Publication: Youth Courts

• American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education

This brief discusses how service learning can help teacher
candidates meet National Council for the Accreditation of
Teacher Education standards. It examines how the Division
of Teacher Education at the University of Idaho is
refocusing its teacher certification program to reflect
national standards and place P-12 students at the center of
preservice learning, ensuring that a community of learners
will be developed both in academic settings and in society.
Five goals guide the integration of service learning into
this teacher preparation program: integrating service
learning into all courses, examining the appropriate role
of service learning as a pedagogy in teacher education,
developing support for service learning from appropriate
internal and external sources, increasing faculty and
preservice teacher awareness of the theoretical basis for
service learning, and evaluating the effect of service
learning on everyone involved. The brief explains that
service learning can contribute to several key dispositions
of professional educators, including caring, sensitivity to
student differences, democratic values, and commitment to
teaching. It presents snapshots of service learning
experiences that illustrate how service learning can
facilitate the development of such dispositions. Finally,
it lists Web sites that discuss service learning in teacher
education.