Resource Library

Do you want to use the IPARD framework, but are having trouble applying it to your service experience? Use this worksheet to follow along!

Wondering how service-learning works? This tool details the four stages of service-learning, leading you through the process!

Since 2020, virtual service experiences have become increasingly popular. This handbook teaches educators how to move service-learning to a virtual space, while still engaging with students’ interests.

How does service-learning work to make education more equitable? Read this research article to learn more!

A project completed by Tanzanian students served as the catalyst for a project that teaches students about their own village.

How do I engage students in service-learning processes within their own communities? Teach them to use the power within themselves!

Need a breakdown of service-learning and its benefits? Read more to learn about service-learning’s “pedagogical power”!

There are five rules that separate community service from high-quality service-learning. Read to find out what they are!

Why should we use service-learning in schools? “Most schools? mission statements include the goal of students becoming the kind of active citizens and change agents that their communities, the country, and the world need. Service learning may well be the vehicle to bring that ultimate mission to life.”

What happens when you integrate service-learning into your curriculum? This article uses real-world examples to show how service-learning improves student experiences in the classroom.

Why does service-kearning matter? Why should I incorporate it into my work with young people? This article explains the importance behind service-learning, referencing multiple studies on its efficacy.

Effective service-learning implementation and design is the foundation of student engagement, learning, and success. Learn from Part 2 of the training as experienced educators and service-learning leaders help you refine and improve your courses, and develop courses that meet service-learning requirements for Teacher Education.

Effective service-learning implementation and design is the foundation of student engagement, learning, and success. Learn from experienced educators and service-learning leaders as you work to refine and improve your courses, and develop courses that meet service-learning requirements for Teacher Education.

Like service-learning, the design thinking process is not a linear process. It is often illustrated as a cycle that includes the steps of inspiration, ideation, and implementation — with an emphasis on the empathy that grows out of human-centered design.

By learning about the standards of Service-Learning, its framework, and how to apply Service-Learning to your current activities and programs, you can learn how to use Service-Learning as a tool to engage young people in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)!

Hear from leaders on the power of service-learning experiences and learn how you can continue to support service-learning experiences for young people around the world.

Global Youth Service Day is the largest youth service and civic action event in the world and the only one that celebrates and builds the capacity of all youth ages 5-25 to help our communities and democracies thrive by working together for the common good. Join this session to learn more about this day of action and the educators and young leaders who are making a difference in communities around the world.

Learn how service-learning can help you meet content goals as well as address social emotional learning using a four stage framework, investigation cycle and research based standards of quality service-learning practice that ensure young people will grow as leaders and as active citizens. Be ready to take a step to weaving service-learning into your unit plans!

Join us for this youth-led, youth-centered introduction to Service-Learning! After this session, you will have a fully-stocked toolkit for addressing genuine community needs.

To be effective facilitators, leaders must not only be informed about community assets and needs but also be aware of their own motivations and assumptions. In this session, participants will use NYLC’s “Equity in Service-Learning: Self-Assessment Tools for Community Engagement” to reflect on their own programmatic mindsets and intentions.

Who is this for? Though these resources were designed for US-based service-learning practitioners, we invite any educators and out-of-school time professionals with some prior experience in community service and/or service-learning to explore how these tools might meet their needs.

This session will provide an overview of servant leadership and how this leadership style will enhance the service-learning experience for students and educators. Participants will gain an understanding of how a servant leader align’s the individual’s purpose and role to organizational strategies, student outcomes, and the needs of the community. Participants learn how to guide actions, add energy, and provide long-term perspective.

This interactive workshop will ask participants to reflect and respond to questions related to service-learning such as: How can we best work towards supporting students to create service projects that are safe, inclusive, equitable, and just models of community engagement at all levels? How do we recognize our own limitations and develop supportive networks?

This workshop is for anyone who works with local communities via service, advocacy, social and/or environmental justice, or those looking to learn more about service-learning and reciprocal community partnerships.

Use this session to gain a deeper understanding of the research base for service-learning and how to use the research to build the case for service-learning in classrooms, afterschool programs, and on campuses.

