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How service-learning educators help students learn: master teachers’ perspectives

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How service-learning educators help students learn: master teachers’ perspectives

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Running Head: MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS

HOW SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS HELP STUDENTS LEARN:
MASTER TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES
by
Martha Began Crawford

_____________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2018

DEDICATION

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 1

To
The love of my life, my affectionate husband Fred

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge those who have contributed in various ways to this dissertation.
To my dissertation chair, Dr. Ruth Chung, I am grateful for how honestly you trusted me to work
independently to make your very worthwhile suggested changes to my dissertation. Writing in
first person enabled me the freedom to create my own narrative – you were right. You have
communicated with optimism at every turn. You kept high standards, I appreciate that. It has
been a pleasure to work under your scholarly guidance. Thank you, Ruth for mentoring me.
To Dr. Larry Picus, I appreciate your keen eye for detail, sense of humor and scholarly approach
as my dissertation committee member. Thank you for making me laugh.
Thank you to my closest mentor in this dissertation process who kindly agreed to be a
member of my dissertation committee, the most lovely, Dr. Vilma D’Rozario. You are a mentor
with a light touch albeit one who carries a powerful wildlife conservation mantra as co-founder
of Cicada Tree Eco Place, leader in Nature Society (Singapore), and partner with Singapore
National Parks (NParks). As well, Vilma, you have dedicated your career as a psychology
professor to developing agency in young educators at National Institute of Education (NIE)
through your years guiding undergraduates in the Youth Expedition Project and Group
Endeavours in Service-Learning published in reflective Tracks and Trails booklets. You live by
your principles, Vilma by keeping your ecological footprint in check and by contributing to the
conservation of Singapore and Malaysia’s incredible biodiversity. Thank you for nurturing my
idea to study master service-learning educators through grounded theory design and for showing
me how to go about it. Your guidance has been invaluable and your persona lovely, giving and
kind, always.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 3

To my SAS USC doctoral cohort – thank you for putting up with my constant questions,
abrupt statements and assertive style of learning and being. Jennifer Sparrow, thank you for your
endless foundational support and bold insights into leadership and change management. Let’s
have another meal together. Betsy Hall and Scott Oskins you guys rock! Monica San Jose and
Cris Ewell we have more in common than meets the eye. I have huge gratitude for our
friendship and deep respect for all of you as exceptionally sharp leaders. And, to Dr. Rodas
thank you for believing in my strengths and for helping me to stop speaking as a marginalized
older woman, but instead, as an influential environmental educator and leader of service-
learning.
For all of my career as an educator I have worked in Asia, primarily in Southeast Asia.
Over the past 32 years I have come to know amazing people who have dedicated their lives to
empowering school-aged children. I wish to recognize a few student-empowering-folks who are
masters at their craft, who have mentored me, impressed me and collaborated with me on one
project or another. In Singapore Dr. Shawn Lum, President of the Nature Society (Singapore),
active with Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore), scholar, botanist, conservationist and friend who
has mentored me for over 20 years, most recently on my Advanced Topic Environmental
Science and Field Research course – aimed to build skill in ecology and awareness as global
citizens. Albeit behind the scenes much of the time, you have inspired me Shawn, thank you.
To Andrew Tay of Cicada Tree Eco Place, thank you for working with me and my students in
Singapore’s mangroves, forests and beaches day and night. To Sivasothi, for modelling how to
make young people enthusiastic about picking up marine debris while appreciating the beauty
and threats to mangrove biodiversity. To Subaraj, thanks for entertaining all of us with your bird
calls, natural history stories and wealth of biodiversity interpretation. To Tan Beng Chiak,

