Service-learning in early childhood teacher education: Using service to put meaning back into learning

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Service-learning in early childhood teacher education: Using service to put meaning back into learning Vickie E. Lake , Ithel Jones Childhood Education, Reading, and Disability Services, Florida State University, 215 Stone Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4459, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

abstract

Article history: Received 23 April 2007 Received in revised form 29 April 2008 Accepted 6 May 2008

Service-learning is defined as a teaching/learning method that connects meaningful community service with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility. In this study, conducted at an American University, we describe a cascading model of integrating early childhood teacher education and service-learning for preservice teachers who then implemented the combined model in their field classrooms with young children. Examples of the projects from the two cohorts of 25 and 26 undergraduate students are provided. We demonstrate that service-learning projects provide an instructional avenue for preservice students to teach in an integrated and/or experiential manner in their field classrooms and discuss why service-learning is an appropriate and meaningful strategy to use with preservice teachers and children. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Early childhood Teacher education Service-learning

1. Introduction During the past two decades, school reform efforts and the related emphasis on ‘‘tougher standards’’ and accountability have significantly influenced approaches to teaching and learning in our nations’ classrooms. With the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), the pendulum in education has swung away from active, hands-on learning towards more traditional approaches. Faced with increasing pressures to improve test scores and provide more intensive early intervention, teachers have had to adopt curriculum materials and pedagogical approaches that are more didactic. Yet, for some time, early childhood educators have attempted to resist this pressure and have continued to teach from a more constructivist or integrated approach. These educators, armed with the backing of reports from national organisations, e.g. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), the National Committee on Science Education (1996), the

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0742-051X/$ - see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2008.05.003

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2004), the National Commission for the Social Studies (1994), the National Association of Elementary School Principals (2003–2006), and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (1989), are teaching with a greater emphasis on active, hands-on learning; conceptual learning that leads to understanding along with acquisition of basic skills; meaningful, relevant learning experiences; interactive teaching and cooperative learning; and a broad range of relevant content, integrated across traditional subject matter divisions (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 1998). In addition to focusing on restructuring school curricula, national reform efforts have called on educators, from early childhood to higher education, to adopt academic service-learning. Calling on higher education to renew its historic commitment to service-learning, educators and other experts are ‘‘urging colleges and universities to assume a leadership role in addressing society’s increasing problems and in meeting growing human needs’’ (Jacoby, 1996, p. 3). Service-learning is defined as a teaching/learning method that connects meaningful community service with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility. As an approach, service-learning

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is viewed as an innovative and effective instructional strategy that can enhance and enrich the teaching and learning experiences of both faculty and students. Recognising this unique capacity of service-learning to promote high-quality learning, federal and state governments are encouraging schools and colleges to promote this strategy. In the area of teacher education, servicelearning provides preservice teachers (PSTs) with a powerful tool to use with children. That is, well-designed service-learning that combines meaningful community service with curriculum-based learning enables teachers to meet the academic needs of young children in meaningful ways. It follows then that service-learning should also be integrated into early childhood teacher education programmes. When early childhood PSTs work with prekindergarten to grade 3 (PK-3) teachers and children to design and implement service-learning projects, they integrate and apply principles of good instructional practices. In this paper we report findings from a study of service-learning in teacher education conducted at an American university. We describe a cascading model of integrating early childhood teacher education and servicelearning for PST who then implement the combined model in their field classrooms with young children. We also describe the service-learning projects that the PST developed and implemented in their kindergarten and/or first-grade field placements. We expected that that the service-learning projects would be an instructional avenue for our students to teach in an integrated and/or experiential manner in their field classrooms. In our study we sought to determine the effectiveness of servicelearning as an approach for working with the PST and the children.

2. Learning through service From infancy, people are flexible learners who actively obtain knowledge and skills (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). ‘‘Much that each human being knows about the world is acquired informally, but mastery of the accumulated knowledge of generations requires intentional learning often accomplished in a formal educational setting’’ (Donovan & Bransford, 2005, p. 1). The science of learning is undergirded by decades of work in the areas of cognitive and developmental psychology and focuses on the conceptions of learning processes, the development of competent performance, and the acquisition of knowledge. This research was synthesised by the National Research Council and reported in the publications How People Learn (1999) and How Students Learn (2005), which serve as the theoretical foundation for this paper. How People Learn (1999) offers research-based findings that are directly applicable to the classroom. The report highlights three findings that are critical for teachers to understand and to include in their classroom. The first finding states that students come to class with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may not grasp the new concepts and information being taught. Wellman (1990) states that children, as young as preschool, have a highly

