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Engaging Youth in Times of Personal and Educational Transition: Selected Service-Learning Resources
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| Source: National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, updated January 2009. Our bibliographies strive to provide the most useful resources on a topic, with links to online full text items and downloadable PDFs when those are available. Library items may be borrowed from the Clearinghouse by Learn and Serve America grantees and subgrantees. For additional resources on these and other service-learning topics, visit the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse at www.servicelearning.org. | ||
| Jr. High | ||
| Engaging At-Risk Students Socially and Educationally During a Time of Critical Transition From Elementary to Junior High: a Case Study of a Summer Service-Learning Intervention Program This study examined how seventh grade students’ educational and social engagement is affected when they participated in a summer service-learning orientation program. Incoming students participated in a four-week summer intervention designed to build Latino students’ social capital by engaging them in a local community-based orientation curriculum complemented by a week-long service-learning project. The results confirmed the statistical significance and suggest that a brief but purposeful intervention during the critical transition periods in students’ lives can have a meaningful impact on social and educational engagement. servicelearning.org/library/resource/5909 | ||
| High School | ||
| Developing and Implementing a Transition to High School Program for Incoming, At Risk, Ninth Grade Students to Increase School Success This practicum was designed to assist 62 incoming, at-risk, ninth grade students to acquire the knowledge, motivation, interest, and skills necessary to make a successful transition to high school. Primary objects were to reduce the number of disciplinary infractions; decrease school absences; involve more of the students in school related activities; and increase student awareness of study skills. Students met with school personnel during their lunch periods, to promote social interaction among the students as well as between students and the program's faculty members. Upper class volunteers were then assigned as "buddies" to ninth graders. The upper class students were to serve as role models while assisting the at-risk students with transitional concerns. Group guidance sessions served as vehicles to define and explore school policies, programs, services, and regulations. Small group counseling sessions and individual counseling sessions were introduced to provide an informal setting to share feelings and explore ideas. Study and examination skills were taught, career exploration sessions were conducted, tutoring assistance was provided, and social activities were organized. The practicum involved teachers, students, counselors, and parents in easing transitional difficulties. Analysis of data revealed that the program was successful in meeting its objectives. Appendices provide a student survey form and records of disciplinary infractions, absences, and school activities involvement. servicelearning.org/library/resource/3121 | ||
| Adulthood | ||
| Community Programs to Promote Youth Development The book focuses on essential elements of adolescent well-being and healthy development. It offers recommendations for policy, practice, and research to ensure that programs are well designed to meet their developmental needs. The book also discusses the features of programs that can contribute to a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. It examines what we know about the current landscape of youth development programs, as well as how these programs are meeting their diverse needs. Recognizing the importance of adolescence as a period of transition to adulthood, the book offers authoritative guidance to policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and other key stakeholders on the role of youth development programs to promote the healthy development and well-being of the nation's youth. Partial contents: Promoting Adolescent Development / Features of Positive Developmental Settings / The Landscape of Community Programs for Youth / Evaluation and Social Indicator Data / Intersection of Practice, Policy, and Research. servicelearning.org/library/resource/4555 Expanding the Circle: Respecting the Past, Preparing for the Future A curriculum offering a structured process and a set of culturally relevant activities to facilitate successful transition from high school to adult life for American Indian high school students. It includes activities based on work with hundreds of American Indian high school youth, paraprofessionals, teachers, and administrators; aligned with Minnesota graduation standards; developed to include family and community members in the transition process; and created with students' varying and unique strengths and abilities in mind. The curriculum package includes one Onaakonan System (OS), a personal portfolio system designed to help students plan for their future in an organized and structured way. The curriculum includes activities that lend themselves to the use of the OS. Expanding the Circle: Respecting the Past, Preparing for the Future: A Summer Program and Curriculum to Support American Indian Students in Transition (Conference Call Presentation Transcript) This is the transcript of an NCSET conference call presentation on the curriculum entitled "Expanding the Circle". The authors of the curriculum discuss how it was developed, how it works, what the results have been, and other information. The information is presented in an interview style format with comments from other participants in the conference call presentation. servicelearning.org/library/resource/5829 Great Transitions: Preparing Adolescents for a New Century The Carnegie Corporation's Council on Adolescent Development builds on the work of many organizations and individuals to stimulate sustained public