference on Teaching and Learning does not become stagnant or repetitive, but will instead become renowned for being on the cutting-edge of the assessment of innovative pedagogical tools.