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developed conceptual understanding of various phenomena, although not always correct. Prior knowledge can lead to new learning or act as a barrier if it is incorrect (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). An effective teacher will discover her student’s prior knowledge on a subject or concept before she begins to teach, then either build on the correct knowledge or confront the incorrect information. The second finding reports that students must have a solid foundation of factual knowledge, an understanding of facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and the ability to organise their knowledge in ways that will allow them to apply it and retrieve it (How People Learn, 1999). Such views of learning have fuelled a debate by educators on whether to place more emphasis on ‘‘big ideas’’ or ‘‘facts’’ (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). Studies of experts and novices in various areas, however, demonstrate that organisation of knowledge and facts is mutually supportive. Experts appear smarter than novices because, when novices see separate pieces of information, experts view the information as an organised set of ideas. One implication of this for effective teachers is that they should provide opportunities for students to ‘‘learn with understanding’’ (How People Learn, 1999, p. 12) by chunking information, or using thematic teaching, and not teach knowledge as units of disconnected facts. Helping students to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress through metacognition is the final finding in the report (How People Learn, 1999). The claim is that metacognition must be taught in context and integrated into the subject matter students are learning (Lake, Vives, & Jones, 2004; White & Frederiksen, 1998), and involves what we need to know and be able to do in order to learn and remember information (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). For teachers, this means that they should model metacognitive strategies, and then allow plenty of practice with critical feedback for their students. The three findings must be implemented equally in classrooms that emphasise learner-centred and knowledge-centred environments in order to be effective for all children (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). Learner-centred elements of the environment focus on the student as the starting point, while knowledge-centred aspects focus on what is taught (subject matter), why it is taught (understanding), how the knowledge will be organised (curriculum), and outcomes (learning goals). ‘‘Knowledge-centred and learner-centred environments intersect when educators take seriously the idea that students must be supported to develop expertise over time; it is not sufficient to simply provide them with expert models and expect them to learn’’ (p. 15). Adopting servicelearning as pedagogy can create such learning environments. The effectiveness of such an approach, however, rests on the successful integration of service-learning in early childhood programmes. 2.1. Service-learning integration in early childhood education In early childhood education, the concepts of curricular integration and experiential learning are practically

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ubiquitous. The theories can be traced back to the ideas of Dewey (1938), Kilpatrick (1936), Vygotsky (1978), and others. More recently, early childhood professionals have embraced approaches such as thematic teaching (Caine & Caine, 1997), the Project Approach (Katz & Chard, 1989), and other constructivist practices (e.g. Bodrova & Leong, 2007; Bredekamp & Copple, 1997; DeVries & Zan, 1994). Yet, somewhat paradoxically, few attempts have been made to integrate service-learning in early childhood teacher education programmes. Given that constructivist, experiential, and integrated instructional practices strive to make learning meaningful for the individual child, we argue that service-learning projects and activities should be integrated into the early childhood curriculum. This is because in an early childhood classroom, the development of the learner and knowledge taught through servicelearning are encouraged through the use of investigations and minds-on/hands-on activities. Yet, if we want to encourage teachers to adopt such practices, they should also be modelled in preservice teacher education programmes. The integration of service-learning at the primary level or at the university level can be difficult due to the lack of definition of service-learning. ‘‘One of the greatest challenges in the study of service-learning is the absence of a common, universally accepted definition for the term’’ (Furco, 2003). The teacher education programme at our institution defines service-learning as experiential pedagogy that (a) includes students in service that meets community needs, (b) is coordinated mutually by a school and the community, (c) fosters civic responsibility, (d) is integrated into the students’ curriculum, and (e) provides evidence for reflection (National and Community Service Trust Act, 1999). When service-learning is used in structured ways with PST it allows them to apply academic, social, and personal skills to improve or supplement instruction; make decisions that have real, not hypothetical, results; grow as individuals and cooperative groups, gain respect for peers, and increase civic participation; experience success irrespective of their ability level; gain a deeper understanding of themselves, their community, and society; and develop as leaders who take initiative, solve problems, and work as a team (Bringle, Phillips, & Hudson, 2004; Howard, 2003; Kaye, 2004). In service-learning the definition of community is either geographically or socially situated depending on the nature of the service-learning activity. However, in teacher education courses, community is classified as one classroom or several classrooms, the school or campus, immediate surroundings of the school/campus, or globally. ‘‘Through service-learning, the often elusive idea of ‘community’ takes shape, and has a more tangible meaning for all involved’’ (Kaye, 2004, p. 8). For young children, the idea of community can be the room next door or the babies down the hall (Freeman & King, 2001). Depending on the community and nature of the service-learning activity, a service-learning project can be classified as one of four different approaches: direct service is when the students’ service directly affects and involves the recipients, person-to-person or

