Benchmarking Community Service in Teacher Education
Jude Butcher, Peter Howard,
Marilyn McMeniman and Graham Thom
EIP 03/05
© Commonwealth of Australia 2003
ISBN 0 642 77343 2
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This report is funded under the Evaluations and Investigations Programme of the Department of Education, Science and Training. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Education, Science and Training.
Executive Summary
The focus in this project has been on the extent of explicit commitment of teacher educators in universities to community service and community partnerships that find expression in the content and processes of programs. Such program expression reflects the reciprocity and mutual benefit of engagement with community in teacher education, albeit at a range of levels from superficial and isolated to complex and integrated. In teacher education, the focus is on community as a context for learning and in that sense the community provides significant benefit to the university and its students.
The project consisted of five iterative and recursive phases. The first phase was a literature review that provided the conceptual and methodological frameworks for the second phase of the project, a mapping of current community service components of teacher education courses. The mapping was conducted through a survey of all Australian universities offering teacher education programs. The third phase of the project was conducted through case study work in three sites chosen on the basis of survey data analysis. Each site provided a snapshot of practice in the area of community service learning in teacher education. The fourth phase of the project involved a participatory forum of teacher educators and community sector representatives at which the literature review, analysis of survey data, and case study findings were presented and critiqued. The final phase of the project integrated the findings of the previous phases and synthesised themes and issues. Throughout, the project team maintained discussions with external guides and critical friends such as staff from Loyola University, Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania, and received useful materials from Pennsylvania State University.
The literature review highlighted that what is needed in characterising community service learning is a recognition that foregrounds mutual benefit and reciprocity between equal partners in learning.
The survey indicated there were distinct differences between institutions in levels of awareness and extent of community service activity. Regardless, there was an extensive range of community agencies engaged with teacher educators in the delivery of their programs.
The case studies emphasised that the implementation of a community service learning agenda occurred along a continuum of practice from pragmatic practice through to an articulated vision.
The participatory forum articulated the need to raise awareness of community service learning at both a national and institutional level and to develop (i) integrated programs that engage community, and (ii) appropriate benchmarks both to drive and evaluate change.
The outcomes of the literature review, survey, case studies and participatory forum all pointed to the way in which mutual benefit and reciprocity characterised strong community and university partnerships in learning. Each phase of the project has highlighted the importance of an authentic process of engagement with community and shared reflection on action in delivering productive program outcomes. Accordingly, there are policy implications for the further development of benchmarks in community service.
At a national level, there needs to be recognition within the benchmarking structure that as a third key policy area, community service should feature more prominently than it does at present. As with the other two key areas of policy and practice in universities (teaching and research), community service should be a separate recognised area for benchmarking. This should be built into a framework for benchmarking community service.
At the institutional level, explicit recognition of the importance of community service within the benchmarking structure will lead to the development of specific and appropriate policy and strategies, including the allocation of adequate resources to support community service initiatives.
This influence on policy, strategies and resources holds also at the level of teacher education faculties and/or discipline groups. At this level, however, the focus of academic staff will necessarily be on the expression of policy in practice and on negotiation with members of community service agencies around the community involvement of students in specific kinds of programs.
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Recommendations
The following recommendations build on the current structure and content of the benchmarking process as developed and presented in the Benchmarking in Universities Manual: Version 2 (McKinnon, Walker & Davis, November, 1999). The recommendations are stated as follows to facilitate the further development of benchmarking community service within teacher education.
Recommendation one
That the existing community service benchmarks be removed from the section ‘External Impacts’ and that a separate ‘Area’ for benchmarking in community service be created (as is the case with learning and teaching, and research) that gives prominence to community service as the third major role that universities play along with teaching and research.
Recommendation two
That the following suggested structure of a benchmarking ‘Area’ titled, ‘Community Service’ be considered. The elements of the suggested area are:
Community Context
Community Service Plan
Community Engagement Processes (including Strategic Community Service now benchmark 4.4)
Community Service Learning
Community Service Outcomes (including Exemplary Community Practices, now benchmark 4.5)
Recommendation three
That a Community Service Learning benchmark with appropriate indicators be developed as an additional ‘element’ of the benchmarking document (a model benchmark with suggested indicators is included as appendix H to this report).
Recommendation four
That benchmark 4.4, Strategic Community Service, be amended in light of recommendation two.
Recommendation five
That benchmark 4.5, Exemplary Community Practices, be amended in light of recommendation two.
Recommendation six
That the government consider funding similar benchmarking projects in other discipline areas to further inform and validate the structure and process findings as presented in this project report.
The implementation of these recommendations will necessarily impact on the development of institutional policy in relation to community service in both teacher education and across disciplines more broadly. As with other aspects of the benchmarking process, implementation of such an approach to benchmarking community service would influence the way institutions plan, resource, document and evaluate their engagement with the communities they serve.
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Acknowledgments
The project team would like to acknowledge the assistance of Elizabeth McDonald, Karen Eamens and Noel Simpson (DEST), Kristin Johnston, Elizabeth Labone, Ted Nettle (ACU), and Matthew McFadden, and also of Professors Mark McFadden and Susan Groundwater-Smith who provided consultancy support.
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