Southwest Educational Development Laboratory

The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory’s primary focus is on the tools and strategies for collaborative work that can help partnerships to run smoothly and to make significant, long-term contributions to both community and school. Collaborative Action Team sites set their own priorities, which may include service learning or other kinds of activities. SEDL resources include a guide and resource materials for starting a Collaborative Action Team; for a limited number of sites, SEDL also provides ongoing training and consultations. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 211 East Seventh Street, Austin, Texas, 78701, 800/476-6861. http://www.sedl.org/.

Center for School Change

The Center for School Change, based at the University of Minnesota, works with both rural and inner-city schools, helping to establish school/community teams that plan and implement innovative programs. Grants are available to rural Minnesota communities. Resources include (1) workshops for grantees, which include parents, administrators, teachers, community people, and, in the case of secondary schools, students; (2) outreach coordinators, whereby CSC staff work closely with planning and implementation sites; and (3) evaluation and assessment; staff work with each site to help them assess progress. Further information can be accessed at www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/school-change. Joe Nathan is director of the Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University Minnesota, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, and can be reached at 612/626-1834.

School at the Center

The School at the Center project was established in 1990 by two professors at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Its mission is to place the school at the center of the community, thereby contributing to rural renewal both culturally and economically. Described as an education without walls, School at the Center curriculum transforms communities into working laboratories. Assistance is provided by the Nebraska University Teachers College, the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, and businesses and agencies including the Nebraska departments of economic development and education. Major funding is through the Annenberg Rural Challenge. Contact Paul Olson, Foundation Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, 338B Andrews Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0333, 402/472-3198.

Foxfire Fund, Inc.

The Foxfire Fund, Inc. supports active, learner-centered approaches to teaching that promote "continuous interaction between students and their communities so that students will find fulfillment as creative, productive, critical citizens." Foxfire provides teacher training, materials, and networking support, and produces a quarterly journal for teachers, The Active Learner. The Foxfire Fund, Inc., P.O. Box 541, Mountain City, Georgia, 30562, 706/746-5828, http://www.foxfire.org/.

PACERS Small Schools Coorperative

The PACERS Small Schools Cooperative, operated by the University of Alabama’s Program for Rural Services and Research, helps rural schools to implement a program titled "Better Schools Building Better Communities." The program consists of three interrelated components: "Genius of Place," "Sustaining Communities: Shelter, Food, Good Work, Health," and "Joy." Resources that are provided include a PACERS e-mail account and linking teachers to the Alabama Course of Study. For further information contact the Program for Rural Services and Research, University of Alabama, Box 870372, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, 205/348-6432, http://www.prsr.ua.edu/rscience.html (Link no longer active as of 2010).

Bonnie Benard (1990), The case for peers. Western Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500, Portland, Oregon.

Craig B. Howley & John M. Eckman (1997), Sustainable small schools. Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools, Appalachia Educational Laboratory, PO Box 1348, Charleston West Virginia, 25325.

Joseph Kahne & Joel Westheimer (May 1996), In the service of what? The politics of service learning. Phi Delta Kappan.

Edwin C. Nelson (September-October 1995), Community/school revitalization: Joining rural schools and towns together to empower young people and enhance their sense of belonging. Small Town.

Lillian S. Stephens (1995), The complete guide to learning through community service, Grades K-9. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

	Most folks wouldn’t expect a sleepy little community in north central Arkansas to be a hotbed of innovation. But Marshall, Arkansas–one of SEDL’s newest Collaborative Action Team sites–boasts not one but two promising new service learning projects. In one, school staff are cooperating with the Searcy County Literacy Council to implement a tutoring program in which high school seniors work with younger students. The seniors receive a unit of credit for their activities, which range from helping with seventh-grade math to working with kindergarten students on manners and communication skills. High school counselor Don Clifton recruits tutors and works with teachers to identify students in need of help. The literacy council’s peer tutoring coordinator, Kari Balcom, trains students in tutoring strategies and monitors their progress. Tutors maintain a log of their time and the topics they address in their tutoring sessions. This year the high school is also implementing a technology-based service learning project called Environmental and Spatial Technology (EAST), a program first started by Tim Stephenson in Greenbrier, Arkansas. Marshall High School offers three classes, each with 10 students, as an elective for grades 9 to 12. There are no prerequisites, and students who have had academic difficulties are encouraged to enroll. The facilitator for Marshall’s EAST project, Jerry Prince, was formerly the journalism teacher. Describing himself as "semi-familiar with computers," he notes that his training as project facilitator focused not on technology but rather on an instructional philosophy that stresses problem-solving–an approach that carries over to the classes themselves. The primary goal of the course is not to teach technology but to help students develop higher-order thinking skills. Given project-based assignments, such as surveying a farm or designing a web page to inform the community about school activities, students must figure out for themselves how to use the equipment and software they need to complete the project. Prince describes the experience as a novel and unsettling one for most students, since throughout their years of schooling "somebody in the classroom has always had the answer." Prince asks students to pretend they are employees in his company, pointing out, "You don’t ask the company president to tell you how to do your job." Interestingly, Prince says, it’s the straight-A students who often have the most difficulty adjusting to this new learning environment. In the end, though, the approach has "fantastic" results: "Once those kids taste success, get out of the way." Other projects may soon crop up in Marshall as well, including a technology-based career education program. As Don Clifton notes, "We’ve got plenty of ideas; what’s missing are the human resources to carry them all out." Clifton and Prince describe the school’s new Collaborative Action Team as a promising source for both plans and person-power.

Credits: This issue of Benefits2 was written by Martha Boethel. All photos are ©PhotoDisc, 1999. Benefits2 is designed for print by Jane Thurmond and for the web by Chris Sears.

© Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. This publication was produced in whole or in part with funds from the office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under contract #RJ9600681. The content herein does not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Education, any other agency of the U.S. Government or any other source.

You are welcome to reproduce Benefits2 and may distribute copies at no cost to recipients; please credit the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory as publisher. SEDL is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to affording equal employment opportunities to all individuals in all employment matters. Available in alternative formats.