face-to-face; indirect service is when the students’ do not provide service to an individual but to the community as a whole; to create awareness of or promote action on an issue of public interest is the nature of advocacy; and research involves students’ in finding, gathering, and reporting on information in the public interest (Kaye, 2004). Service-learning has four interdependent stages beginning with preparation where the teacher and students work together to identify, investigate, and analyse a need (Kaye, 2004). The ‘‘need’’ can come from books, the Internet, emerge from the curriculum, or materialise through discussions. Agencies (other classrooms, a person with particular skills, local or national agencies) are identified, and a plan of action is created. The second stage, action, is the direct result of preparation. The plan is carried out over time—a day, a week, a semester, or a year. During action the teacher and students continue to develop knowledge and resources. Children experience the real results of their plan, observe their strengths and attributes in relation to others, and develop an appreciation for a collaborative effort. The third stage is reflection. Reflection is a vital and ongoing process in service-learning and integrates learning and experience with personal growth and awareness. Students consider how the experience, knowledge, and skills they are acquiring relate to their own lives. They put cognitive, social, and emotional aspects of the experience into the larger community context, and are encouraged to be creative and use multiple intelligences in their reflections. Demonstration is the fourth stage of service-learning and it provides evidence of what the students have gained and accomplished through their service-learning project. The teacher and students share their knowledge with others via presentations, talks, exhibits, drawings, or writings. Service-learning offers teacher educators an avenue to incorporate best practices into their existing courses. Teacher educators, as well as teachers, often wonder where to begin if they are interested in service-learning. Kaye (2004) offers these suggestions: identify an existing programme or activity and go from there, begin with the standard curriculum and find a natural extension, plan a theme or unit of study and identify content or skill connections, start with a student identified need, or start with a school or community identified need. While these are useful starting points, other considerations are necessary if we are to successfully integrate servicelearning into teacher education programmes.

2.2. Integrating service-learning and early children teacher education There are compelling reasons for integrating early childhood PST education and service-learning. Our teacher education programme utilises a ‘‘cascading model’’ in which the teacher educators teach service-learning pedagogy to the PSTs who are actively involved in service-learning in local schools. The PSTs then teach

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service-learning to the children in their field placement classrooms via the implementation of service-learning projects. Subsequently, the children teach others about service-learning through their community efforts and projects. This integrated cascading approach offers young children an opportunity to learn in a way that is most natural to them, as opposed to a segmented approach stressing isolated skills and concepts (Verducci & Pope, 2001). This model aligns itself with the national reform efforts that emphasise curriculum restructuring and establish even closer links between all types of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Research on integrating service-learning in teacher education programmes reveals the positive impact it has on PSTs. Freeman and Swick (2001) found that servicelearning created a greater commitment to teaching and a deeper ethic of care in their PST. Increased multicultural teaching strategies and sensitivity to diversity and issues of tolerance have been noted in other studies (Beyer, 1997; Boyle-Baise, 1998; Tellex, Hlebowitsh, Cohen, & Norwood, 1995). PSTs engaged in service-learning strengthen their moral development (Beyer, 1997), become more politically aware and active in community service (Donahue, 1999), and show a marked increase in their compassion and concern for others (Portthoff et al., 2000). Teacher educators are challenged to explore ways in which their programme can be redesigned to respond to these changes. The National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education’s (NCATE) performance-based assessment standards calls for programmes to document PSTs’ learning and their effect on the children they teach. Service-learning is an additional way for teacher educators to document this standard (Freeman & Swick, 2003). Also, an integrated approach to early childhood methods would likely reflect the realities of teaching, thereby allowing PSTs to shape their emerging understanding of teaching and utilise critical thinking in order to ‘‘think through the needs of the children and parents they are serving based on real life interactions with them’’ (Swick, 1999, p. 132). To support our hypothesis that service-learning projects would be an instructional avenue for our PSTs to teach in an integrated and/or constructivist manner in their field classrooms, this paper will examine how two cohorts of undergraduate PSTs designed and implemented service-learning projects with their kindergarten or firstgrade students. Our research was guided by the following question: How effective is service-learning as an approach for working with PSTs and children?

3. Method 3.1. Participants In spring 2004 and spring 2005, two cohorts of 25 and 26 undergraduate students, respectively, were enrolled in the second semester (Block II) of an Early Childhood Education programme at a large research university in the south-eastern United States. Block II included courses in Early Childhood Curriculum and Methods and Early

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Childhood Observation and Participation (a 2-day–a-week practicum in one of the local elementary schools in grades kindergarten, first, or multi-age K/1). The following semester, Fall 2004/2005, the same students moved to the third semester (Block III), which included five methods courses and a practicum course. These courses were required for the students’ professional development sequence and provided the students with their second and third long-term fieldwork placement. The students were aware of our focus on and commitment to the integration of service-learning and early childhood curriculum through the syllabi, discussions, and assignments. Participation in this study was open to all students in the cohort; data comprised for the study were part of the assignment requirements for the classes. A total of 25 students volunteered to participate in the study, 24 females and one male from the 2004 cohort and all 26 students volunteered from the 2005 cohort. Of the 49 students, three were Hispanic-American, three were African-American, one was Indian-American, and 42 were Caucasian.