Looking for resources to start your service-learning experiences in your program? Looking to use service-learning as a strategy in your youth programming or classroom? Get a preview of some of the resources that NYLC has created to help you with that. The ENGAGE series and other Sustainable Development Goals Handbooks are free with subscribing to NYLC’s membership program.

Calling all youth! Want to tell your service-learning story? We need YOU to share the importance of using service-learning with people who make decisions about its availability. Relate how you developed leadership skills, acquired new knowledge and worked with others to solve community problems using this teaching and learning experience. You’ll learn who to talk to, how to reach them, what to say to them, and why it’s so important. NOW is the time to share the power of your story. Your voice and story matter to others – let’s make sure others have these same opportunities to create the change they want to see in their world.

A quick comparison between two “competing” education ideas: Project-Based Learning and Service-Learning.

Adapted from the work of Roger Hart, this webinar reviews the relationship between youth and adults and examines why and how young people participate throughout communities.

This webinar presents an overview of youth involvement in classrooms and youth programs, from the lowest level of Manipulation to the highest level of Youth Initiated Shared Decisions with Adults.

Educating students is a calling that draws some of the most hard-working, dedicated, and passionate people anywhere. Stressors like the on-going pandemic and mental health crisis have taken a toll on educators everywhere. It is time to start showing yourself care and compassion, right now. Join this session to learn tips for self care and self compassion – you deserve it!

Despite the raging global pandemic, a national, state, and local partnership supporting service-learning in out of school time (OST) is taking hold in Texas. With projects large and small, this effort exposed young people to the needs and challenges of their peers and their communities, and demonstrated unequivocally that they can and must be a part of the solution.

Born out of a desire to prepare young people for careers that are both local and also future-oriented, the Satellite Center was built in 2005, and opened after a six-month delay post-Hurricane Katrina. Located in Luling, Louisiana, the school embodies more than state-of-the-art technology. It is dedicated to “Building a Better You” – as its tagline reads, for high school juniors and seniors. As such, teachers are “facilitators” and students are “team members”, reflecting an ethos of collaboration and youth leadership designed to support graduates as they apply their skills and passions to community needs.

This tool asks educators to consider how social justice can and should be part of the service-learning process, with an emphasis on reciprocal partnerships, diversity, reflection, and youth voice as students examine the institutions, systems, and barriers that are at the roots of the issues they are addressing.

Use this fillable organizer to plan a unit template.

An overview and description of both social and emotional learning and service-learning as tools to improve the lives and academic performance of students.

Use this tool to identify your current location on Hart’s Ladder in regards to classroom interactions and spur conversations about how to increase youth involvement and youth voice in the classroom and beyond.

The purpose of this guide is to explain the full process in detail and guide you through your own self-assessment.

Every Hour Counts released a framework to help intermediaries achieve a common set of outcomes.

America’s constitutional democracy requires better civic and history education.

Use this worksheet to understand how to develop community partners.

Policy update from the National Association of State Boards of Education.

When service is integrated into rigorous curriculum and schools give students an opportunity and a framework to reflect on their experience, service-learning becomes a powerful tool for connecting students and their communities.

This study describes the essence of the service-learning experience for the K-12 teacher, specifically exploring teacher motivations for initiating and sustaining service-learning in the classroom.

Why are youth-adult partnerships important? What’s the value in them? Read on to find out how these partnerships encourage youth to use their voice.

Learn how parents can have a role in your service-learning project.

Check out how neighbors acted as partners for social justice in Chicago.

This guide shares effective strategies for establishing and sustaining partnerships based on lessons learned from successful national, state, and local models.

Examine how to establish reciprocal partnerships in a service-learning project.

Summative assessments are a comprehensive assessment of the knowledge and skills that students have gained over the course of the project. These are guidelines for summative assessments.

How are you going to assess you or your students’ prior knowledge, skills, and beliefs to ensure students are ready to undertake this project?

Formative assessments monitor and support student learning throughout the entire service-learning process. These are guidelines for formative assessments.

