Curious about utilizing eService-Learning in your program next semester? GivePulse has put together this eService-Learning review that covers how to build an E-SL course and some best practices. All resources are listed in the bibliography.

Definition

eService-Learning occurs when the instructional component, the service component, or both components of a service-learning course are conducted online (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)

eService-Learning Types

• Hybrid I: onsite service, online teaching (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • Virtual class meetings, video presentations, final research paper submitted online
    • Students connect with community partner on-site (while following social distancing and other CDC guidelines) and carry out SL project 
• Hybrid II: online service, onsite teaching (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • Attending class in-person, in-person presentations
  • Students complete virtual service project for CP (marketing plan, social media package, research)
  • Virtual/Remote Opportunity Examples from this document
• Hybrid III: both instruction and service are partially online (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • Class is taught both in-person and online
  • Students complete service virtually and on-site
• Extreme eService-Learning: both service and teaching are online (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • Virtual learning and virtual service project
  • Examples from Extreme E-Service Learning (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)
    • "The CP had embarked on a project that endeavored to reorganize county health services to reduce health disparities. The first course product, best practices, asked students to find other local government examples of successful health equity programs or projects. The second asked them to evaluate three alternative projects the county could undertake to address health disparities."
    • "Students in an online graduate marketing management course collaborated with a non-profit foundation to develop a marketing plan for the organization as well as specific strategies for promotion and communication of the organization and its events."

Key Components of eService-Learning

Technology, communication, and course design are the key components of E-SL.

• Technology
  • "The success of e-service-learning relies on the instructional design or information technology team," (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010).
  • Identify the technology to be used during the course and project.
  • Train all stakeholders (students, faculty, CPs) in use of the technology
  • Incorporate synchronous and asynchronous technology for eService-Learning courses
    • synchronous: enables real-time communication
      • Zoom, Google teams, skype, slack, GroupMe
        
    • asynchronous: enables communication when either party is offline
      • Email, LMS (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), GivePulse, forums, Google docs
        
  • Using GivePulse for eService-Learning: If you’re a GivePulse client, follow the link to learn about how GivePulse can be used for Service Learning
  • Technology Use in the Stages of eService-Learning (Table 4.2, Strait & Nordyke 2015)
• Communication
  • Clearly establish communication expectations
    Agreements between instructor and community partner, student and community partner, student, and instructor (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)
  • Address both formal and informal forms of communication
    
    • Presentations, day-to-day communication
  • Be sure that partners are aware of how students will be completing service (online vs. onsite)
    
    • “Community partners should be made aware that they will be working with online students if they choose to participate in a project and the potential difficulties in ct time with online students should be explained not to scare away community partners, but rather to be” (Baim 2019)
  • You should also be aware of your community partner’s COVID-19 policy. It is recommended that all parties have language addressing COVID-19 policy for any in-person/on-site service. Here’s an example of a waiver you can share with partners: https://givepul.se/fuegeb
• Course Design
  • The design and implementation schedule is critical to the success of online or e-service and student learning. (Helms et al. 2015)
  • The online service-learning projects can be developed as an ongoing process over multiple terms as a continuation case and involve different classes or levels, allowing for the development of more advanced problem-solving skills. (Helms et al. 2015)
  • Identify the relevant issues that relate to course objectives (Helms et al. 2015)
    
    • How will these projects develop? Professor can connect with CPs to form projects or students can develop the project

How to Set Up an eService-Learning Course

• Set Up and Planning
  
  • Identify the appropriate eService-Learning type, technology, communication, and course-design.
  • Training
    
    • Training for all parties (instructor, students, the community partner, and the instructional design team) is critical. This applies not only to technology use but also to service-learning best practices (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • 9 Steps for building an eService-Learning course/syllabus (Strait & Nordyke 2015)
    
    • Step 1: Determine course delivery (which eService-Learning type?)
    • Step 2: Determine course goals, skills, and abilities
    • Step 3: Select community partners
    • Step 4: Identify the number of required hours
    • Step 5: Determine geographic locations and implications
    • Step 6: Assesses and evaluate course management tools
    • Step 7: Assess and evaluate the final product for student conduct, liability, and ADA requirements
    • Step 8: Identify professional standards for the course
    • Step 9: Review for academic rigor, reflection activities, and grading criteria
• Execution
  • Planning is critical to the proper execution of an eService-Learning program. You should expect and plan for issues with technology, communication, and course design, especially if this is your first time participating in/conducting an eService-Learning course.
    