3.2. Procedures Both cohorts designed and implemented two servicelearning projects that emerged from their field placement curriculum. Over the course of two semesters, which included a 1-week full-time teaching period in Block II, and a 2-week full-time teaching period in Block III, the PSTs created a thematic unit that included a servicelearning project. Many of the PST planned the servicelearning projects together and several of those who were in the same school collaborated on their projects. Data collection and data analysis: At the end of the spring and fall semesters, all of the participants provided copies of their thematic teaching units and servicelearning plans. They also provided artefacts from their service-learning projects including photographs, samples of student work, posters, and activity logs. The PSTs and children were also administered the ‘‘four-square evaluation’’ designed by Kaye (2004). Evaluations for the children were completed via dictated responses. The four categories on this evaluation instrument asked What Happened?, How do I feel?, Ideas?, and Questions? Separately, both authors independently read through the data for each question once to get a sense of what the PSTs and children were saying. Then each question was reread and coded, similar codes were grouped to form larger categories. Once that was completed, the authors shared those categories with each other and the final analysis was accomplished (Hatch, 2007). Analysis of the data from the four-square instrument revealed several weaknesses and, therefore, a new instrument was developed and administered to the second cohort of PSTs and their kindergarten and first-grade students. The main weakness with the four-square instrument was its vagueness, especially for young children. In the What Happened section the PST and children restated the goals for their service-learning project. For How do I feel?, most of the PSTs stated that

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they really learned a lot by planning and designing the project and that service-learning was a very important part of their curriculum. They stated that the project was the most hands-on integrated activity of their unit. For Ideas?, a majority of the PSTs responded by providing ways to expand the reflection and documentation sections. The PSTs did not have many Questions regarding the service-learning projects; however, the children did. The children were very curious about the effect of their project on others. The children’s questions offered insight into their learning and provided follow-up opportunities for the cooperating teacher or PST. Somewhat surprisingly, in the Feelings section of the evaluation instrument, the children did not indicate that they learned anything. However, their responses in the Questions section indicated that they learned valuable content related to their projects, but that they were still reflecting on the impact of their projects on others and the environment, as well as asking for ‘‘other ways of helping’’. As previously stated the four-square evaluation instrument was entirely too vague, especially for young children. The evaluation appeared to be an effective tool at the time we used it with our first cohort of PST. However, it became clear when analysing the data that this instrument was not a good match for our service-learning cascading model. Thus, starting spring 2005, the PST responded in writing to 11 questions that targeted the effectiveness of their project, concepts, and skills taught, children’s academic and social benefits of participating in the project, how the project supported the state standards, and specific products of the projects. Qualitative data were also collected from the children via a series of questions. However, another PST assigned to the same school interviewed the children. Several children were randomly selected to answer the following questions:

4. Results The spring projects can be classified into three categories: pollution, gardening, and letter writing (Table 1). Fall projects included an emphasis on letter writing, but these projects also stressed community outreach and environmental awareness (Table 2). The service-learning projects for these two cohorts of PST emerged from their field placement curriculum. The topic of the project is decided between the cooperating teacher and the PST and is on a choice continuum. On the no-choice end are the schools that have set themes for the year and the PSTs are told what their curriculum units and projects will be about—Thanksgiving, plants, whales. In the middle of the continuum are schools or teachers who want their PST to create a curriculum unit to match a set theme, but who will allow the service-learning project to be on anything the PST wishes. On the choice end of the continuum are teachers who want their PSTs to create an integrated curriculum unit and project on an area of interest to the children. When examining the service-learning projects, one can see the correlation between the time of year and the Table 1 Spring service-learning projects Topic

Project titles

Pollution

Adopt a turtle/manatee ‘‘Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute!’’ Recycling in the classroom/school Environmental clean-up projects

Gardening

Mother’s/Father’s day School beautification Planet beautification

Letter-writing campaigns

To To To To To

Tell me about your service-learning project? What did you learn that you didn’t know before? How was the project helpful? How did your project help other people (or the environment)? What other things have you done to be helpful since working on your project? Similar data analysis was used for this data set. However, since the PST and child questions were now much more specific, we began with a starter list of codes (Miles & Huberman, 1994) that included the implementation of constructivist practices, which directly supported our research hypothesis, and academic and/or social/ emotional effects of the project on the PSTs and children that related to our research question. Separately, both authors independently read through the data once to get a sense of what the PSTs and children were saying. Then the data were reread and separated into the starter codes with other codes emerging as the data dictated. Similar codes were grouped to form larger categories. Once that was completed, the authors shared those categories with each other and the final analysis was accomplished (Hatch, 2007). To protect confidentiality pseudonyms were assigned to the PSTs and children.

troops elderly government officials family other classes

Table 2 Fall service-learning projects Topic

Project titles

Letter-writing campaigns

To farmers To troops To local veterans

Community outreach for those less fortunate

Canned food drives Hurricane relief efforts—money, food, school supplies Totes for kids in hospitals Cancer outreach

Environmental awareness

Making bird feeders Bat posters and awareness Recycled art

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project focus. Many spring projects emphasised gardening and pollution, which are often spring themes found in early childhood classrooms. The fall projects, which occurred in November, were influenced by Thanksgiving concepts (giving to others) and environmental awareness. Almost half of the fall projects were designed to provide relief for victims of the four hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast in late summer/early fall 2004. Ten classrooms participated in canned food drives and/or helping hands hurricane relief efforts. After four PSTs in one school approached the principal about having their kindergarten children share their service-learning project with the whole school via the school’s morning news show, the four-classroom project turned into a school-wide effort. Two truckloads of materials and over $900.00 were raised for devastated schools from Hurricane Ivan and was delivered by two of our PSTs to Pensacola, FL. Every semester included letter-writing projects. Some projects dealt with advocacy issues such as letters to the governor to protect the manatees or other marine life. Other projects were letters and cards sent in support of our troops overseas, or to thank area farmers for local produce, or multi-generational cards for the elderly. Irrespective of the focus of the service-learning project, all of them demonstrated the empowering nature of service-learning with young children by connecting children to their communities through curriculum-based projects. The length of each project varied from a concentrated afternoon to weaving through the whole total teach week. A few projects started before total teach and carried on until the end of the semester. The time commitment depended on the nature of the project, the classroom structure, and the response to service-learning from the cooperating teacher. Each semester, over 525 kindergarten and first-grade children were involved in service-learning projects designed and implemented by the early childhood PST.

