The office of Citizenship and Service-Learning (CASL) supports the development, implementation, the evaluation of sustainable service-learning courses and encourages community-engaged learning across the curricula at Missouri State University as a high-impact practice (HIP) to enhance student learning, student success and retention, develop civic engagement, support the university’s mission in public affairs, and foster collaboration with communities – locally, nationally, and globally. Community-engaged learning is a form of experiential education characterized by student participation in an organized community-based activity that:
- Connects to specific learning outcomes
- Meets identified community needs
- Provides structured time for student reflection and connection of the community-based experience to learning
As defined by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU), service-learning, as an “instructional strategy”, is a form of experiential “field-based” education that provides students “direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum. A key element in these programs is the opportunity students have to both apply what they are learning in real-world setting and reflect in a classroom setting on their service experiences…”.
