Service-Learning and Standards Toolkit

A collection of tools that experts in the field have found to be helpful in using service-learning to meet standards. The toolkit is not intended to answer the question "How do you use service-learning to meet standards?" but rather to serve as a start in collecting selections from some of the most useful materials that have been identified. Hopefully, practitioners will add to this collection from other sources and/or identify their own best practices for inclusion. The collection includes best practices and constructive models in curricula, assessment, and planning. A new publication from the Education Commission of the States (ECS) shows how service-learning can help students achieve academic standards as well as increase their citizenship skills and be more involved in their communities. The Service-Learning and Standards Toolkit from the Compact for Learning and Citizenship, ECS' K-12 service-learning project, features more than 100 pages of examples of actual service-learning curriculum and assessments in use across the country. The Toolkit also provides suggestions on how to use or adapt the curricula or assessment in other situations, looks at the challenges facing service-learning advocates and provides advice for using service-learning to help students achieve high academic standards.