4.1. Evaluations for 2005 cohort One of the concepts that emerged from analysing data from the second evaluation instrument was the idea of community. A community is defined as one classroom or several classrooms, the school or campus, immediate surroundings of the school/campus, or globally (Kaye, 2004). The service-learning projects represented all of these definitions. Recycling, beautification, and cross-age tutoring/letter-writing projects took place within the classroom or school environments, while other projects utilised outside community helpers such as volunteers from Second Harvest, Red Cross, the Cancer Society, and the homeless shelter. Several of the indirect servicelearning projects that sent centrepieces, cards, or letters to Hospices, the children’s cancer hospital in another city, the local hospital, and the Veteran’s Hospital made use of a more global aspect of community. Each service-learning project chose a community partner that best fit their projects needs. The PST were asked: How effective was the servicelearning project and did the children benefit from participat-

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ing in the project? The PSTs who conducted the advocacy rainforest projects reported an appreciation for the rainforest and its products (fruits, spices, medicine) by their children. PSTs also discussed a sense of empowerment discovered by their children, ‘‘they feel like if there is a problem in the world then they have the power to do something about ityIt gave them a deeper understanding of how people influence each other (Carol).’’ The canned food drives were successful for most of the PSTs. They all focused on community members who were less fortunate, the process of giving to people in need, and how young children are able to contribute to their community. Few children, on their own, classified the cans in different ways, which was one of the math skills for this project. The kindergarten class that was taught about cancer and wrote to children with cancer, ‘‘thought of other children who were struggling with something that they could barely fathom. It made the children think outside of themselves’’ (Keith). However, not all the service-learning projects were considered successful. ‘‘It could have been more effective. During the lesson many of the kids had trouble staying on task, so when it came time to write their letters, the children had problems thinking of reasons why you should recycle, even though we went over a dozen specific reasons during the lesson (Megan). The majority of the PSTs, however, reported that their service-learning projects had been effective and only two PST suggested that their projects were not successful. Changes in children’s knowledge, performance, attitudes, behaviour, or motivation as a result of participating in the service-learning project: Five PSTs reported no change in the children in their classrooms as a result of participating in the service-learning projects. Six PSTs, who had indirect letter-writing service-learning projects, discussed that some children were more expressive in their journal writing than before the project, but that, as a class, they did not observe any overt changes in their children. Although it is very difficult to definitively connect changes in children to the service-learning projects, the following examples do directly tie to the concepts taught by the preservice and cooperating teacher; the children were not exhibiting these behaviours before the service-learning projects. The PSTs who concentrated on hurricane/natural disaster relief reported that the children began to listen to the news more in order to track hurricanes and other natural disasters. This lead to more discussion of hurricanes in the classroom and on the playground, and hurricane and disaster play became more prevalent. In one classroom, the children requested that the preservice and cooperating teacher only read true storybooks (stories about real people) because they said these books reminded them of how much they helped others. As a result of the canned food drive service-learning projects, the PSTs noticed that the children were much more aware of what they ate in the classroom. ‘‘They don’t like throwing away food. I feel that they have become more conscientious of the things they have and how others don’t have as they do’’ (Elena). Keesha stated that her children were ‘‘not complaining about how much they get for snack.’’ After completing the rainforest project that

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focused on recycling and writing to the governor, the children were very motivated to pick up every piece of paper in the classroom and recycle it. One preservice remarked that her children used the Governor’s name a lot more since writing to him about setting money aside to save the rainforest. ‘‘Whenever something needs to be done about anything, the students want me to ask the Governor to help or they want to write him again’’ (Noel). Are you planning to use service-learning in your own instruction? Every PST said that they were planning to use service-learning in their own instruction. Three said they wanted to teach a few years first, and then implement service-learning. Both cohorts discussed that servicelearning was now a natural part of their teaching and that children needed to be ‘‘engaged in hands on experiences that help them grow as human beings’’ (Maria). What have been some of the barriers to students participating in this service-learning project? One major barrier to the service-learning projects was expense. The PST used their own money, or it was difficult to raise money for the project, or they did not know how to handle the inequity of the money/goods the children brought in. In all cases, the cooperating teacher guided and helped the novice teacher. Another barrier mentioned was the lack of parental support for the projects. About 1/3 of each cohort invited parents to the classroom for the documentation portion of the project and there was no written evidence that any parent was present. Another barrier mentioned by PSTs at three of the schools expressed that some of their children had a difficult time with the concept of ‘‘people in need’’. They attributed this to the affluence of the neighbourhoods and schools and the children’s lack of exposure to those less fortunate. The last barrier commonly mentioned was lack of time. TIME. There are so many restrictions to students in the public school classroom that I found it hard to squeeze it [service-learning] in there while everything else still needed to be done. While Open Court, worksheets and Writes Upon Request practice, it seems almost impossible to do anything besides that.’’ (Jenna). While the findings reported above highlight the effectiveness of the service-learning projects, information from the kindergarten and first-grade students is needed to fully evaluate the projects. In the current study, this was accomplished by having the children orally respond to several questions. 4.2. Children’s responses For every question asked about the projects, several children answered, ‘‘I don’t know.’’ Henceforth, the following sections of children’s responses will not include that response. Tell me about your (specific name of service-learning) project: The children’s responses to the canned food drives elicited several answers that focused on the process of the project. ‘‘We cut out hands and said what we were thankful for. Everybody brought in a lot of food and put them in a bag. We wrote letters to give to the people for