Use this worksheet to determine acceptable evidence as you develop the student-centered service-learning experience.

Desired results are the intended outcomes that we want learners to walk away being able to understand and do.

Selected SEL skills and civic education goals.

Use these questions to reflect on your service-learning experience.

Reflection is an invitation to think deeply about our actions. Use this reflection toolkit to understand more about the how and why of reflection.

Consider these suggestions for a successful partnership.

This worksheet will help to determine if you are building beneficial relationships for both the organization and community.

Service-learning offers a rich context for parent, family, and community involvement strategies.

The kindergarten class at Sullivan Elementary School undertook the task of turning the emergency room at this hospital into a more child-friendly environment.

This is a guide to creating service-learning programs and activities that are developed through sustained collaboration between educators, students, and community organizations.

The question of agency readiness, willingness, and ability is critical to the ultimate success of service-learning.

Simple and effective approaches to identifying a challenge that needs a service activity to help address it!

Use this worksheet to understand the assets and resources and barriers they present in a service-learning project.

Check out this short list of curriculum integration principles.

Use this document as a guide for service-learning projects.

Check out this case study example for how to analyze partnership status in a service-learning project.

These suggested reflection activities are presented according to the eight different areas of intelligence. Choose whichever methods will draw on the strengths of your individual students.

Take time to explore these essential questions to better prepare yourself for working within your community.

Learn how to monitor progress in a service-learning project for improvement and sustainability.

How can partnerships best be developed to ensure the success of service-learning projects? Check out the research.

This rubric offers a sample of measures to assess overall student performance on a service-learning project.

Discover how to create effective partnerships for your project.

Because service-learning projects benefit the community, the community should know about what students accomplish. This worksheet has ideas for venues your students can connect with to share their work.

Use this worksheet to record how many people

Principles of backwards design can be especially helpful when planning assessment and evaluation for service-learning projects.

These are some ideas for ways students can demonstrate their newfound knowledge and accomplishments.

Questions for educators to reflect on after their service-learning experience.

This teacher tool helps educators think critically about the role of diversity in all aspects of a service-learning project.

These tools can foster democratic expression of youth voice in consensus-building.

These games offer skill-building opportunities that often result in more cohesive groups.

These questions will guide students in thinking more deeply about service-learning and connecting their service to academic benchmarks.

By recording what was done during a service-learning project in a variety of ways, students have material to draw on for reports, news articles, and more. Learn how they might document their service.

As the world continues to move online, these tools can support a virutal service-learning project.

As the K12 Standards for Quality Practice emphasize, an exemplary program infuses youth voice into every aspect of the service-learning experience. Learn more about the youth voice standard.

Service-learning can be integrated with curriculum standards to achieve powerful results. Check out the two ways you can integrate service-learning projects into curriculum.

Learn how to support youth as they develop authentic community partnerships.

Whether your youth will take direct or indirect action in their service-learning experience, this document will help you help your students through the action stage.

In this document, you will find an annotated bibliography of the background research that supports the K12 Standards which are: meaningful service, link to curriculum, reflection, diversity, youth voice, partnerships, progress monitoring, and duration and intensity.

This article explores eight promising service-learning practices. These eight emerged from years of collecting research on what works!

Questions to think through as you are facilitating the student IPARD process and enter the planning and preparation stage.

In the second stage of the service-learning process, teachers or youth workers must figure out how to track progress towards youth outcomes. Learn how to determine acceptable evidence.

IPARD is the youth service-learning experience. Learn how to facilitate this youth experience.

Helping students assess community needs is an important first step in the service-learning process. With this tool, you can discover ways to assess community needs.

High-quality reflection challenges students to think deeply about their service-learning experiences. Use this tool to help you thnk through some reflection questions.

Use the IPARD Framework to complete a service-learning project simulation with your group.

The IPARD framework represents the student-centered inquiry model in a service-learning project. Learn more about the IPARD framework!

Detailed instructions for how to plan the activities of a service-learning experience, by using the IPARD cycle framework.

