Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 8.02 Education
Presentation #1 Title
Students in Community Action: Service-Learning in the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This presentation will consider the work involved with responsibly developing, planning, and implementing a Service-Learning course at a comprehensive university with a service region comprised of several distressed counties in Appalachia. At Eastern Kentucky University, Service-Learning courses engage students in projects benefiting the surrounding community while simultaneously challenging students to think critically and creatively. One key detail that this description and most Service-Learning related scholarship ignores—and that this presentation will explore—is that a majority of students at Eastern Kentucky University are from the communities in which Service-Learning classes engage. For example, students in my Technical and Professional Writing class work directly with high school students from distressed eastern Kentucky counties identified as “at-risk” by the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council, helping those students navigate college and job applications and the interview process; many of my students also hail from those very same mountain communities. Drawing on IRB-approved pre and post-project surveys, I hope to shed light on how Service-Learning pedagogy works in this part of Appalachia. While this project will present specifics from my own experience at Eastern Kentucky University, it will focus on best practices for successfully and responsibly integrating Service-Learning pedagogy into the classroom as well as addressing how to cultivate effective relationships with community partners.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Erin Presley is an Assistant Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University.
Students in Community Action: Service-Learning in the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky
This presentation will consider the work involved with responsibly developing, planning, and implementing a Service-Learning course at a comprehensive university with a service region comprised of several distressed counties in Appalachia. At Eastern Kentucky University, Service-Learning courses engage students in projects benefiting the surrounding community while simultaneously challenging students to think critically and creatively. One key detail that this description and most Service-Learning related scholarship ignores—and that this presentation will explore—is that a majority of students at Eastern Kentucky University are from the communities in which Service-Learning classes engage. For example, students in my Technical and Professional Writing class work directly with high school students from distressed eastern Kentucky counties identified as “at-risk” by the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council, helping those students navigate college and job applications and the interview process; many of my students also hail from those very same mountain communities. Drawing on IRB-approved pre and post-project surveys, I hope to shed light on how Service-Learning pedagogy works in this part of Appalachia. While this project will present specifics from my own experience at Eastern Kentucky University, it will focus on best practices for successfully and responsibly integrating Service-Learning pedagogy into the classroom as well as addressing how to cultivate effective relationships with community partners.
