How to Evaluate the Partnership

Evaluating a service-learning experience is an essential element to ensuring the ongoing success of the service-learning partnership.  Community partners play an important role in determining evaluation criteria and processes.  

Evaluation can exist in many different forms.  Some possibilities are through facilitated dialogue, and through surveys and questionnaires.  The evaluation process at many institutions involves the faculty, students and community partners.  When evaluating and assessing the partnership it is important to meet the needs of all partnerships.  

• Faculty: Involved by completing an evaluation that describes the link between the service-learning project and the course content.
• Students: Complete an evaluation that explains their experiences at the local organization and provide a description of how the service-learning project contributed to their learning of the course content.  Suggestions to the community agency to better support the student may also be useful for future placements.   
• Community Partners: Complete an evaluation that describes their experiences as a service-learning site.  Partners also have an opportunity to make recommendations or suggestions to the faculty for future student collaboration with their agency.  Internal evaluation should also be completed with consideration of how the organization encompassed the service-learning student and what should be altered when supporting students in the future.    
  

Last modified January 28 2011 05:49 PM