Active learning is learning that engages students in service, research, and internships with community partners. These opportunities often operate on a continuum as students engage first in service with community partners, then move into research positions, and then (and sometimes in tandem) take on more responsibility as interns supporting workforce development while gaining valuable real-world experience. As a community-based research center, CERENE works closely with our community partners and service learning sites to support active student learning and civic engagement.
Civic Engagement and Service-based Learning
Service-Learning (S-L) is a teaching and learning method that integrates critical reflection and meaningful service in the community with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility.
Community engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. The purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching, and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.
Assistant Professor of Botany Mike Ross with service-learning students
at Kapi’olani Community College, Honolulu, Hawai’i
Civic engagement is the active role of citizens and residents in building, sustaining, reforming, and improving the communities to which they belong. As active community members, they deliberate with peers to define public problems and collaborate and act with peers to ameliorate those problems. In doing so, they honor certain virtues, such as respect for others and a degree of loyalty that does not preclude critical thinking and dissent.
To learn more about Civic Engagement and Service Learning you can visit Kapi’olani Community College’s Service and Sustainability Learning Program here: https://kapiolaniserve.weebly.com/about-kssl.html
To donate to Kapi’olani Community College’s Service Learning program please visit the UH Foundations page to support our work here.
Support our outstanding team of student leaders in their brilliance and resilience service!
https://giving.uhfoundation.org/funds/12553504
The Resilience Corps Leadership Award Program is made possible through funding from our generous donors Hawaiian Electric and State Farm.
We are grateful for the support from State Farm Insurance for our RCL program. They provided the initial funding for the RCL initiative, which was based on the Global Council for Science and the Environment’s (GCSE)* EnvironMentors model. Then they funded the Resilient Neighborhoods Corps (RENECO) as well as keynote speakers for the 2021 and 2023 Continuum’s of Service Conference.
*Formerly the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE).