Engaging Students in Service Learning through Collaboration with Extension: A Recipe for Success with Community Partners

Service learning (SL) is a well-recognized teaching approach that integrates meaningful community service with classroom learning. Plate It Up! Kentucky Proud is a successful SL activity that connects student and faculty expertise with Family & Consumer Science (FCS) Extension agent programming. Students develop and test quality, nutritionally-sound, recipes using locally grown fruits and vegetables. Student interest in the project and knowledge of FCS Extension were significantly enhanced during the course of the semester. As well, 99% of students would recommend this project to a peer. On a scale of 1-7 (7=incredibly important), students rank the importance of real-life applications in coursework as 6.31 ± 0.97; 35% of students would take a section of a course just because it incorporates such applications. Students developed their nutrition knowledge, team building skills and communication skills through the project. Agents also positively reflected on this collaboration with 100% of surveyed agents recommending the project to their colleagues. On a scale of 1-7 (7=incredibly interested), agents ranked their overall interest as 6.40 ± 0.52. This successful collaboration serves as an example of students, faculty and administrators engaging with well-established community partners to have a significant impact on community health and student learning. Introduction Experiential learning is defined as occurring when students participate in a contrived “real life” activity, reflect upon that activity, use their critical analysis skills to derive useful knowledge, meaning and insight from the experience and then incorporate their new understandings into their daily lives (Bohn and Schmidt, 2008). The meta-cognitive skills that students utilize while participating in experiential learning activities enable them to assess their true level of understanding and mastery for the subject matter. Service learning is a well-recognized form of experiential learning in higher education that emphasizes relating a community service activity to course or program learning outcomes through a mutually-beneficial activity and student reflection opportunities (Anderson et al., 2011; Querry and Smith, 2004). Service learning activities promote student learning and skill sets, enhance academic curriculum and foster strong relationships between campus and community (McDaniel, 1994; Ross, 2012). Service learning projects have a long history of being particularly valuable in agricultural programs, including human nutrition and dietetics. There is an increased interest in expanding SL activities for these students as a means to address health disparities within communities (Cene et al., 2009; Marcus et al., 2011). Dietetic students report SL allows for greater learning by integrating classroom knowledge with real-life experiences (Kim et al., 2003). Service learning also promotes critical thinking skills, leadership skills and civic and social responsibility (Bailey et al., 2002). In an analysis of SL impact in a large enrollment introductory nutrition class it was found that students perceived they learned the information better as a result of the experiential learning activities and felt more confident in their ability to apply the knowledge to real-world situations. Senior dietetic students in a 1PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Nutrition & Food Science 2PhD, Assistant Director for Family & Consumer Sciences Field Programs 3BS, Graduate Teaching/Research Assistant, Department of Nutrition & Food Science