Reflecting on what you brought to a service-learning project can be helpful as you begin to think about designing future projects.

What strategies will you use to incorporate challenging reflection opportunities throughout the service-learning experience? Check out some of these example questions for conducting reflection sessions before, during, and after a project.

This is a blank template to help you outline your service-learning project’s timeline.

This is a blank template for creating a budget for a service-learning project.

SMART goals help to identify the most important aspects of a service-learning project. Learn how to set SMART goals.

Incorporating youth voice throughout the service-learning process can be simplified with these consensus-building technologies.

A WalkAbout is a great way for students to begin to understand what authentic needs could be met through service-learning as they create a map of their school or neighborhood.

Before a service-learning project can begin, you must make sure that the project connects with the learning goals that students need to meet. Work with individual students or small groups to refine the service-learning project idea that stdents have developed.

Learn how to conduct an interview with community members as you plan your service-learning project.

How might you ensure students engage in learning that is meaningful for them and the community? This document helps you explore the assets and needs in your community as your students develop and plan service-learning experiences.

In order to answer the question “What should my service-learning project aim to achieve?” you might develop and administer a survey to key groups of people. Learn how to develop a survey and usee the data to make informed decisions.

Creating a statement of need is useful for grant writing, recruiting partners, raising awareness, and determining that your service-learning project is serving a genuine community need. Learn how to create a statement of need.

Learn how to leverage social media to ensure that you can thoughtfully and effectively share what you’ve learned from your project with the greatest audience possible.

Learn how to showcase and demonstrate what you have done with service-learning! Celebrate the story of your project and share what you learned with your local, national, or global community.

There are generally three broad categories that a service-learning project can fall into.

Documenting the who, what, when, where, and why during a service-learning activity provides valuable information for both the project underway and future projects. This helps you understand how to document service!

Throughout the year there are many opportunities to take part in existing “days of service.” This document outlines some of the days throughout the year – these days can be culimating or catalyzing events built into your own service-learning projects.

Explore the three steps in backward planning of service-learning in detail including: 1) Identifying Desired Results; 2) Creating Assessments (both formative and summative) to measure student progress and achievement of desired results; and 3) Designing Learning Experiences that support the attainment of learning goals.

This is a blank template for developing rubrics.

An overview of how to implement summative assessments in order to demonstrate the skills and knowledge that students have gained over the course of a project.

An overview of how to implement formative assessments in order to monitor and support student learning.

This is a blank rubric for determining acceptable evidence (stage 2 of the 4 stages).

Step-by-step instructions for adults and young people who are creating rubrics together.

This document provides a visual supplement for understanding Bloom’s Taxonomy.

This document provides educators with a list of considerations to keep in mind when creating rubrics to grade students by.

This document is a rubric for grading 7th grade narrative writing.

This document is a rubric for grading 7th grade expository writing.

This document is the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards, as of July 2016.

This document explains what a SMART goal is, and provides important questions to ask oneself when creating SMART goals.

This document provides a list of questions to consider when brainstorming Big Ideas and Essential Questions.

This document provides strategies for formulating meaningful questions.

This document provides Service-Learning practitioners with a rubric of how best to identify desired results by questioning content standrds, understandings and big ideas, essential questions, knowledge, and skills.

Written to complement our Engage handbooks, NYLC presents a series of resources guides topically focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.This first of eight guides has peace-building writ large as its focus. Middle and high school students move through an exploration of how they cultivate inner peace, to how they foster peace within a group through team-building activities, to exploring peace-building needs in their communities, and discovering resources before taking action. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour each, and the guide spans 14 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action but also shared their experiences with others.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on reducing poverty. Middle and high school students move through an exploration of the topic, strengthen group dynamics through team-building activities, explore needs in their communities, and discover resources before taking action. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour and span 14 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action, but also shared their experiences with others.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on responsible consumption. Middle and high school students build a team among themselves, then investigate their communities to discover relevant local actions tied to the global need for conscientious consumption and production. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour and span 14 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action, but also shared their experiences with others.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on health & wellbeing. In this time of distance learning, NYLC offers you strategies for taking the service-learning process online, focusing on the health-related needs young people identify in their communities. Middle and high school students move through an exploration of wellness, strengthen group dynamics through team-building activities, explore health needs in their communities, and discover resources before taking action.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on health & wellbeing. Middle and high school students move through an exploration of wellness, strengthen group dynamics through team-building activities, explore health needs in their communities, and discover resources before taking action.

