Welcome! My Name is Tracey Farr and as the PACE Faculty Fellow and the Academic Coordinator for Service Learning and an Assistant Professor, I am hopeful that this site will be a great resource for you. If you want to bookmark this page, I will be updating it regularly. We also have general information that is targeted to students and the community on our PSCC main web page found here: Service-Learning, Service-Learning website.
Tracey Farr, Academic Coordinator – Service Learning
PACE Fellow 2019-2021
BCT Assistant Professor
865-329-3136
Service Learning Podcast —Listen to all of our episodes on SPOTIFY.
Latest episode!
July 2021–featuring our student Aaron Smith and his perspective on service, how it has impacted him and and how our database system sometimes confuses our students and we walk through the process. Listen to EPISODE 7 here.
Students learn more about the process for recording your service hours through myPellissippi here: http://www.pstcc.edu/service-learning/index.php Other listening sources and general podcast information: https://anchor.fm/servicelearning
Episode 6 extra content: It was great to talk to Melynda Conner, the High Impact Practice Specialist with the Tennessee Board of Regents about how we can support each other as we work hard to get Service-Learning opportunities for our students across the state. Scroll down a little more for some of the helpful resources from Melynda mentioned in this episode.
Other listening sources and general podcast information: https://anchor.fm/servicelearning
- TBR Teaching Tidbit: Service Learning Done Well, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uODNiepqzS26WfciHwjkte8FCR_2poEf/view?usp=sharing
- Serving Virtually in the Online Classroom PPT Slides, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hgs91pJv-KcaSjXv69S0H_sahfVL2naR/view?usp=sharing
- 4 Virtual Volunteer Opportunities that Make Great Service-Learning Projects, https://docs.google.com/document/d/10LP1rRsya2uNrFfWvPHRs5BI5gQRJ8TOmjYUtW32xi0/edit?usp=sharing
Assign
As a faculty member, Service-Learning starts with you. To keep our records accurate, please always register your course(s) each semester with the Service-Learning database under myPellissippi. It just takes a few minutes. Here’s quick start video to help you.
Connect
Students sometimes don’t know where to start when it comes to Service-Learning. For that reason, I have created a simple checklist for students to use:
Student Start-Up Checklist for Service-Learning
PLUS, 2 helpful videos for you to use to help your students register for our Service-Corps and Record their Service Hours:
Step 1: Registration for Service Corps
Step 2: Reporting Service Hours
Serve
Here are 2 helpful partners with databases to assist your students with finding service opportunities:
Alliance for Better Non-Profits
Other helpful links:
Service-Learning Syllabi Samples
Are you interested in incorporating Service-Learning into your course, but need ideas on how to set it up? Here are examples of Syllabus supplements used to incorporate Service-Learning. Feel free to download and edit them.
- Biology class Service-Learning supplement
- English class Service-Learning supplement
- Spanish class Service-Learning supplement
- Speech class Service-Learning assignment
- Also see the November GIFTS that includes an explanation and supplemental materials used to incorporate Service-Learning into Spanish II
Library Articles and Books
Check out the selection of books and articles on Service-Learning curated by Pellissippi State Librarian, Instructor and Faculty Advisory Board member, Susan Martel.
A CASE For Why it’s WORKING: Service Learning has a strong correlation with student success
Cindy Wawrzyniak, PACE Faculty Fellow 2017-2019, collected data from four sections of BIOL 1110 and two sections of SPAN 1010 to compare academic success between students who did Service-Learning and those who chose not to. The statistical analysis below was done by David Keyes, statistician on the Title III Grant, and Paula Sawyer, Math instructor.
Based on a two tailed t-test, the students who do Service-Learning perform statistically significantly better than students that do not do Service-Learning , (p<0.01). There is a strong correlation between academic success in BIOL 1110 and SPAN 1010 and Service-Learning.
BIOL 1110
Students that did Service-Learning average 81.8% of the total points in the course, (n=38).
Students who didn’t do Service-Learning average 57.3% of the total points in the course, (n=58).
SPAN 1010
Students that did Service-Learning average 77.0% of the total points in the course, (n=28).
Students that did not do Service-Learning average 57.3% of the total points in the course, (n=21).
Videos
Watch these three short interviews with a Service-Learning student, instructor and Service-Learning site.