Two Key Strategies for Enhancing Community Service Learning

A growing body of research has found community service learning to have a positive effect upon participating college students' civic development; however, far less scholarship has considered the impact of particular components of a community service learning program. This article presents two preliminary but promising strategies for enhancing the effects of community service learning programming upon participating college students: (a) identifying students' expectations at the outset of the service experience about what they expect to accomplish and (b) providing students' parents with opportunities to participate in their children's reflection about their service experiences.