The following summarizes the findings of the Education Commission reported in their issue paper. Service Learning is grounded in how learning occurs. Service Learning develops critical thinking skills. Students learn to analyze, make evaluations, discern patterns and search for deeper meanings. Service Learning benefits all students.
All students gain some benefit from service learning.
As Richard Bradley notes, the most positive benefits may be for those students who are hardest to reach through traditional education. Service Learning uses multiple intelligences, makes real world issues part of education and encourages interdisciplinary learning. Service learning allows students to engage many senses and use many learning structures within the framework of the total experience. In the real world, students must integrate learning across academic disciplines. Service learning encourages such integration.