attention to the risks and opportunities of adolescence, and generates public and private support for measures that facilitate the critical transition to adulthood. This document explores some of the risks of adolescence--which encompasses ages 11 and 12 in early adolescence and 17 and 18 in late adolescence. The report also gives recommendations for meeting the essential requirements of healthy adolescent development and adapting pivotal institutions to foster healthy adolescence. The report concludes with an epilogue on sustaining the perspectives of the Council of Adolescent Development. Five appendices include task force, working, group, and advisory board members; meetings and workshops; and an index of programs cited in the report. servicelearning.org/library/resource/253 National Survey on Service-Learning and Transitioning to Adulthood This study examines the opinions of U.S. residents age 18 to 28 on a variety of topics including high school experiences and the influence of community service, service-learning, and role models while growing up. The survey was conducted online in December 2005, and was a nationally representative survey of 3,123 U.S. adults aged 18 to 28. The survey included young adults with a range of experience providing direct or indirect service: those with service-learning experience, those with service experience that does not qualify as service-learning, and those with no service experience at all. servicelearning.org/library/resource/7304 Service-Learning and Transitioning to Adulthood To examine the hypothesis that service-learning offers the potential to ease the transition to adulthood, as well as to explore other aspects of the transition to adulthood, the St. Paul-based National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) commissioned the Harris Interactive Youth and Education Research Group to conduct a two-part research project on how young adults are making the transition from youth to adulthood, and how service-learning impacts this transition. The National Survey on Service-Learning and Transitioning to Adulthood, conducted online in December 2005, is a nationally representative survey of 3,123 U.S. adults aged 18 to 28. The survey included young adults with a range of experience providing direct or indirect service: those with service-learning experience (service-learning youth), those with service experience that does not qualify as service-learning (service-only youth), and those with no service experience at all (no-service youth). To more deeply explore the service-learning experience, focus groups were conducted with 11th and 12th grade U.S. high school students currently involved in service-learning, as well as service-learning alumni ages 18 -24. This article summarizes the results. servicelearning.org/library/resource/8320 | ||
| College/University | ||
| Freshmen in Transition: A Residential Living Community with a Focus on Leadership Development and Service-Learning Component Describes the Freshmen in Transition program (FIT) at Oklahoma State University and how upper class students live with and serve as mentors to freshmen students. servicelearning.org/library/resource/6299 Gaining a Foothold: Women's Transitions through Work and College This research report by the American Association of University Women's Educational Foundation explores how and why women make educational transitions. It focuses on factors that influence women as they move from high school to work, and then on to college and also from the workforce back to school. Contents include profiles of women in transition, decision making, goals, aspirations and rationales. Obstacles, barriers and solutions are also discussed. There are five goals for the report: 1)looking at institutional factors that affect women's decisions at different transition points; 2) a comparison of men's and women's experiences of transitions; 3) to help readers understand the interaction of variables that influence how, when and why educational transitions occur; 4) how women make decisions about education, and; 5) a clarification of how institutions create obstacles or opportunities for women making education transitions servicelearning.org/library/resource/958 Service as a Bridge to Higher Education: Developing Service Learning in Developmental Studies Though the new and exciting field of service learning has rapidly expanded to kindergarten through college, very little has been said about the appropriateness of service-learning for developmental studies (pre-college) level students. Since developmental studies courses have in the past been labeled “remedial,” perhaps it has been assumed that these students are not yet ready for the rigors and challenges of service-learning. This is the story of one developmental studies department that has found that, on the contrary, service-learning is precisely what our students need to help them smooth the sometimes intimidating transition into higher education. servicelearning.org/library/resource/5622 Service-Learning and the First-Year Experience: Preparing Students for Personal Success and Civic Responsibility This monograph documents the congruence of two powerful educational concerns: the success of first year students and the potential of service-learning as a teaching-learning strategy. Over the past 10 years in particular, both these concerns have gained an ever larger group of adherents. However, until recently, neither has fully realized how important each could be to the other or the degree to which many of their values, challenges, and even goals overlap. servicelearning.org/library/resource/4740 Students with Developmental Disabilities Go to College: Description of a Collaborative Transition Project on a Regular College Campus This article describes a project that brought transitioning young adults with disabilities to a college campus for job-sampling. High school students with disabilities were mentored by college students on campus. Data collected indicated that this project had benefits for young adults with and without disabilities and supported the use of a community-based service-learning model. servicelearning.org/library/resource/4812 Transitioning from High School Service to College Service-Learning in a First-Year Seminar This article analyzes the challenges encountered in a first-year service-learning course in which students had high expectations for community involvement and a commitment to social responsibility, yet significant difficulty connecting their service orientation to the intellectual inquiry expected of them at the college level. This conflict between "making a difference" and undertaking complementary academic work was evident in students' reflections. servicelearning.org/library/resource/7303 | ||
