Service Learning
Each semester, Simmons Community Engagement supports undergraduate and graduate courses in disciplines as varied as physical therapy and management which connect students to the Boston area community through projects and direct service.
In Simmons Community Engagement, we believe that at its best service-learning is a high-impact pedagogy which can enhance student learning while providing tangible benefits to communities. For service learning to be effective in this manner, we emphasize the following practices:
- Course Integration: Service should be fully integrated with course learning objectives.
- Community Relationships: Partnerships should be beneficial to the partners as well as the students. Communities should be approached from an asset-based rather than a need-based perspective.
- Quality Reflection: Students should have an opportunity for quality reflection on their service experience and how that service connects to the course concepts.
Simmons Community Engagement also envisions service-learning as having the potential to support the principles of social justice through increasing equity and inclusion in our city and beyond. We work with instructors interested in service-learning as a tool for social justice to realize this full potential.
The Assistant Director for Service-Learning supports service-learning at Simmons, working with faculty to build community connections and ensure high quality, high impact learning opportunities for students; these opportunities, in turn, provide services and bring additional resources to the communities in which we are embedded.