  • Team Projects vs. Solo Projects
    
    • Teams are preferred for online SL. The teams can be formed in one of two ways (Helms et al. 2015)
    • Teams are assigned by the professor and students pick a project themselves
      Students rank projects from a pre-approved list (vetted by the professor) and are assigned teams based on interest
    • Examples of E-SL Events/Projects (Baim 2019)
    • 
  • Outline/Plan of Action
    
    • Students should have detailed plans for their service project. This should include identifying goals and data sources. This should be a collaborative effort involving the use of asynchronous technology.
    • “Students should specify the methods or steps necessary to achieve the goals through research and describe how the objectives of the project can be achieved utilizing concepts and theories from their current class or prior classes in their major or related business disciplines” (Helms et al. 2015)
  • Reflection and Presentation
    
    • Once the project is completed, students will be able to present their projects through presentation or reflection
• Evaluation
  
  • How will students be evaluated? Here are some suggestions from the reading.
    
    • “The written report, for example, is assessed on a 5-point Likert- type scale ranging from 1 (unacceptable) to 5 (excellent) on organization and structure, problem definition, use of decision-making tools, linkage to course concepts and theories, evidence and justification for the solution, appropriateness of alternatives, and agency analysis. Oral presentations are assessed on use of presentation software, quality of visuals, organization of the presentation and transition between speakers, quality of the students’ research project, handling of questions from the audience, and presentation time” (Helms et al. 2015)
    • Waldner studied 2 extreme SL courses and evaluated them based on 5 criteria: product completion, client (community partner) satisfaction, student satisfaction, client/student satisfaction, and skill-building (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)

Best Practices

• Best practices in e-service learning should be adapted from the traditional service-learning literature and make explicit connections between the service-learning project and course learning goals, reflection, appropriate time commitment, faculty commitment, student input, discussion of the project impact, and feedback loops (Waldner et al., 2012)
• All Service-Learning project opportunities should be thoroughly developed and vetted by the instructor, ideally in close collaboration with the proposed community partner (Baim 2019)
• Students should be presented with a reasonable variety of Service- Learning projects and afforded the opportunity to select something that fits their interests and scheduling constraints in the best manner possible. (Baim 2019)
• Send details on the available Service-Learning projects before the course begins (Baim 2019)
• Be willing to monitor progress frequently, but unobtrusively. (Baim 2019)
• Clear establishment of learning goals and active collaboration of students community partners (Shaw 2018)
• Self-reflection is also considered to be a critical component of e-service learning (Lehman & Conceição, 2010) as it enables students to connect thought and action, and encouraging higher-order critical thinking skills including analysis, comprehension, problem-solving, and evaluation (Shaw 2018)

Possible Issues (and how to overcome them)

• Communication barriers
  
  • The online format may make the community partner less accountable to the students and/ or the instructor (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
  • The e-service-learning format may also make the students less accountable to the community partner compared to students doing service-learning activities in traditional courses (L. S. Waldner, Widener, and McGorry 2012)
• Unreliable Technology
  
  • Could be useful to have IT on hand to help with any technical difficulties
• Stakeholder Buy-In
  
  • Lopsided participation (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)
  • Student Disconnect
    
    • “Instructors that often concern with disengaged students in their online service-learning course may consider using reflection journals to help students to connect their service to learning in the coursework. They found out that students felt reflection was essential to learning in order to gain multiple perspectives and being introduced to a diversity of ideas” (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)
  • Lurking
• Time constraints, working with schedules
  
  • Be flexible with the amount of work
• Limitations and Best Practices Summary Chart (L. Waldner, Mcgorry, and Widener 2010)

Bibliography

Baim, Susan. 2019. “Capturing the Essence of True Service-Learning Projects in an Online Learning Environment: Experience-Driven Suggestions for Implementation.” Association for University Regional Campuses of Ohio Journal. 25.

Helms, Marilyn M., Raina M. Rutti, Aref Agahei Hervani, Joanne LaBonte, and Sy Sarkarat. 2015. “Implementing and Evaluating Online Service Learning Projects.” Journal of Education for Business. https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2015.1074150.

Shaw, Thomasena. 2018. "Student Perceptions of Service-Learning Efficacy in a Hybrid I Online Undergraduate Writing Class." Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal. 11(2). https://bit.ly/31X36MG

Strait, Jean, and Katherine Nordyke. EService-Learning: Creating Experiential Learning and Civic Engagement through Online and Hybrid Courses. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2015.

Waldner, Leora, Sue Mcgorry, and Murray Widener. 2010. “Extreme E-Service Learning (XE-SL): E-Service Learning in the 100% Online Course” 6 (4): 839. https://bit.ly/2NXwHxD

Waldner, Leora S., Murray C. Widener, and Sue Y. McGorry. 2012. “E-Service Learning: The Evolution of Service-Learning to Engage a Growing Online Student Population” 16 (2). https://bit.ly/3f86WGA.