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 4

otherwise known as Beng, environmental educator extraordinaire, awe-inspiring biology teacher,
student empowerer, beer lover and dear friend – I hope now this is done and dusted, we will find
more time for one another.
Also in Singapore and the East Asian Regional Conference of Overseas Schools
(EARCOS) I wish to acknowledge precious environmental and service-learning educators who
have made me feel welcome in their circles: Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore), the first and
second EARCOS Global Citizenship Summits, over 10 EARCOS Global Issues Network (GIN)
Conferences, Service-Learning Workshops (thanks for “skills, traits and talents” ideas, Cathy
Berger Kaye!) and Compass Education Level I and II training workshops with systems thinking
themes. Hats off great EARCOS master educators of global citizenship in our time: Claire
Psillides, Margo Marks, Anthony Skillicorn, Rick Hannah, Susan Edwards, Chris Tananone,
Teresa Tung, Andy Dorn, Cathy Chen, Wesley Whitehead, Mike Johnston, Kate Thome, Steve
Early, Alice Early, Rindi Baildon, Mare Stewart, Scott Oskins, Betsy Hall, Brian Arleth, Heidi
Ryan, Susan Walker, Roopa Dewan and many more in India, North America, Europe and
beyond. To friends in Bangkok and Singapore International schools who share the same
worldviews, values, and commitment to student empowerment: Thank you for your activism
and for being my eco-family.
Tusind tak for hjaelpen to my dear friend and colleague, Steve Early who has shared my
love for environmental education, natural history and service-learning. Steve, you have planned
with me, assessed with me, schlept into jungles, streams, mangroves and coral reefs with me and
our students, mastered the art of tropical rainforest nursery and service-learning work with young
people, travelled to GIN Conferences with me, transitioned into NGSS with me, PLCed with me,
filled in for me, helped my substitute teachers, listened to me go on and on about my doctoral

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 5

work, cheered me on, asked how I was doing and buoyed me up. Tag team. Thank you for
being our kind, gentle, patient guide on the side, Steve.
To my science department and advisory quartet colleagues thanks for the encouragement.
Bob Helmer, Nanette Devins and, especially Kevin Piers you have shown care and concern both
professionally and personally; thank you.
To Ron Starker for agreeing to be my pilot interviewee, kap khun, kha. You gave me
useful critical friend feedback for which I am grateful. Kate Bucknall, my confidant I am
grateful for your friendship, health, stealth, and clever-wit. Alice Early your smiles and laughter
have brightened my days; our bond is sustained through our love for enabling kids to explore the
wonders of nature and our morning swims; so thankful for our friendship. To my swim buddies,
Jemma Hookyaas, Gretchen Clow and Alice – our morning swims have kept me healthy and
sane. To my book club friends – thanks for our congenial conversations and #metoo prowess;
maybe now I can read a book for pure pleasure.
And to my students.
Executive Service Council (ESC) thank you for shining so bright as young scholars
whose hearts, hands and minds support others to fill purposive community needs. You are
accomplished student leaders now and will become competent world leaders we so desperately
need. Our Wednesday lunch meetings are the highlight of my week. Every time we gather to
collaborate together you show cultural competence and exemplary character. Shout out to Ruth
Jaensubhakij, Tarini Chaudhuri and Robin Yoon as you head off to college – I will miss you.
High five to the most competent Bryanna Entwistle. I am grateful you opened my mind to the
connection between service action and self-authorship – Pizzolato’s work is mighty, and so are
you.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 6

