What is Service Learning?

CSULB's policy on Service Learning states that service learning is a high impact teaching approach utilizing community-based experiential learning to connect theory and practice through critical reflection.  Service Learning emphasizes learning through community service activities that are fundamental to course outcomes.
 

Service Learning provides benefit to students as well as community partners by promoting sustainable campus-community relationships that enhance student learning and address community-identified needs. Students develop their academic and critical thinking skills, gain a deeper understanding of course content, and develop an enhanced sense of civic engagement and social justice. Service Learning benefits both the campus and the community by developing a culture that promotes civic engagement and social justice, deepening student learning, meeting community-identified needs, and by forming mutually beneficial partnerships that expand opportunities for our campus to contribute to the public good.

Executive Order No. 1064, which establishes guidelines for campus internship policy and procedures and delegates responsibility for implementation to the campus president, states, “An internship formally integrates the student’s academic study with practical experience in a cooperating organization. It is an off-campus activity designed to serve educational purposes by offering experience in a Service Learning, business, non-profit, or government setting.” (EO 1064, September 9, 2011).