Service-Learning: An Education Strategy for Preventing School Violence

Recent headlines provide ample testimony of dramatic, heart-stopping incidents of youth violence - at every socioeconomic level, in every age group, and across rural, suburban and urban areas. What were once seen as isolated outbursts have multiplied in such a way that they no longer can be thought of as random incidents. Many factors underlie violent behavior in schools. Easy access to guns, violent movies and video games, poor and even destructive parenting, social upheaval in schools, minority status and, not least, violence in the home arc all potential enablers of violent behavior on the part of students. But these are only the external, publicly discussed causes

A case study : the integration of community service learning into the curriculum by an interdisciplinary team of teachers at an urban middle school.

This study documents the origins of community service learning (CSL) and describes educational literature that relates to how CSL can become a learning experience in the educational process in middle schools. The case study examines how one interdisciplinary team of teachers in an urban middle school integrated CSL as an instructional strategy or culminating activity into curriculum, or used CSL as an extra-curricular experience for students. Four methods of data gathering were used: interviews, observation, a student questionnaire and review of documents. During 1990-1991 school year, the researcher observed the teachers and community partners planning and working with the students to implement the various service experiences. At the end of the school year, the principal, four teachers and three community partners participated in individual and group interviews. The researcher also conducted a group interview with students as a follow-up to the student questionnaire completed by some forty students. The questionnaire was designed with open-ended questions for the students to provide explanations for their answers. The organization of the data provided information to shape the case study and show the history and development of CSL, the delivery and design, and the student reaction to the experiences. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) The principal\u27s vision and leadership affected the way the service experiences evolved. (2) Teachers found the service experiences to be useful as a pedagogy throughout the curriculum disciplines. (3) Service experiences enhanced the understanding of CSL as a process and an instructional strategy with teachers allowing for flexibility and the serendipitous to occur. (4) The integration of service experiences affected how teaching takes place and as an instructional strategy to enhance educational reform. (5) Teacher and students found that service experiences affected their relationships in a positive way which enhanced teaching and learning. (6) Service experiences gave students an opportunity to develop a sense of community by experiencing community within their classrooms, school, neighborhood and city-wide community. (7) Service experiences affected how students learned academically, socially and personally. (8) The process for successful implementation of service experiences needs to be better understood by both teachers and community partners. The principal of Chestnut Middle School and the Gold House teachers and students demonstrated how CSL can be designed and delivered in middle school education. By involving all curriculum areas, they built a model and process for implementation which can be adapted throughout a school district to demonstrate how to build learning experiences for students around a common purpose. The analysis and description of their work has implications beyond Chestnut and can help others understand how to build community, create change and integrate service experiences into education

Service-Learning as an Integrated Experience in K-5 Education: An Introduction to Resources and Information.

Some educators contend that students who engage in activities related to school subjects learn more efficiently and more effectively, and remember what they have learned much longer than students who do not. Service-Learning (S-L) can provide a central focus around which educational change can occur. Moreover, S-L enhances the ideas promoted by various circles of school reform. Theodore Sizer\u27s nine principles and David Berliner\u27s management of teaching are a few of the philosophies that provide the sound theoretic foundation for instituting S-L programs. Kate McPherson(1989) suggests S-L facilitates school reform while providing an expanded pedagogy to meet the learning styles and needs of all students, making learning relevant and exciting and necessitating critical thinking about what has been learned. Several examples of serving with meaning demonstrate the power of S-L as a classroom strategy. S-L becomes part of the educational process in elementary school programs when it is integrated into curriculum areas. This integration comes readily since S-L is often a natural extension of the content and skills already being developed in the classroom and does not distract but rather enhances existing curriculum

Community Service Learning and School Improvement in Springfield, Massachusetts

Calls for changes in the education system continually issue forth from various segments of society. Each outpouring of public concern challenges educators to address the needs of young people and to achieve school renewal. The current literature on school reform advocates an agenda of improvement efforts aimed at creating effective, caring schools that will provide active learning opportunities for students. develop learning communities, expand learning into the community. foster collegiality among staff members, and enable teachers to become orchestra conductors in the classroom rather than lecturers. But educators ask, How can all of this be achieved

Efficacy and safety of two neutralising monoclonal antibody therapies, sotrovimab and BRII-196 plus BRII-198, for adults hospitalised with COVID-19 (TICO): a randomised controlled trial

We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of two neutralising monoclonal antibody therapies (sotrovimab [Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline] and BRII-196 plus BRII-198 [Brii Biosciences]) for adults admitted to hospital for COVID-19 (hereafter referred to as hospitalised) with COVID-19. In this multinational, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, clinical trial (Therapeutics for Inpatients with COVID-19 [TICO]), adults (aged ≥18 years) hospitalised with COVID-19 at 43 hospitals in the USA, Denmark, Switzerland, and Poland were recruited. Patients were eligible if they had laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 symptoms for up to 12 days. Using a web-based application, participants were randomly assigned (2:1:2:1), stratified by trial site pharmacy, to sotrovimab 500 mg, matching placebo for sotrovimab, BRII-196 1000 mg plus BRII-198 1000 mg, or matching placebo for BRII-196 plus BRII-198, in addition to standard of care. Each study product was administered as a single dose given intravenously over 60 min. The concurrent placebo groups were pooled for analyses. The primary outcome was time to sustained clinical recovery, defined as discharge from the hospital to home and remaining at home for 14 consecutive days, up to day 90 after randomisation. Interim futility analyses were based on two seven-category ordinal outcome scales on day 5 that measured pulmonary status and extrapulmonary complications of COVID-19. The safety outcome was a composite of death, serious adverse events, incident organ failure, and serious coinfection up to day 90 after randomisation. Efficacy and safety outcomes were assessed in the modified intention-to-treat population, defined as all patients randomly assigned to treatment who started the study infusion. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04501978. Between Dec 16, 2020, and March 1, 2021, 546 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to sotrovimab (n=184), BRII-196 plus BRII-198 (n=183), or placebo (n=179), of whom 536 received part or all of their assigned study drug (sotrovimab n=182, BRII-196 plus BRII-198 n=176, or placebo n=178; median age of 60 years [IQR 50–72], 228 [43%] patients were female and 308 [57%] were male). At this point, enrolment was halted on the basis of the interim futility analysis. At day 5, neither the sotrovimab group nor the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group had significantly higher odds of more favourable outcomes than the placebo group on either the pulmonary scale (adjusted odds ratio sotrovimab 1·07 [95% CI 0·74–1·56]; BRII-196 plus BRII-198 0·98 [95% CI 0·67–1·43]) or the pulmonary-plus complications scale (sotrovimab 1·08 [0·74–1·58]; BRII-196 plus BRII-198 1·00 [0·68–1·46]). By day 90, sustained clinical recovery was seen in 151 (85%) patients in the placebo group compared with 160 (88%) in the sotrovimab group (adjusted rate ratio 1·12 [95% CI 0·91–1·37]) and 155 (88%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group (1·08 [0·88–1·32]). The composite safety outcome up to day 90 was met by 48 (27%) patients in the placebo group, 42 (23%) in the sotrovimab group, and 45 (26%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group. 13 (7%) patients in the placebo group, 14 (8%) in the sotrovimab group, and 15 (9%) in the BRII-196 plus BRII-198 group died up to day 90. Neither sotrovimab nor BRII-196 plus BRII-198 showed efficacy for improving clinical outcomes among adults hospitalised with COVID-19. US National Institutes of Health and Operation Warp Spee