Global Issues Network (GIN) officers and members thank you for being student activists,
the best EARCOS GIN conference delegates for years on end, collaborative and funny blender
bicyclists, rainforest stewards, GINergy technologists, and GIN speaker series beacons to bring
the outside in to SAS. Annie Kim, Chloe Shin-Gay, Tanvi Dutta Gupta and Keshav Jagannath, I
have adored working with you the past four years. You’re talenGINed and GINtastic! Stay the
course in university. Madeline Smith and Elizabeth (Lizzy) Frey – it’s all yours now and man
are you both up to the task.
TEDxYouth@SAS Executive Team – woot 100+ licence! Creativity is your middle
name. Sharing good ideas is your motto and having a blast while putting together a TEDx event
is your collective strength. Shout out to magnificent communicator Hana Matsudaria and Jaclyn
Chan, my TEDFest travel buddy and Robotics-Captain-Engineer-Dancer-Service-Learner, love
you guys. Learn heaps in college, keep contributing to your communities and stay in touch. All
yours now Naya Jorgensen – let’s do this!
To my two brilliant sons, Lars and Clay, thank you for giving me child-to-parent comfort,
approval and encouragement as I marched along this marathon. If anyone knows the stresses of
doctoral work, you two do, soon to be Ph.D. in Bioengineering, Lars and M.D., Clay. I adore
your independence, hippsteriness, worldliness, hearts for service and love of life! Stay safe you
two. To GmaJane, Lora Louise, Mike, Ann, the Crawford clan, GmaDoris, Doug, Steve and Kev
and all their children and spouses, thank you for welcoming me each summer, for setting me up
in your homes for my online classes, offering me a place to write my papers and for loving me. I
love you all, too. In our overseas absence, Steve and Cindy, thanks for taking such loving care
of Doris; LDot and Bob thanks for taking such loving care of Mom. Fam, all of your collective
loving care for our parents means the world to me and Fred. And dear Freddy boy, my best

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 7

friend and lifelong husband, I could not have stayed the course without your delicious meals,
frededits, warm hugs, confidence building chats and deep seated belief that I was up to this task.
Fred, your open-mindedness and hilarious sense of humor have kept me attracted to you like a
magnet (see, I worked in Physics). Jeg elsker dig. I’m all yours.
Finally, to all the servant-leaders in our communities, young and old who are servants
first – leaders who are focused on serving others. Leaders who reject a life of seeking power,
reject focusing solely on what they want. Leaders who have the ability to see unintended
consequences from their actions and through systems thinking, fix it – you are who I am talking
about. You are the masters. As Kent Keith, author of Servant Leader said, “The world does not
have to be like this.” Service is not just something you do, it’s what life is about. Thank you
Kent Keith for saying out loud, “you don’t need symbols of success.” I have known that in my
heart but have been too often pulled by ladder-climbing and material accumulation to become a
true servant-leader. I get it now. Lastly, thank you to Darin Fahrney for recently agreeing I need
to find where I fit. To find the personal meaning that will feed my spirit and soul and give me
deep happiness – the kind that cannot come from power, wealth or fame, the happiness that can
only come from a life of service. And it has. And it will.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 8

Abstract
The intention of this study was to explore how service-learning helps third culture
international high school students learn. Through the perspective of eight master service-
learning educators’ narratives about their experience guiding service-learning, this study
investigated the educator and situation characteristics related to service-learning and the
use of pedagogical techniques to help students learn and develop self-authorship.
Applying grounded theory methodology this qualitative study analyzed interview data
from study participants who had been selected by their high school principals based on a
set of criteria designed to identify master service-learning educators. All respondents
were teacher-leaders or key leaders in service-learning within their school settings in
Singapore or Bangkok, Thailand. A substantive theory or conceptual framework was
induced from the empirical data as is common in grounded theory design. The findings
gesture towards both particular knowledge, skills, traits, talents and intrinsic motivation
teachers may need to develop in order to guide meaningful service-learning action, as
well as suggest that movement through personalized service-learning approaches may be
externally induced through a written ethos or vision statement, programming,
organizational support, creation of service-learning standards and systemic alignment
reforms related to common international school experiences.
Key words: service-learning, community service, student empowerment, self-
authorship, systemic alignment, organizational support, master service-learning educator