what we are thankful for.’’ Another child answered, ‘‘Brought cans of food for people that don’t have food.’’ The rainforest letter-writing campaign yielded more factual responses such as, ‘‘We get oxygen from trees.’’ ‘‘We get medicine and food from the rainforest.’’ ‘‘I didn’t know paper was made from trees.’’ ‘‘I didn’t know that we were killing the animals of the rainforest and taking them to sale as pets.’’ ‘‘I didn’t know there were over three hundred different birds in the rainforest.’’ Children whose projects concentrated on cancer outreach answered the prompt from more of an emotional standpoint. ‘‘I learned that people with cancer are very sick and need help from other people to make them feel better.’’ ‘‘I learned about helping people feel better.’’ ‘‘Helping others and not always caring just about me.’’ How has your project been helpful? One child who wrote a letter to veterans responded that he liked making the card, ‘‘it was a nice thing to do for people who take care of us.’’ Several children stated that they did not know their dads were veterans until they told them about the servicelearning project, thus demonstrating the home connection. These children made an additional card or letter for their fathers. Canned food drives were so popular for natural disasters, homelessness, and the Thanksgiving holiday, and children responded to the question from personal experiences and by overgeneralising the need for food drives. Responses included: ‘‘Because of the tornado where Suzy is, we had to bring food for them because it was fast and we had to help them.’’ ‘‘By having food for all in town to have a lot of food. If they don’t get food they are going to die. I just know that.’’ ‘‘Cause the people who didn’t have any food didn’t get any so we were nice and give them food. If we didn’t, they wouldn’t have anything for dinner or breakfast and that’s why we gave them food.’’ Helpful responses from the recycling projects were more skill oriented: ‘‘It taught us that it is good to recycle so you have less garbage.’’ ‘‘It was a good thing because now I know how I can help the environment.’’ When asked how they were being helpful since completing their service-learning projects, 95% of the PSTs had specific responses from children in their classroom. Examples across the projects include: Food drive/food pyramid: ‘‘I have been eating at home, salad, broccoli, green beans. So I can grow big and strong.’’ Gardening: ‘‘You gotta be nice to people. If people are nice to you, you give something to them.’’ Hospital outreach: ‘‘I helped a friend, but I don’t remember. But when Jessica falls I help her get off the ground.’’ Letter writing to other classes: ‘‘I care about people because if they get hurt I just help them up because all the people need caring and love.’’ Hurricane relief: ‘‘I gave some of my toys away.’’ ‘‘I shared with my brother.’’ Almost all the children talked about recycling paper in their classrooms and at home when asked what they were doing to be helpful since finishing their projects.

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The shift from the four-square evaluation to the set of specific questions for both the PST and children yielded much richer data from which to evaluate the cascading service-learning model. 5. Discussion Several major findings emerged from the servicelearning projects. The first was that integrating early childhood teacher education curriculum and servicelearning created a teaching space for integrated practices in classrooms that, due to curricular constraints, were moving further and further away from this approach. A second finding that emerged was that service-learning projects are a vehicle for empowering young children. Furthermore, service-learning is not separate from the state or national standards and should not be thought of as ‘‘separate’’ or an ‘‘add-on’’ to the regular curriculum. Finally, the service-learning projects provided the PST with meaningful learning opportunities and integrating service-learning with teacher education did confirm to be an avenue for teaching in an integrated or constructivist manner. 5.1. Early childhood, service-learning, and appropriate practices Skills children will need as adults include communicating well, the ability to analyse situations and make reasonable judgments, access information in a variety of ways, and continue to learn as they grow and the world changes (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). As previously stated, The National Research Council challenged the field of education to adapt instructional approaches and curricula to meet the needs of students that make learning more meaningful and relevant. Time was mentioned by some of the PSTs as a barrier to service-learning. They stated that they did not have enough time because of the amount of time spent on Open Court and worksheets. Open Court is considered an ‘‘intensive intervention’’ model (NCLB, 2001) and, as an overall curriculum according to Developmentally Appropriate Practices guidelines (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997), would be considered developmentally inappropriate or knowledgecentred if using criteria from How People Learn (1999). In our district some early childhood teachers are spending up to 212 h a day in their Open Court block. Due to this time commitment to a curriculum that is not integrated, experiential, or constructivist in nature, we believe that most of the PSTs would NOT have been allowed to teach their service-learning projects if they had not been called ‘‘service-learning’’. If the recycling, letter writing, gardening, or pollution service-learning projects had instead been labelled as an ‘‘active, hands-on project, conceptual learning project, or interactive learning project’’, we doubt that time would have been made for them or doubt that they would have been approved to be taught at all. Although the service-learning projects could easily be presented using any of the three alternative terms, it was because they were called service-learning that they were

