Research Of The Concepts And Practice Of Service-learning In Universities Of U.S.

Service-Learning is an experience-based form of pedagogy, which is student-centeredand integrates service into academic learning. Service-Learning began in US at the late of1960s, and became a national movement of higher education curriculum reform in the1990s.Recently, many countries and regions such as Britain, Japan, Canada, Singapore and Taiwan,Hongkong have brought in Service-Learning courses on the basis of American experiences.This paper starts in the definition of Service-Learning, theoretical basis and the basic modelsof Service-learning, and then focuses on taking Loyola University Maryland and CaliforniaState University, Fullerton as examples to introduce Service-Learning courses models. In theend, this paper gives many suggestions to the curriculum of our country s universities.This paper includes five chapters. The first chapter is mainly talk about literature review,the research content, and the research methods; The second chapter describes the connotationof Service-learning, and summarizes the three perspectives of defining Service-Learning; Thethird chapter introduces the three basic models of Service-Learning courses in Americancolleges and universities: Short-term Service learning,Long-term Service learning andIntensive Service learning.The fourth chapter shows a Service-Learning course of LoyolaUniversity Maryland state taught in spring semester in2011to introduce the wholeimplementation procedure of a Service-Learning course，and another typical Service-Learningcourse in California State University, Fullerton. The last chapter describes the experience ofService-Learning courses in American colleges and universities, which gives muchenlightenment to our country’s universities curriculum reform and social practice.