Investigating Student Learning Within and Across Linked Service-Learning Courses

This chapter summarizes the design, preliminary results, and primary challenges of a multiyear investigation of student learning within and across a sequence of service-learning enhanced courses. The investigators are assessing written student reflection products that are guided by specific prompts designed to facilitate higher order reasoning in the context of specific learning objectives, which are shared by multiple courses in a nonprofit studies minor. The chapter examines the challenges that underlie the limitations of the study and suggests practical implications for continued scholarship of teaching and learnings work and for the institutionalization of other interdisciplinary programs.