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allowed to be taught. In classrooms that have moved so far towards skills-based instruction and further away from practices that integrate curriculum, service-learning can be a way of introducing, maintaining, or keeping appropriate practices for young children in classrooms. Teacher educators and teachers should understand and recognise the power that integrating early childhood education and service-learning has on implementing curriculum in classrooms (Caine & Caine, 1997). For teacher educators it can be a backdoor entry for PSTs to apply constructivist, experiential, or integrated practices with children, a selling point to schools and teachers to get the students in the door. For teachers who are caught in the web of knowing what is best for children but having to teach a more skills-based curriculum, becoming a service-learning teacher or classroom might allow you the opportunity to utilise more integrated and experiential learning strategies to appropriately meet the needs of your children. Classrooms would be learner-centred and knowledge-centred environments that focus equally on the child, subject matter, understanding, curriculum, and learning goals (Donovan & Bransford, 2005). Such an emphasis can empower teachers and students. 5.2. Empowerment and service-learning ‘‘Empowerment is a process that challenges our assumptions about the way things are and can be. It challenges our basic assumptions about power, helping, achieving, and succeeding’’ (Page & Czuba, 1999, p. 1). Teachers and teacher educators must be and feel empowered by service-learning before they can help young children and PSTs be empowered through service-learning in their classrooms. York (1991) outlines the steps teachers go through in order to feel confident and gain awareness of multicultural education. The steps teachers and teacher educations would take to feel empowered for service-learning follow the same path.

 Teachers and teacher educators bring knowledge of     

child development, early childhood practices, and experiences to the service-learning project. Increase awareness of personal experiences, attitudes, biases, and societal oppression. Establish or renew their belief in or commitment to service-learning, and then set project goals—PREPARATION stage. Change the environment, do the service-learning project, take ACTION. REFLECT on the service-learning project, how well did you incorporate the project into the existing curriculum? Solve problems, and revise methods. DEMONSTRATE that you have achieved the goals of the service-learning project by sharing the skills, insights, and outcomes with another group.

Empowerment means taking an active role in the classroom. Empowering yourself as the teacher, or PST, also helps to empower your children. Noel discovered the empowering aspect of service-learning when she had her

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children write the Governor advocacy letters to save the rainforest. After the project ended, whenever something in the school or classroom needed to be done, the children wanted to write the Governor another letter. Practice with and the understandings of social relationships within classrooms and schools increase opportunities for children and PSTs to experience a sense of empowerment (DeJong & Groomes, 1996). Service-learning is capable of creating a community of moral individuals that have high regard for others and it also builds strong individual members of the community. As the cancer outreach projects demonstrated, many children reported that they learned about helping others and not always caring about themselves. This sense of moral community also extends to the environment. Children described an increase in knowledge about recycling, thus decreasing the amount of garbage, which is how they could help the environment.

5.3. Service-learning and standards Service-learning enables students to successfully meet academic standards. The following organisations provide national learning standards for their corresponding discipline area: International Reading Association (IRA, 1989), NCTE, NCTM, National Council for the Social Studies, National Academies of Science, American Association for Health Education, and the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. These diverse organisations follow similar insights to learning and teaching. As discussed in Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools (Zemelman et al., 1998), these organisations agree on many recommendations: LESS—whole-class, teacher-directed instruction; presentational, one-way transmission of information from teacher to student; classroom time devoted to fill-in-theblank worksheets, dittos, workbooks, and other ‘‘seatwork’’; rote memorisation of facts and details; emphasis on competition and grades in school; and use of and reliance on standardised tests. MORE—experiential, inductive, hands-on learning; active learning in the classroom, with all the attendant noise and movement of students doing, talking, and collaborating; emphasis on higher-order thinking; learning a field’s key concepts and principles; deep study of a smaller number of topics, so that students internalise the field’s way of enquiry; reading of real texts: whole books, primary sources, and non-fiction materials; responsibility transferred to students for their work: goal setting, record keeping, monitoring, sharing, exhibiting, and evaluating; choice for students (e.g., choosing their own books, writing topics, team partners, and research projects.); attention to effective needs and the varying cognitive styles of individual students; and cooperative, collaborative activity; developing the classroom as an interdependent community. The above practices established by the national organisations strongly resemble How Students Learn (2005) and How People Learn (1999) published by the