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 9

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction 14
Statement of the Problem 16
Background of the Study 18
Importance of the Study 21
Purpose of the Study 23
Research Questions 24
Theoretical Framework 25
Limitations 25
Delimitations 26
Definitions 27
Chapter 2: Literature Review 30
Student Learning Outcomes of Engagement in Service 30
Cognitive Development 31
Life Skills 31
Character education 32
Asset Development 33
Sense of Civic Responsibility 34
Structuring Service Opportunities for Learning Outcomes 35
Creativity, action, and service (CAS) in the International Baccalaureate Diploma 36
Voluntary, co-curricular service: AIS high school – a model 37
Education for Global Citizenship: UWCSEA Singapore – a model 39
Youth expedition project (YEP) and group endeavours in service-learning (GSEL):
National Institute of Education - a model 41
Aligning with the academic mission 43
Educational Administrators, Teachers and Shared Responsibilities 44
Instructional Strategies to Guide Student Learning Through Service 45
Pedagogical tools in the K-12 setting 45
Instructional Strategies in the University Setting 47

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 10

Roles and Responsibilities of Effective of Service Educators 49
Summary of Literature Review 51
Purpose of this Study and Research Questions 55
Chapter 3: Methods 57
Sample and Sampling Strategy 58
Site Selection 58
Participant Selection 61
Participants 61
Instrumentation and Data Collection 64
Interviews 64
Recording and Transcribing Interview Data 65
Documents and Artifacts 66
Data Analysis 67
Coding and application of grounded theory 68
Credibility and Trustworthiness 70
Validity Threats 71
Validity and Reliability Strategies 72
Triangulation 72
Member checking 73
Rich, thick description 74
Peer review 74
Reflexivity 75
Reliability 75
Audit Trail 75
Ethics 76

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 11

Chapter 4: Findings 77
Summary of Findings 77
Research Question 1: Characteristics and Practices of Master Service-Learning Educators 79
Theme 1 – Knowledge of service-learning pedagogy matters 79
Knowledge of Compass Education 81
Knowledge of Systems Thinking 81
Knowledge of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 82
Theme 2 – Skilled Relationship Building Matters 83
Skilled relationship builders with students and service partners 83
Skilled bridge-builders 84
Skilled counselors and coaches 85
Skilled relationship builders in professional settings 85
Skilled relationship builders as CAS Coordinators 87
Skilled relationship builders as logistics managers 88
Theme 3 – Traits of Humility, Empathy, Passion and Being a Visionary Matter 89
Humility as a trait 89
Empathy and passion as traits 90
The trait of being a visionary 91
Theme 4 – Talent in Advancement of Student Empowerment Matters 94
Talent in promoting student empowerment – voice, choice and activism 94
Talent as a roadblock remover 95
Talent as educators of character and cultural competence 97
Talented global citizenship teachers 98
Talented experts at facilitating reflection and demonstration 99
Talented teachers with intentionality and purpose 101

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 12

Talented at seeing a pedagogy of need 101
Talented at nurturing reciprocity 102
Research Question 2: What Motivates Master Service Educators to Do What They Do? 103
Theme 5 – Motivation to Develop Global Citizens Matters 103
Motivation – previous exposure 103
Motivation – passion and purpose 104
Motivation – movement consciousness 105
Motivation – changemakers 106
Motivation – civics education 107
Motivation – value and benefits of service-learning 108
Motivation killers 110
Research Question 3: How the School's Mission, Vision, and Philosophy of Service-Learning
Affects Masters 111
Theme 6 – Organizational Support and Systemic Alignment Matters 111
Organizational support – is it written? 111
Organizational support – Are we on the same page? 112
Organizational support – aystemic alignment and articulation 115
Organizational support – dream school 118
Conclusion 119
Conceptual Framework 120
Chapter 5: Discussion, Implications and Recommendations 126
Discussion 126
Implications and Recommendations for Practice 130
Define a vision of service-learning 130
Create flexible structures 131
Build capacity 132
Prioritize the double-helix of academic success and well-being 133

