About Service Learning

Mission:

Service Learning will strengthen the classroom instruction of high school students in all subject areas to improve their overall academic success, and will fulfill real needs in the City of Chicago. Through their participation in hands-on, creative, and course-related projects, students will be exposed to new concepts in learning and will develop a stronger sense of social responsibility and civic awareness.

What is Service Learning?

In the Chicago Public Schools, Service Learning provides teachers and students with an educational tool that connects an entire city of resources with our classrooms. Through Service Learning, teachers are able to provide students with meaningful applications of the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom, making the learning experience more tangible and real. The Chicago Public Schools actively seeks challenging ways to provide educational opportunities for children in order to strengthen their academic experiences. As part of the CPS High School Redesign Initiative, this new high school graduation requirement promotes the belief that realistic, practical linkages to classroom experiences enhance students' understanding of the important relationship between school and community.

Educational Benefits of Service Learning

The significance of this teaching and learning method lies in its potential to connect classroom learning to real life situations. Like many educational tools, the goal for a service project is to provide a chance for students to apply the academic skills that they develop in their classrooms. Studies about Service Learning have shown:

Learning through service produces significant improvement in students' attitudes, motivation, and achievement.
Students who took part in service projects were more knowledgeable about subject matter content than students who only participated in classroom experiences.
Student participants developed more hopeful, knowledgeable, and concerned attitudes toward community problem solving.
Students' participation in course-relevant service offers opportunities for use of higher-level thinking while they construct, interpret, implement, and reflect knowledge.

We believe that integrating Service Learning into our high school program can assist our efforts to expose, engage, and educate Chicago high school students. In the course of instructing, every secondary educator seeks improved methods to inspire and motivate their students. Service Learning is a method to better achieve these goals.

The Service Requirement

All students in Chicago public high schools will be required to complete 40 hours (60 hours for Scholars) of Service Learning prior to graduation.

Implementation