National Research Panel that emphasise the integration of learner and knowledge-centred classrooms and mirror many of the goals of service-learning. Therefore, it was disappointing to us as teacher educators, and to many of the PSTs, that several service-learning projects, with clearly labelled standards, were still viewed as ‘‘add-on’’ or extra lessons. In most classrooms, extra lessons are taught at the end of the day and are only taught, ‘‘if time allows.’’ Scheduling issues and time constraints were barriers for many PSTs who struggled to find time to teach their lessons. The service-learning lessons taught the same standards and objectives being covered by the textbooks, and the cooperating teacher had signed off on each, lesson indicating its appropriateness for the class, subject matter, and methodology. The major difference was that the service-learning lessons were more integrated (following practices outlined by the National Research Panel), and were taught by PSTs and not the cooperating teacher. 5.4. Service-learning and teacher education Verducci and Pope (2001) compiled the five most cited rationales for including service-learning in teacher education programmes. These reasons are discussed, as well as how our programme is meeting them, or is attempting to meet them. (1) Service-learning in teacher education enhances PST teaching and learning by improving their understanding of the academic content: The service-learning projects allow the PSTs to use a variety of effective teaching strategies with their children, plan for learning outside of the regular classroom, and make connections between their content courses and the specific curriculum in their field classroom. (2) Service-learning in teacher education increases PST social and civic understanding, participation, and transformation: Several of the service-learning projects were chosen because the PSTs were passionate about or had a personal connection to the project topic. Through researching and teaching the projects, the PSTs shared their knowledge, stories, and passion with others, thus continuing their civic transformation. (3) Service-learning in teacher education promotes civic, social, moral, and personal benefits for PST: Servicelearning has been found to positively promote issues of tolerance (Eyler & Giles, 1999), self-esteem, and sensitivity (Verducci & Pope, 2001). It is especially important for the PSTs in our programme, who mostly come from white, middle, and upper middle class backgrounds, to be versed in methods that are effective for diverse learners and that teach tolerance. The importance of service-learning as pedagogy and as a valuable teaching method was established, we feel, as every one of the PSTs reported that they planned to use service-learning in their teaching after graduation. (4) Service-learning in teacher education prepares PSTs for the workforce by having them work with children with

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whom they might otherwise not work with: Our PSTs were in the field 2 days a week so we do not use service-learning as a strategy to get them into the schools. Nor do we view student teaching as servicelearning. However, we would like to expand the scope of our programmes’ influence. In the PST first semester, Block I, we are in the process of designing a cohort service-learning project that will focus on a community need that helps at-risk or underserved children. (5) Service-learning in teacher education assists PST in meeting the national and state standards: The servicelearning projects created by the PSTs integrated and teach many of the state standards. Moreover, integrating service-learning into our teacher education programme allowed us to meet several of the NCATE standards.

The cascading model of integrating early childhood teacher education and service-learning is one avenue that colleges and universities can implement to improve the quality of teaching, as well as respond to the call for them to return to their historic service commitment. In this paper, we have presented some sound reasons for integrating service-learning into early childhood teacher preparation programmes. Integrating service-learning into the regular curriculum is not an end in itself, but a means of achieving basic educational goals. A fundamental goal in early childhood education is to deliver curriculum in appropriate and meaningful ways for children. Yet successful curriculum integration can be a difficult task for even the most enthusiastic and motivated teacher. Potentially, integrating early childhood methods courses with service-learning would enable PSTs to achieve this goal. Through service, teachers and teacher educators can put meaning back into learning.

6. Conclusion

References

It comes as no surprise to educators that the current early childhood curriculum, which emphasises a more traditional approach of drill and practice of isolated skills, does not reflect current knowledge of human learning and brain development, and fails to produce children who possess higher-order thinking and problem-solving abilities needed in society today. Best practices call for more active, hands-on learning; cooperative learning; integrated curriculum; and meaningful relevant learning experiences to name a few. The focus of our cascading model of integrating early childhood curriculum and service-learning is to model these best practices for our PSTs, as well as require the PSTs to utilise these concepts and skills by planning and implementing a curriculum unit in their field placements. While findings from our study have clear implications for teacher education programmes here in the US, they also inform teacher educators worldwide. Service-learning as a movement is gaining momentum across the globe, with schools and universities leading the way by seeking opportunities to utilise this approach. Although our programme is organised in a unique way, service-learning can be integrated into any type of university teacher education course. School enrolment rates have increased worldwide and many schools are playing a larger role in the community (Alessi, 2004). Our data suggest that the critical components are providing PSTs with service-learning content as well as the opportunity to practice service-learning in the community. In the current study, the opportunity to learn about service-learning, as well as to engage in servicelearning at different levels, empowered the young adults as well as the young children they were working with. A clear implication for teacher education programmes in the US as well as other countries is that PSTs should be provided structured opportunities to develop skills, knowledge, and values that improve learning in meaningful ways. Such opportunities can empower others to improve their communities.

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No

Vickie E. Lake, Ph.D., is an associate professor of early childhood education with areas of research interest in teacher education, moral education, and service-learning.

Ithel Jones, Ed.D., is an associate professor of early childhood education with areas of research interest in teacher education, family relations, literacy, and service-learning.