How Is Service Learning
Different from Volunteerism? The difference between service learning and volunteerism is not always clear. Upon your first exposure to the Service Learning Program, our students may not seem all that different from the volunteers at your agency. Yet there is an important difference between these two types of community involvement. While it's important to note that Service Learning is a program that calls for meaningful community service, it is foremost an academic program. Students are expected to perform tasks that allow them to have hands-on experience that relates to what they are studying in class. This aspect alone is distinct enough to make Service Learning different from volunteerism. Yet there are a number of other details that separate Service Learning and volunteerism.

Service Learning	Volunteerism
Service done with student's, agency's, and clients' needs in mind equally	Service done primarily with agency's and clients' needs in mind
Tasks related as closely as possible to the student's classroom theories (determined before service begins)	In general, volunteer temperament and abilities are matched with service tasks.
Server must reflect and focus on connections between service and course to get full benefit of service	Server might reflect on impact of service to enhance appreciation of service
"Service as a means to reach the end goal of learning"	"Service for service sake"

Students are at your site to both learn and serve. This is the fundamental difference between Service Learning and volunteerism. It is a tricky balancing act to see both components as equal. But if you think of Service Learning as an academically-focused service program, it will help you to keep both the academic and service goals of the students in mind throughout your involvement with the Program.

When you become a part of the Service Learning Program at Marquette, you become our partner in educating our students. Our goal is for each community placement to provide an atmosphere in which the student can effectively understand the academic aspects of their service. By collaborating with Service Learning, you agree to provide an opportunity for students to get hands-on experience in testing out the theories that their classes are proposing. This is an important commitment. Without you as co-educator, our program would not function.

In addition to providing students with an indelible lesson in the necessity and value of service to others, experiential learning presents a number of benefits to students that traditional learning does not. Research has shown that coupled with traditional classroom teaching, experiential learning fosters higher levels of leadership skills, cognitive development and acquisition of knowledge, personal efficacy and career development.

Service Learning also enables students to work directly with people of diverse backgrounds and varying abilities. This gives students the chance to learn where their strengths and weaknesses are, while helping others realize their own strengths. This learning method, with its unique and changing opportunities, allows students to learn how to educate themselves. This is one of the most important lessons of life - we are all teachers and students, often fulfilling both roles simultaneously.