| School to Work | ||
| Challenging Our Communities: Purposeful Action for Youth Transition from School to Work Factors such as the widespread corporate restructuring of the 1980s, international pressures, and technological advancement have created a youth employment crisis. Schools cannot single-handedly educate students for the new jobs of the 1990s because they lack the understanding of today's workplace needs, technology, and funding. Employers, community agencies, and schools must pool their resources and work together to develop effective youth transition programs. The experiences of four cities with demonstrated commitments to education reform (Boston, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; Louisville, Kentucky; and Portland, Oregon) were studied to identify strategies that could be replicated by other communities interested in addressing their youth employment problems. Hearings in the four cities established the following elements as crucial to successful community-based school-to-work transition programs: community collaboration, school effectiveness, school-to-work transition services, and measurements and credentials. A blueprint for action was proposed that calls for collaboration at the community level and the formation of two bodies: coalitions of concerned citizens to shape the vision of and monitor the effectiveness of their community's youth transition program, and an office of youth transition services to facilitate long-term implementation of the youth transition program. servicelearning.org/library/resource/2317 Education in the Marketplace: School at the Mall of America Educators have long acknowledged that not all learning occurs in a classroom. This paper describes an innovative educational program in Minnesota, where the educational facility was built in a dedicated space at the Mall of America. The program is based on an outcomes-based, transdisciplinary curriculum for 16- to 19-year-old youth, featuring the "School to Work" transition model, technology preparation, and service-learning. The school is an arrangement between Mall of America management, who wanted to create a sense of community, and the Bloomington School District, which wanted to develop an innovative educational program. This paper describes the program's governance and alliances, finances, facilities, technology, public relations, curriculum, and evaluation process. The curriculum features life/career choices, global studies, entrepreneurship, environmental issues, and arts in the marketplace. servicelearning.org/library/resource/3209 Learning from Experience: A Cross Case Comparison of School to Work Transition Initiatives The purpose of this report is to help practitioners, policy makers, and program developers create sound systems for school-to-work transition. Its approach to doing so is two-fold: 1) presenting as analysis of how school-to-work reform affects its clients and participants, and 2) describing a set of twelve critical elements that the research indicates are essential to any sound school-to-work systems. servicelearning.org/library/resource/3468 School to Work Systems: the Role of Community Colleges in Preparing Students and Facilitating Transitions This edition of "New Directions for Community Colleges" demonstrates how community colleges are engaged in strengthening existing partnerships with schools, employers, and labor and community based organizations as they develop new programs to address the three major components of the school-to-work systems. Articles include the following: "Assessing the Community College Role in School-to-Work Systems" by Debra Bragg and Mildred Barnes Griggs; "Benchmarking for Quality Curriculum: The Heart of School-to-Work" by Margaret Ellibee and Sarah Mason; "Building Partnerships" by Mary Kisner et al.; "The Art of Articulation: Connecting the Dots" by David Just and Dewey Adams; "The Role Community Colleges Should Play in Job Placement" by Laurel Adler; "Workplace Mentoring: Considerations and Exemplary Practices" by Carl Price et al.: "The Apprenticeship Revival: Examining Community College Practices" by Ann Doty and Robin Odom; Quality Emphasis on Career Development and Continuous Self Improvement" by Joe Green and Phyllis Foley; "Contextual Curriculum: Getting More Meaning from Education" by Les Bolt and Ned Swartz; "Legal and Technological Issues of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994" by Donald Bryant and Mary Kirk; "School-to-Work Systems and the Community College: Looking Ahead" by Edgar Farmer and Cassy Key; and "Source and Information: School-to-Work Programming Initiatives in the United States" by Matthew Burstein. servicelearning.org/library/resource/2242 Service-Learning and School-to-Work Strategies for Revitalizing Urban Education And Communities Discusses, on a national level, how service learning relates to the school-to-work transition programs. The author specifically examines service-learning and school-to-work strategies for revitalizing urban education. Examples are provided to illustrate urban school/community cooperation in preparing students for careers, college, or immediate employment and for responsible citizenship. servicelearning.org/library/resource/5350 | ||
Suggested Citation:
National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. Engaging Youth in Times of Personal and Educational Transition: Selected Service-Learning Resources. Scotts Valley, CA: Author, 2009.
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