Inspired by Cone and Harris’ (1996) Lens Model, Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle, and the University of Maryland’s PARE Model (1999) our Service-Learning Program has adapted the PARE Model for Service-Learning Implementation. PARE stands for Preparation, Action, Reflection, and Evaluation, the four necessary stages for high quality service-learning implementation. This model is meant to act as a scaffold upon which you can develop a service-learning experience that best suits your learning objectives.
Preparation introduces students to the community they’ll be serving in and the organization they’ll partner with. A large portion of this phase is dedicated to project development and introduction.
Action engages students in their service experience. While faculty don’t have a lot of control over what happens in this phase, there are steps they can take in both the preparation and reflection phases to ensure that students make the most of their experience.
Reflection asks students to connect their experiences in service back to relevant content they’ve been covering in their course. This phase is integral for an academically enriching service project.
Depending on your learning objectives, different kinds of service activities will be more or less relevant to your students. Identifying the kind of service you’d like your students to participate in can help narrow the search for appropriate community partners.
Direct Service: An easy way to distinguish direct from other kinds of service is to ask, “Will the students directly engage with the population this organization is intended to serve?” For example, the Humane Society intends to serve neglected or homeless animals, and so an example of direct service with the humane society would be walking dogs, socializing cats, or otherwise engaging directly with those animals.
Indirect Service: Indirect service projects partner students with representatives from a community organization in order to assist with the ‘behind the scenes’ operations of their organization. In the Humane Society example, students who are volunteering to clean and do laundry, help out with adoption paperwork, or assist in the development of a new website or app can be said to be engaging in indirect service.
Research Oriented Service: Research oriented projects are just as they sound, engaging students in some of the fundamental processes associated with high quality research, whether that be data collection, compiling a literature review, data analysis, or all of the above. If students interviewed patrons of the Humane Society to gather their testimonies about the adoption process and then compiled and presented that data back to the Humane Society, that could be considered a research oriented project.
No matter what kind of service you choose to engage your students in, the PARE model can be used to organize all pre and post service activities within your course. For a more in depth examination of each stage in the PARE model, the various kinds of service activities, and how to formulate an effective course plan with both in mind, please consider enrolling in the Service-Learning Online Training! This course will walk you through each of the stages of PARE, with practical tips on how to adapt the model around your service project.