This presentation by Bill Warters explores key concepts in service learning and provides examples related to the promotion of conflict resolution skills and abilities. The presentation also served as the kickoff for a series of professional development sessions on conflict resolution offered at a High School location in Metro Detroit's East Side.

1. WELCOME TO OUR SERIES!
DR 7890 - Final Seminar in Dispute Resolution
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Thanks to HW Schools and WSU Extension for their support

2. A few details
▪ We are happy to have you with us, and we
want to stay in touch (see sign-in sheet)
▪ Additional longer form readings may be
available for some sessions, will be sent to
you via email
▪ We want to hear from you…time for
discussion
▪ We’re still learning…constructive feedback
is appreciated
▪ Follow us online at http://escro.us 2

3. WSU MASTER OF ARTS IN
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Come study with Us! - http://madr.comm.wayne.edu
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4. Building Conflict
Competencies Through
Service-Learning
Bill Warters, Ph.D.
Department of Communication
Wayne State University
Fostering Community Engagement

5. Presentation Agenda
• What is Service-Learning?
• Some History – Personal/National
• Benefits for Community Partners
• Distinguishing Elements
• What is Special About Conflict as a
Learning Opportunity?
• Conflict Resolution Service Learning
• Some Examples
• Your Ideas
• The Example Case of Community Boards
Prof. Donyale Griffin
and WSU Students

6. Some stories from UCSC
▪ Intro to Feminism
▪ Resource Center for Nonviolence
▪ Conflict Resolution and Change
Course
▪ World Pole Project
▪ FSH Mediation Project

7. Stories from Your Past?
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8. Service Learning History
▪ There is a long history of support for
connecting service projects and
formal learning
▪ A timeline of significant moments will
provide a sense of the scope of this
movement
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9. Recent History
• 1980’s: National service efforts were launched at the
grassroots level, including the Campus Outreach
Opportunity League and Campus Compact, which
help mobilize service and service-learning programs
in higher education.
!
• 1990-1994: The National & Community Service
Act: Congress passed the National and Community
Service Act of 1990. The legislation authorized grants
to schools to support service-learning and
demonstration grants for national service programs to
youth corps, nonprofits, and colleges and universities.

12. What is Service-Learning?
• Are integrated into the academic curriculum
• Meet the needs of a community
• Provide structured time for reflection
• Help foster civic responsibility
!
Adapted from the National and Community Service Trust Act, 1993
A method of teaching whereby students
learn & develop through active participation in
organized service experiences that:

13. From the Faculty Perspective

14. Program Characteristics
• Academic Experience
• Links the learning in the
classroom to the activity in the
community…and vice versa
• Reinforces what is learned in the
classroom
• Designed with clear academic
goals
Characteristics excerpted from Eyler, Janet and Giles, “Where’s the Learning in
Service-Learning?” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.

15. Program Characteristics
• Community Project
• Connects the student to the
community in activities that are
mutually beneficial
• Projects take place at the
community level
• Ideally, students and community
leaders participate in planning
the project

16. Program Characteristics
• Reflection Requirement
• Built-in opportunities to reflect on the
experience
• Creates a deeper understanding and
better application of subject matter
• Increases appreciation of problem and
encourages solution analysis
• Includes spontaneous “teachable
moments”

17. Some Reflection Activity
Examples
▪ Personal Journals
▪ Directed Writings
▪ Classroom
Assessment
Techniques
▪ Agency Presentations
▪ Presentation in a
Public Forum
▪ Ethical Case Studies
▪ Student Portfolios
▪ On-line Techniques
▪ Experiential Research
Paper
▪ Minute Papers
▪ Stand and Declare
▪ Letter to the Editor
(Hatcher & Bringle, 1997)

18. Program Characteristics
• Civic Role and Appreciation
• Experiences have a higher
purpose that emphasizes the
reward and value in service
• Increases civic engagement of the
University
• Gives the student a better
understanding of their
individual role in society

19. Americorps Video Contest
Grand prize winner in the 2010
AmeriCorps Video Contest.
Author: Julie Walker

20. Service-Learning is…
• Cleaning up a river bank is just
service.
• Looking at water samples under a
microscope is just learning.
• Biology majors taking samples from
local streams, analyzing the
samples and then presenting the
information to a pollution control
agency is service-learning.

21. Service-Learning is NOT…
• Community Service
• Volunteering
These are “Service”
• Experiential Learning
• Hands-On Learning
• Internships
These are “Learning”

22. Service Learning
Opportunities May…
▪ Be an optional course component
▪ Be a required course component
▪ Be a group service project
▪ Extend work done by previous
participants

23. Benefits to Community Partners
▪ Provides short-term volunteers to
meet community needs.
▪ Provides potential long-term
volunteers and potential recruits for
agency employment.
▪ Increases awareness of agency
services and social issues within the
community.