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 13

Conclusion 135
References 139
Appendices 146
Appendix A: IRB Approval 146
Appendix B: Master Service Educator Nomination Form Letter 148
Appendix C: University of Southern Califormia Rossier School of Education
Information Sheet to Non-Medical Research 150
Appendix D: Interview Questions 154
Appendix E: Demographic Information Form 156
Appendix F: Referenced Documents and Graphics 159
Figure 1: Learner Profile at United World College Singapore (UWCSEA) 159
Figure 2: Service in 5 Stages Banner from UWCSEA 159
Figure 3: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis 159
Figure 4: United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 162
Figure 5: Compass Education Logo 163

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Character Traits Related to Service-Learning Processes 32
Table 2: Study Participants Location of International School and Job Titles 63

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework 123

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 14

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In the 1930’s American John Dewey identified experiential learning as an educational
and social philosophy that emphasized citizenship to establish connections between school and
the real world (Dewy, 1933, 1938). By the late 1960s, the term “service-learning” was coined by
the Southern Regional Education Board (1970) in reference to weaving needed tasks into
pedagogy. Since then, elements of both experiential learning such as interactions with the
environment and service such as caring, active participation and community building have been
inculcated to varying degrees into curricular and co-curricular programs in the United States
(U.S.) (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. 3) and in international schools around the world.
Service learning links education about the real world, “the practical” and school, “the academic”,
hence is a potentially powerful pedagogy (Austin, Vogelsesang, Ikeda & Yee, 2000, p. 1).
As a form of experiential education, learning through service occurs through iterations of
action and reflection as students work to address community or environmental needs while
reflecting upon their experience. Through a cycle of action, based on needs identified through
their own research, and reflection via their own creative means, students develop a deeper
understanding of complex issues facing humanity and the environment. At present, service-
learning has become a buzzword (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. 4) in western and
international K-12 schools and universities. Educators see learning through service action as a
means to develop in students leadership, civic traits grounded in democratic principles, tolerance
for diversity, empathy and cultural competence (Austin et al., 2000; Kaye, 2014; Wilczenski &
Coomey, 2007).
According to research conducted by Austin et al., (2000, p. 93) the effectiveness of
service learning as pedagogical tool appears to involve a combination of several forms of

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 15

involvement, (1) academic involvement, e.g. theoretical grounding, course content, journal
writing, (2) involvement with people at the service site, (3) student-to-student and student-to-
teacher involvement and reflection of interrelationships, and (4) student discussions facilitated by
teachers. Research by Austin et al., (2000) found the role of the service-learning educator (both
within university service-learning courses and as a guide to generic community service) in
facilitating the learning process is vital, especially in the realm of providing emotional support
and educator-to-student discussions and structured reflections, either through journal writing or
discussions or both. In fact, their study showed student-to-student discussions led to the greatest
learning (Austin et al., 2000). How did the educator ultimately design time for student-to-
student interactions before, during and after service actions?
The study conducted by Austin et al., (2000, p. 84) contributed to the pedagogy of service
learning with six major implications, among them reflection, mutually reinforcing effects of
service and academics. However, the focus of that study was on college student service-learning
outcomes and how service effects students, rather than the characteristics and practices of service
educators, per se. The role of the service educator is known, yet the pedological tools of the
trade are largely under investigated, especially in the high school context.
According to Astin and Sax (1998) and Gallagher and McGorry (2015) service work
allows students to grow as critical thinkers, initiators, and systems managers who reflect on
success and failures as a means to learn and develop empathy. The question then becomes, how
do effective service-learning educators nurture the development of these traits in students?
Indeed, the different aspects of the service-learning experience, in particular the role of the
service-learning educator need to be learned and assessed to gain a clearer understanding of their
influence on desired student learning outcomes. How do effective service educators apply their