Start saving lives today. This toolkit, developed in partnership with students from around the country, is a free curriculum guide for service-learning projects focused on teen driver safety. Support for this resource was provided by NHTSA, a proud sponsor of NYLC?s long-running initiative, Project Ignition.

Informed by research and experience, this mental health handbook is designed to engage teens across the country to create change. The impact can be profound. The experiences are often emotional. The lessons are often unforgettable.

This document comprised the complete set of eight standards and their supporting “indicators” that are derived from previous iterations, including the “Essential Elements” and “Principles of Effective Practice.” The standards and indicators are written in plain language, and are suitable to both education and community-based audiences.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on gender equality. Middle and high school students build a team among themselves, then investigate their communities (defined as narrowly as a school or site or broadly as a neighborhood or community) to discover relevant local actions tied to the global need for equal rights for all. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour each, and the guide spans 13 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action, but also shared their experiences with others.

This service-learning handbook is designed to help youth workers bring service-learning to afterschool programs in approximately 15 one-hour sessions. Intended for students age 14-18, this book begins with an overview of the practice, then takes facilitators through a series of experiential sessions that highlight youth voice and leadership.

This service-learning handbook is designed to help youth workers bring service-learning to elementary afterschool programs in approximately 15 one-hour sessions. This book begins with an overview of the practice, then takes facilitators through a series of experiential sessions that highlight youth voice and leadership. Each session begins with an energizer activity tied to the content of the session, and ends with a reflection — often in the form of an “exit ticket”. By the end of the experience, young people will have acted on issues of importance to them through a deliberative inquiry-based process.

This service-learning handbook is designed to help youth workers bring service-learning to afterschool programs in approximately 15 one-hour sessions. Intended for students aged 12-13, this book begins with an overview of the practice, then takes facilitators through a series of experiential sessions that highlight youth voice and leadership.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on education equity. Middle and high school students move through an exploration of the topic, strengthen group dynamics through team-building activities, explore education equity needs in their communities, and discover resources before taking action. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour and span 14 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action, but also shared their experiences with others.

This crosswalk illustrates how the student-centered stage of service-learning “IPARD” (Investigation, Planning & Preparation, Action, Reflection, and Demonstration) intersects with the pedagogical outcomes for Civic Education/Educating for Democracy.

Each crosswalk illustrates how the student-centered stage of service-learning “IPARD” (Investigation, Planning & Preparation, Action, Reflection, and Demonstration) intersects with specific pedagogical outcomes or frameworks. This issue, we offer you the Service-Learning and Social Emotional Learning Crosswalk.

How can a service-learning make an impact in just one day? In the spirit of unity we felt so strongly after 9/11, this toolkit is the premier guide to achieving meaningful service with real academic outcomes ? in just a matter of hours. This resource was made possible by our partners at 9/11 Day. This is the student portion of the toolkit, designed to give students an understanding of service-learning. It is to be used in conjunction with the facilitator handbook.

In the spirit of unity we felt so strongly after 9/11, this toolkit is the premier guide to achieving meaningful service with real academic outcomes ? in just a matter of hours.

Rooted in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this handbook is focused on climate action. Middle and high school students build a team among themselves, then investigate their communities to discover relevant local actions tied to the global need for lightening our collective carbon footprint. The session plans are designed to take approximately an hour each, and the guide spans 13 sessions, by which point young people will have not only taken action, but also shared their experiences with others.

This easy-to-use, interactive, teachers’ guidebook covers the basics of service-learning, from accessing community needs to using multiple reflection strategies. It now includes more project examples as well as the backwards planning processes for service-learning. (2021)