Today, most of us rely on digital technology to manage our workloads, school work and daily activities. Service-learning is no exception. To successfully lead service-learning courses and programs, instructors and program managers need to deliver educational content, track involvement, manage communications and gather reflections.
To do this, they need service-learning management software. But what is a service-learning management platform, and how can it help you?
The Basics
A service-learning management platform (SLM) is designed to streamline the logistics of managing community partnerships and tracking student engagement in service-learning courses.
Like an LMS (Learning Management System), an SLM is used to administer, document, track and deliver educational content. But unlike an LMS, an SLM is specifically designed to support student engagement in the community. It provides a platform to list service-learning opportunities, engage with community partners, track student outputs (like volunteer hours) and gather reflections.
What Does a Service-Learning Management Platform Do?
A robust service-learning management platform will support every element of your service-learning course, from managing your roster to gathering engagement data. But the benefits don't end there. An SLM improves access and transparency, encourages collaboration and streamlines communication. Here are six key roles your SLM should play in your service-learning offerings.
Manage Courses
A service-learning management platform can synchronize your service-learning course details and rosters to streamline faculty, staff, partner and student academic engagement.
Manage Partnerships and Opportunities
Using a service-learning management platform, you can recruit, engage and communicate with current and prospective community partners, and manage what opportunities are available to students. GivePulse's all-in-one solution allows you to select and customize what partnerships, events and opportunities display in a class. You and your partners can also oversee user profiles to match interests, activities, events and opportunities with students, faculty, staff, researchers and alumni.
Schedule Students
Overseeing logistics and scheduling for individuals and groups of students can be a challenge. Your service-learning management platform can streamline this process by allowing you to set up orientation dates, one-time events or ongoing opportunities and post them in a calendar, map or list. And, once students are signed up for a slot, community partners can use your SLM to verify attendance by signing people in or setting up a "clock in, clock out" system.
Manage Applications
Along with engaging current community partners, you'll likely need to recruit more throughout the year, and a service-learning management platform can support this. When you use GivePulse as your SLM, you can manage, create, edit, approve and review partner applications all from one place. You can also do the same for student-to-partner applications, which will ensure you're pairing students and partners appropriately.
Once you've reviewed and approved applications, you can use GivePulse to set up a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the student, the partner and yourself to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Manage Reporting
To ensure students engage in your course, you'll need to gather quantitative and qualitative outputs, like hours served and reflections submitted. Your service-learning management platform can make tracking and submitting these simple and accessible for you and your students.
Integrate with your LMS
A service-learning management platform can be used as a standalone tool. However, if you are using an LMS like Canvas, Blackboard or Moodle at your institution, you'll benefit even more if you can integrate the two. GivePulse's SLM platform integrates with any LMS through its own Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) to keep things simple.
Get Started With GivePulse
Investing in a service-learning management platform will streamline the administration of service-learning courses. But it's also an investment in people. Community partners and students will get much more out of their service-learning engagement when opportunities are well organized and tracked.
At GivePulse, we believe service-learning is the key to empowering students to have a lasting and positive impact on society. That's why we designed our SLM to make every service-learning experience impactful, meaningful and measurable.
Ready to see how we can help you equip the next generation of changemakers with the tools they need to succeed in service-learning? Schedule a demo with GivePulse today.
About GivePulse
GivePulse's mission is to enable everyone in the world to participate and engage in lifting their community to new heights. We do so by providing a platform to list, find, organize and measure the impact of service-learning, community engagement, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and volunteerism.
Founded in 2012 in Austin, Texas, GivePulse works with 650,000+ groups, including colleges and universities, nonprofits, businesses, K-12/school districts and cities and municipalities. Together, we connect millions of people in an effort to create positive social change.
Start making a difference today by visiting www.givepulse.com.