Service-Learning is a method of teaching and learning that combines community service with academic instruction. It focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility.

Service-Learning offers another way to learn course material -- through experience. It can help you develop critical thinking, interpersonal, team-building and personal skills and gives you opportunities to develop professional skills and evaluate possible careers. It also may help you clarify your values and acquaint you with a variety of persons and issues in your community.

JCCC's Service-Learning program is characterized by:

• Academic Integrity: Service-Learning assignments tied to course objectives
• Meaningful Service: Work that meets community needs and benefits the community
• Reflection: The deliberate, facilitated process of examining, analyzing and discussing the connection between what is learned in the classroom and what is learned or experienced in the community, associating theory with the real world and one's personal life
• Diversity: Exposure to new experiences and unfamiliar people, often moving a student away from their comfort zones
• Reciprocity: A process of exchange, shared responsibility and shared benefit
• Development: Growth and change for all participants, developing academic, personal, professional, social and community skills
• Responsibility: Strengthening community and personal involvement and accountability

"We are a nation founded upon active citizenship and participation in community life. We have always believed that individuals can and should serve. It is crucial that service toward the common good be combined with reflective learning to assure that service programs of high quality can be created and sustained over time, and to help individuals appreciate how service can be a significant and ongoing part of life. Service, combined with learning, adds value to each and transforms both. Those who serve and those who are served are thus able to develop the informed judgment, imagination, and skills that lead to a greater capacity to contribute to the common good." ~ Preamble to the Wingspread Special Report