Learn and Serve America's National Service-Learning Clearinghouse

Service Reflection Toolkit
This toolkit includes a discussion of reflection and a collection of reflection activities, separated into the amount of time required. The intention is for reflection to be available and utilized any time, whether you have fifteen seconds or two hours.

On the Front Lines of Schools: Perspectives of Teachers and Principals on the High School Dropout Problem
As a follow-up to its report three years ago on the dropout crisis in American public education, Civic Enterprises has created a new report that includes the views of teachers and administrators.

First Responders: Youth Addressing Childhood Obesity Through Service-Learning
The primary audiences of this module are classroom teachers, service-learning coordinators, students in the health professions, and staff in community and youth development organizations who are seeking to engage middle and high school-age-youth as "first responders" to the critical American issue of childhood obesity.

Information for Action: A Journal for Service-Learning Research with Children and Youth
The Journal is a peer-reviewed publication that features relevant, methodologically sound studies of service-learning impacts and examples of innovative instruction written by experts, scholars, practitioners, and youth.

K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice
These standards and indicators were vetted through a series of “reactor panels” convened nationwide by the National Youth Leadership Council and RMC Research Corporation. [author]

Silent Epidemic, (The): Perspectives of High School Dropouts (2006)
The central message of this report is that while some students drop out because of significant academic challenges, most dropouts are students who could have, and believe they could have, succeeded in school. This survey of young people who left high school without graduating suggests that, despite career aspirations that require education beyond high school and a majority having grades of a C or better, circumstances in students' lives and an inadequate response to those circumstances from the schools led to dropping out. (author)
Full Report

Service-Learning... by Degrees: How Adolescents Can Make a Difference in the Real World (2007)
Grounded in research, this book offers ideas for connecting service-learning with the curriculum, assessing its value and impact through student reflection, and nuts-and-bolts ways to implement and coordinate different types of projects at once. Illustrated with in-depth examples of actual projects and filled with useful tips, techniques, tools, and activities appropriate to programs of all types, this book provides facilitators with an effective, best-practice model for selecting and implementing the most appropriate level of service-learning for adolescents. (publisher)

Service Learning: A Guide to Planning, Implementing, and Assessing Student Projects (2nd Ed.) (2006)
This guide presents an instructional strategy that invites students to learn content information, processes, and skills while performing and reflecting on authentic community service. The book features nine service-learning projects and includes step-by-step instructions for selecting a project's focus, managing its various phases, and assessing student performance and learning. The projects range in complexity from basic to advanced, and are adaptable to different grade levels and content areas.

How Schools Can Help Students Recover from Traumatic Experiences: A Tool Kit for Supporting Long-Term Recovery (2006)
This tool kit describes how changes in behavior appear in the school setting and provides a compendium of programs available to schools that help support the long-term recovery of traumatized students.

The Impact of Participation in Service-Learning on High School Students' Civic Engagement (2005)
This study compared more than 1,000 high school students who participated in service-learning programs with those who did not participate in schools matched for similar demographics and student achievement profiles. The intention was to estimate the effects of service-learning compared to more traditional ways of teaching similar subject areas.

Kids as Planners (Second Edition) (2005)
This guidebook provides teachers, school administrators, students and community partners with a process for designing, implementing and evaluating a service-learning project. It demonstrates how service-learning can effectively meet many educational reform objectives: standards-based learning, character education and school-to-career initiatives.

Service-Learning in Grades K-8 (2006)
This book examines the beneficial effects of service learning, explores different types of service learning projects, and explains how to start a successful program. The author offers a research base, practical and logistical information, and descriptions of varied programs in order to help teachers adapt this strategy to their own students’ needs and interests.

Service-Learning Code of Ethics (2005)
This book provides a basic road map for addressing the critical ethical issues in service-learning in order to prepare students, faculty, and administrators for the sometimes difficult ethical dilemmas that arise during the service-learning process.

Mathematics in Service to the Community: Concepts And Models For Service-Learning In The Mathematical Sciences (2005)
This book looks at the wide variety of ways in which math, statistics, and math education teachers have incorporated service-learning into their courses. These projects are not just stand-alone community service initiatives, but rather they specifically target the improvement of mathematics skills and insights of the college students in the courses with which they are associated.