Iowa
From Service-Learning Wiki
Service-learning activity in Iowa is strong. Iowa’s 12 state-supported, regional Area Education Agencies created a service-learning network in 1999 to promote service-learning as an effective instructional methodology for K-12 students and other learners. A number of initiatives, some predating Learn and Serve America, have set the stage for successful and sustainable statewide implementation.
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History
Throughout the 1980s, Iowa created institutions to support local volunteerism in communities and schools: the Governor's Volunteers Award Program and Conference on Volunteerism (1983), the Governor's Office on Volunteerism (1987), and the Iowa School Volunteer Network (1989). Joe Herrity, service-learning consultant at the Iowa Department of Education, was involved in many of the activities that helped lay the foundation for service-learning in Iowa.
In 1992, the Iowa Department of Education began helping schools transform community service and volunteer programs into service-learning. ComServ Iowa makes one-year grants to districts and schools to involve classroom teachers and students. Grants support single or multiple schools within a district to develop curriculum, train staff, and create supportive policy.
ComServe Iowa's long term goals include: connecting academic curriculum with community service-learning and providing a meaningful context for learning; developing pilot projects that can be replicated; to building a statewide network of service-learning programs, activities, information and opportunities for youth service; and increasing the quality and availability of opportunities for youth service.
In 1993, Iowa received its first Learn and Serve funding. A survey that same year found that one-fourth of Iowa school districts had community service or service-learning programs. By 1999, 49 percent of responding school districts reported having a service-learning program in at least one grade level. Sixty percent of these reported that they pay for activities out of general funds, not grants. Fourteen percent of districts reported having a district-wide program.
From 1994-1999, Minnesota and Wisconsin joined Iowa in the Tri-State Initiative to deepen service-learning practice at the school level. From 1997-2000, the states collaborated on deepening the curriculum and instructional approaches needed ot integrate service-learning into curriculum plans, policies, and practice at both the state and local levels. A three-year research study involving 1,600 high school students across the three states was designed to support service-learning as a viable school improvement practice and contributor to academic success.
In a 1999-2000 statewide survey, school districts reported that, in 2000, they had integrated service-learning into many district-wide initiatives: "school-to-work" (44 percent), school improvement (39 percent), character education (38 percent), gifted and talented (37 percent), Safe and Drug Free Schools (36 percent), vocational education (36 percent), at-risk (35 percent), guidance (34 percent), and mentoring programs (33 percent).
The Iowa Coalition for the Integration of Service-Learning (ICISL) also began in 1999 to improve schools through service-learning and to create school and community partnerships. Its membership is broad based and includes membership outside of education.
Networks of Support
The Iowa Collaborative for Youth Development, a non-statutory network of 11 state agencies — whose goal is to improve results by adopting and applying positive youth development principles and practices at the state and local levels — now lists service-learning as a particularly successful youth development strategy.
Iowa's Commission on Volunteer Service supports service-learning as part of a "three-legged stool: service-learning, volunteerism, and community service." Accordingly, the Commission supports and promotes ComServe Iowa, AmeriCorps, and Senior Corps.
Convening and Celebrating
Between 150 and 375 volunteer specialists, national service participants, educators, and members of nonprofits and the private sector attended the Iowa Conference on Volunteerism. In conjunction with the Iowa Education Association, Learn and Serve Iowa has produced a 28-minute documentary, “Creating Hearts of Service: Service-Learning in Iowa.” The video, which has become a statewide training tool, highlights nine successful service-learning programs in Iowa schools. Learn and Serve Iowa also created a service-learning multimedia resource, The Presenters’ Tool Box, which includes a two-disk CD set with “Creating Hearts of Service,” a 250-slide set for presentations about service-learning, and templates for creating unique PowerPoint presentations.
Evaluating Progress
Between 1996 and 2004, approximately $1,211,640 has been awarded using Learn and Serve America SEA School-Based funds from the Corporation for National and Community Service under the ComServ Iowa program. During this period of time, approximately 220 of the 408 school districts in Iowa have received ComServ funding.
A study of 1600 students in the Tri-State Initiative, between 1996 and 1998, found positive correlations between service-learning and academic success, improved behavior, civic engagement, positive attitudes towards diversity, and likelihood of volunteering in the future.
Policy Support
In 2003 legislation was passed encouraging the integration of service-learning into curricula and the use of service-learning as a valid form of assessment. In 2005 Model Core Curriculum, developed by the Department of Education, was adopted by the legislature. In 2006 the AEA service-learning network, the Iowa Coalition for the Integration of Service-Learning, and model core curriculum specialists convened to write service-learning examples satisfying the core model requirements in reading, math, civic literacy, and social studies. The legislature is developing standards in other core curriculum areas, and the Department of Education will continue to provide examples of how service-learning meets the new standards.
Fifty-five percent of the 285 respondents in a civic literacy poll, administered to young people and adults at the 2007 Iowa State Fair, answered yes to, “Have you been involved in service-learning?” Additional adult polling will take place at the state Social Studies conference and at the State School Boards Association meeting. Survey results will be shared with the judicial and legislative branches of government, university centers for law and civic education, social studies teachers, service-learning practitioners, and community education leaders. The governor is interested in proposing $1 million for promoting an Iowa Summer of Service and his own summit on civic literacy. The integration of service-learning into other streams of national service will provide summer enrichment for less privileged young people.
Learn and Serve
Learn and Serve Iowa grant funds are distributed to 12 Area Education Agencies, each working with a number of districts, as well as directly to schools. Grantees must tie service experiences to curriculum standards and school improvement plans (reviewed by the Department of Education every five years) and involve as many teachers and students as possible. Many plans focus on civic engagement. Grantees must attend the state’s annual service-learning conference, work with the AEA to produce service-learning presentations, and are encouraged to attend a national conference.
In 2007 Learn and Serve Iowa leaders developed a more complete and comprehensive K-20 vision that connects across all educational levels. The group considered how Iowa pre-service and in-service teachers can be better prepared to use service-learning as a teaching method.
Higher Education
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In 2003, Iowa Wesleyan College marked 1,000,000 hours of service by its students who, for the past 35 years, have been required to perform 160 hours of service, and to give both written and oral presentations on their service projects to a special faculty committee.
Youth Contributions
This section is in need of expansion. You can help by expanding it.
The Annual Youth Service Day brings thousands of students to Des Moines to celebrate service.
Examples of Quality Service-Learning
References
- Brown, Nelda, Kielsmeier, Jim, Neal, Marybeth, Potts, Stan, et al. 2003. "State of the States: An Outline." In The Generator 21(3):36-42.
- Cairn, Rich and Neal, Marybeth. 2004. "State Profiles" in Growing to Greatness 2004. St. Paul: National Youth Leadership Council.
- Schultz, Nate. 2008. "State Profiles" in Growing to Greatness 2008. St. Paul: National Youth Leadership Council.
External Links
- Learn and Serve America in Iowa
- National Service in Iowa (Corporation for National and Community Service)
- Iowa Department of Education - Service-learning
- Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service
- Iowa Campus Compact
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