Modifying Field Experiences to Service-Learning

Most teacher education programs utilize field experiences to provide teaching candidates with the opportunity to practice learned pedagogy. Field experiences often are apprenticeships where the teaching candidate's primary focus is to develop teaching skills. Service-learning combines community service with academic learning and provides teaching candidates the opportunity to collaborate with site staff to design and deliver programming and instruction to meet the site's holistic needs. Service-learning has the potential to foster the teaching competency of teaching candidates, professional development of existing site staff, and programming for students. A described inappropriate field experience prompted the modification of a physical education teacher education program's requirement to service-learning.