Assessing Both the Know and Show in IT Service-Learning

When a faculty member considers creating an information technology service-learning course or module, assessment may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, it is probably a warm feeling of implementing pedagogy that uses experiential learning and promises a service to a community nonprofit organization. It resides halfway between the real world and the classroom, a real-world problem for a real client while still being part of a regular course. Problems, however, can crop up as soon as the instructor starts to develop the course plan. One of the most difficult problems is to determine exactly how the students are going to be assessed. Unlike many courses, a service-learning course requires both hard technical skills and soft skills such as communications and teamwork. Since it is experiential, tests are not an option. Since it is dealing with a new problem every semester, the canned case-study grading rubric does not work. Since the client is real, sometimes issues arise that are beyond the control of the instructor or students. Furthermore, since the problem is real, sometimes a solution simply cannot be found. In response to these problems, this chapter seeks to help an IT service-learning instructor formulate an assessment plan for the course. It starts with some definitions of service-learning and a review of Furco's Continuum so that service-learning can be placed into a context of the several areas of service engagement. It then reports on some of the reasons for service-learning and how the topic of service-learning has become much more common in engineering- and technology-education conferences. Assessment in service-learning, and the requirements of ABET, are next covered. Finally a review of techniques for assessing both the hard and soft skills required of an IT professional is covered. These help us to determine that our students both know and can show the skill set desired.