We Know it's Service, But What are They Learning? Preservice Teachers' Understandings of Diversity

This study raises questions and illuminates the differences in the learning outcomes of preservice teachers who participated in two similar yet notably different service-learning experiences. Through examinations of writing tasks the authors found that teacher learning depended on the opportunities to learn provided by service-learning placements. Service-learning experiences that facilitated non-traditional power dynamics, engaged out-of-school contexts, and connected to teaching pedagogy were associated with more complex understandings of diversity. (author)