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 16

craft? What are the personal qualities and skills that make service educators effective? How do
service-learning focused teachers help students learn how to contribute to the common good?
What do these teachers do to help students learn? How and why do these pedagogical strategies
help students learn? What motivates the teachers to do what they do? How does their school’s
mission, vision and viewpoint of what helps service-learning effect teacher understandings? Is
what schools feel teachers do to help students be service learners what teachers actually intend?
The aim of my study is to explore how service-learning education is being carried out by
effective service educators within the Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand international high
school context. My study will identify characteristics and skills of effective service-learning
educators by studying master service educators in purposefully selected represented large
international schools in Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand to understand the qualities that they
bring to their work.
Statement of the Problem
The quality of service-learning depends on the skills and expertise of the service-learning
educator in question (Kaye, 2014). Cognitive learning, skill acquisition, self-efficacy, self-
authorship, empathy, and socio-emotional development that may be built through service-
oriented experiences are developed with the guidance of experienced service educators, even
though some may or may not have formal training as a service educator (Kaye, 2014).
Amidst the increasing emergence of personalized learning and high impact instructional
practices grounded in inquiry at the researcher’s site of employment, American Innovative
School (AIS), there remains limited research on the qualities of effective high school service-
learning educators. Engaged students do appear to benefit from personalized inquiry guided by
enthusiastic, experienced and effective teacher sponsors of student service clubs (AIS Service

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 17

Council Club Reviews, 2016). However, in AIS there is no job description for co-curricular
service educators, scant professional development, and no accountability system in place.
Approximately one-half of the AIS high school student body is involved in co-curricular service
clubs sponsored by teachers (AIS Service Council, 2016). There is no service graduation
requirement. Limited service-learning course or grade level curricular opportunities occur only
in a few pockets. According to student created documents in Google Drive Data Folders for
Executive Service Council (ESC) there is evidence of students’ learning via: (a) engagement in
social justice and social change, (b) circular economy practices, (c) empathy, (d) peace and (e)
environmental sustainability from voluntary engagement in co-curricular service clubs reportedly
does occur (R. Jaensubikij, personal communication, Jan. 2018).
The AIS desired student learning outcomes (DSLOs) are not explicitly reported in the
electronic gradebook nor on students’ report cards, yet students do learn (a) communication, (b)
creativity, (c) critical thinking, (d) cultural competence, (e) collaboration via engagement in
service-learning experiences sponsored by willing teachers from all disciplines. As one AIS
math teacher who sponsors the Independent Performing Arts Union (IPAU) and service club
Gawad Kalinga (GK) said, “I am teaching when I am not in class. Just because I am not
reporting it in PowerSchool, does not mean I am not educating and students are not learning” (S.
Craig, personal communication, 2017). Voluntary service educators do help students learn
affective and cognitive skills and traits beyond the formal curriculum. How do effective service
educators do it? How best to prepare and support teachers who want to engage in service-
learning pedagogy through personalized inquiry?
One of the major barriers in the implementation of service-learning experiences may be
the lack of willing volunteer teachers with adequate training in the field of service-learning.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 18

Some teachers may perceive that they might not have the skills and knowledge to carry out
service-learning effectively (AIS Service Council Club Sponsors Survey, 2017) Hence,
determining the characteristics and practices of service educators from the perspective of master
service educators in AIS and other prominent international high schools in Singapore and in
Thailand is the general problem of practice on which my dissertation will focus. My study will
aim to address the gap in research by documenting the qualities of effective teacher facilitation
of the service-learning experience in prominent international schools in Singapore and Bangkok
within the high school context.
Background of the Study
American Innovative School (AIS) is a private, non-profit international school in
Singapore. AIS has an American curriculum that has for over 60 years catered for students from
preschool through grade 12. In 2016, AIS updated the school’s vision and mission through a
strategic focus process. The mission of AIS is to be “committed to providing each student an
exemplary American educational experience with an international perspective” (AIS Strategic
Focus, 2016). As well, three strategic anchors support the school’s mission, which include a
culture of excellence (every student learns at high levels), a culture of extraordinary care (every
student is known and advocated for), and a culture of possibilities (every student personalizes
their learning). The school’s vision is to be a “world leader in education, cultivating exceptional
thinkers, prepared for the future” (AIS Strategic Focus, 2016).
In the 2017-2018 school year, one strategic focus was on developing best practices for
teaching and assessing the AIS desired student learning outcomes (DSLOs), namely,
communication, creativity, core knowledge, critical thinking, collaboration, compassion, and
cultural competence (Sparrow, personal communication, 2017). As part of the AIS 2020