24. Benefits to Community Partners
▪ Provides community with substantial human
resources to meet educational, human, safety,
and environmental needs.
▪ The talent, energy, and enthusiasm of
college students is applied to meet these ever
increasing needs.
▪ Many students commit to a lifetime of
volunteering after this experience, creating a
democracy of participation.

25. LA AFSC Intern video
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26. CONFLICT AS A KEY
LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
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27. What is so special about
conflict for learning?
▪ George Herbert Mead noted that we spend
much of our life going about routine activities
that don’t require much thought
▪ Situations that make us have to stop and
think are thus special opportunities
▪ Dewey articulated the value of learning by
doing, not just reading/thinking
▪ Conflict motivates us to action/reaction, but
often we are in a “less than optimal” learning
state when we are in the midst of it
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28. Brazilian Educator
Paulo Freire
▪ Was interested in teaching literacy
▪ Found he was most effective when
he took community conflicts/
problematic situations and used
these as the basis for learning
▪ Special focus on informal education
and helping the oppressed
▪ Students learned very rapidly!
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29. CONFLICT
HANDLING
IS AT THE
CORE OF
DEMOCRACY 29
Picture is cover from a
new book from David
Mathews and the
Kettering Foundation
Conflict!

30. democracyis.us project
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Raymond Shonholtz

31. Some CR Service Learning
Examples
▪ Fort Lauderdale Public Library - Peace Place
Special Collection
▪ Syracuse Symphony Process Consultation
Team
▪ English as a Second Language Conflict
Consultants (Miami)
▪ CPR Team for the Counseling Center (WSU)
▪ Conflict Coaching for Students (Temple
University)
▪ Others? 31

32. George Mason University
ICAR Program
▪ APT - Applied Practice and Theory courses
▪ More recently - Conflict Service Learning
Intensives
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33. Service Learning
Example – Mediator Mentors

34. Mediator Mentors
Training Video
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35. EAST SIDE CONFLICT
RESOLUTION OUTREACH
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A Project of Wayne State University’s Department of Communication’s
Master of Arts in Dispute Resolution Program

36. An Expanded View of
Community Engagement
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37. Community Boards
• An attempt to draw on past experiments with
“popular justice” such as Polish “Good Neighbor
Committees” and worker conciliation boards
• Based at the neighborhood level
• Developed by Raymond Shonholtz
(consultant to MADR at the start)
• First boards were in San Francisco
• Seeking to promote civic engagement
• Where Professor Warters got his start...

38. The model

39. Core Values of
Community Boards
Regards conflict as an opportunity for
change and growth;
Values and supports the peaceful
expression of conflict within the
community;
Values and supports individual and
community acceptance of responsibility
for a conflict;

40. Core Values of Community
Boards (continued)
Values the voluntary resolution of
conflict between parties;
Values diversity and respects and
appreciates differences.

41. Should Dispute Resolution
Be Attached to the Courts?
▪ Most of our mediation
skills training these days
is tied directly to the
needs of court-affiliated
mediation centers
▪ Students work to get
certified to be on the
court roster
▪ Most don’t mediate as
much as they’d like 41
“From the viewpoint of
community conciliation
systems, the answer
must be no.”
Discuss with a Neighbor?

42. Impact of Boards
Possible Effects on the Community of a Community Board

43. 10 Principles for SL
▪ 1. An effective program engages people in responsible
and challenging actions for the common good.
▪ 2. An effective program provides structured
opportunities for people to reflect critically on their
service experience.
▪ 3. An effective program articulates clear service and
learning goals for everyone involved.
▪ 4. An effective program allows for those with needs to
define those needs.
▪ 5. An effective program clarifies the responsibilities of
each person and organization involved.
Wingspread Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning (1989)

44. 10 Principles
▪ 6. An effective program matches service providers and
service needs through a process that recognizes
changing circumstances.
▪ 7. An effective program expects genuine, active, and
sustained organizational commitment.
▪ 8. An effective program includes training, supervision,
monitoring, support, recognition, and evaluation to
meet service and learning goals.
▪ 9. An effective program insures that the time commitment
for service and learning is flexible, appropriate, and in the
best interests of all involved.
▪ 10. An effective program is committed to program
participation by and with diverse populations.

45. Can we come up with a
sustainable model?
!
What will it take?
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46. Additional Resources
I will share
▪ Case Study of Community Boards
“Neighbors as Peacemakers” by Kirp et al.
▪ Teaching for Justice collection on Service
Learning for Peace Studies
▪ Article on the successes of the Mediator
Mentors program from CRQ
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47. Thank You!
Visit http://escro.us
to stay in touch