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Community-engaged learning is an emerging term for a wide spectrum of learning activities that bring together students and community partners in a mutually beneficial way. Service learning is a subcategory of community-engaged learning which traditionally involves the students using their skills or expertise on a project that will directly benefit the community partner. In computer science, service learning projects often include a deliverable, such as designing and building an application. Community-based service learning is service learning with a community partner, usually a non-profit, whose mission is to improve the social, environmental, or economic situation for community members. Undertaking service learning in general and community-based service learning in particular presents significant challenges. Some of these include the identification of an appropriate non-profit community partner and project, project skill alignment, managing partner expectations (failure is an option), and the reconciliation of the variable length of meaningful service-learning projects with the fixed length of a single term. However, given how these unique learning opportunities are known to be highly beneficial to students, educators continue to pursue them in spite of their inherent difficulties. This BoF seeks to gather together seasoned hands, novices, plus those interested in trying out community-based service learning to - Build a community of practice? among those who undertake community-based service learning, - share best practices, - present innovations, and - illuminate pitfalls and other practices to be avoided.
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This content will become publicly available on February 18, 2026
A Scaffolding-based Approach for Addressing Challenges of Service Learning Adoption
Recent publications strongly support refocusing undergraduate CS education toward competency-based learning. This shift places increased responsibility on departments to prepare responsible computing practitioners who appreciate how computing is inextricably intertwined with society. It emphasizes that content coverage is less important than authentic experiences that develop both ethical decision-making and industry-desired technical skills. One timetested successful strategy that helps meet these goals is communitybased service learning (CBSL). However, while CBSL has a strong track record, service learning can be challenging to implement and may not always guarantee successful student experiences. A key factor associated with CBSL's success or failure is the management of the community partner relationship. This includes initial project vetting, setting partner expectations, the role of the partner as a participant in the students' education, and final project hand-off. We introduce Scaffolded Projects for the Social Good (SPSG), a framework based on the software studio model that guides CBSL adopters through all stages of a CBSL experience. The SPSG framework pays particular attention to what are considered the most vexing aspects of CBSL: project scoping and skill matching, managing project timelines that extend beyond a single term, community partner engagement and relationship management, and project handoff and maintenance. Preliminary results from the adoption of the SPSG framework demonstrate that students were able to iteratively improve their competencies throughout the semester as a result of the regular formative feedback enabled by the SPSG framework.
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- PAR ID:
- 10590524
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400705328
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1511 to 1512
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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