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 19

strategic pillar called high impact instructional practices (HIIP), one of the goals is to provide
opportunities for “students to engage in experiential learning opportunities including service
learning” (AIS, 2016). Currently in the AIS high school, because it is voluntary, not all students
are engaged in service experiences throughout their four years of high school. The high school
encourages service for students through voluntary participation in student run and led service
clubs under the endorsement of the student managed Service Council.
As part of the school’s recent research and development work, the AIS Vision 2020
Strategic Plan has identified High Impact Instructional Practices (HIIP) including a strand on
experiential learning, including service learning. As well, The AIS Office of Learning has led an
effort to focus on teaching and assessing the AIS desired student-learning outcomes. Although
AIS students are provided myriad learning opportunities to cultivate the DSLOs, one of the most
effective avenues to facilitate the development the DSLO, cultural competence, is through
involvement in the five stages of service learning: (1) research into the needs of service partners,
(2) planning doable actions, (3) implementing direct service and advocacy, and (5)
demonstration / sharing of learning in a continuous cycle of reflection (Kaye, 2014).
In addition to focus on DSLOs the HIIP team developed a school-wide model for student
inquiry through problem- and project-based learning, design thinking and inquiry, as well as
personalized, self-directed learning. The co-curricular high school service program is grounded
in both personalized and self-directed learning, known collectively as student empowerment.
According to the AIS Service Council Mission (2017), “Through participation in student run and
led service clubs, students are inspired to express their creativity to draw upon their innate
curiosity and desire to know as they research and plan and implement their own community
service activities.”

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 20

Faculty sponsorship of voluntary AIS service clubs is hit or miss (AIS Club Reviews,
2016). Sponsorship varies from “door opener” or “human pen” to “fully engaged, expert adult”
in the mix to critique, challenge, build relationships with and advocate for students and their
ideas (AIS Service Council Club Sponsor Survey, 2017). Structured reflection is provided by
adults to push student’s thinking and questioning, provide room for student choice and voice, and
enabling students to discover, research, investigate, create, and implement service activities of
their own choosing (Kaye, 2014). There is difference of opinion on whether students should be
assessed via service curriculum standards, or not. In other words, some believe that service-
learning should be a voluntary, co-curricular program in which students may choose how they
demonstrate their learning; others prefer student service-learning engagement to be assessed via
service-learning standards.
The service program in AIS high school is run and led by elected student officers of the
Executive Service Council (ESC) and two adult co-sponsors who manage the Service Council
(composed of 59 student service clubs and several service oriented clubs, (R. Jaensubikij,
personal communication, 2018). Service-learning is not an element required for AIS high
school graduation. There is no indication on student transcripts of student engagement in
voluntary service. No formal record of service hours is kept. Words that mandate commitment
to service are not part of the AIS mission statement.
As a result of the school culture, AIS faculty service club sponsors have volunteered to
guide service clubs. There has been little or no professional development provided by the school
and up to this 2018, no remuneration for most service-club sponsors’ co-curricular time and
expertise. But that is beginning to change. My study may find the AIS student led and run
Executive Service Council model that manages 54 student run service clubs is exemplary

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 21

compared with other Singapore and Bangkok-based international schools. At AIS, service-
learning opportunities within the curriculum have begun with the implementation of the social
studies College, Career and Civic Life Standards (C3 framework), and the Next Generation
Science Standards (NGSS) (SAS Office of Learning, 2016).
High school college acceptance relies on a myriad of academic as well as character traits
of students (L. Ball, personal communication, 2017). One avenue available for students to
develop socio-cultural understanding, civic responsibility, empathy is to voluntarily join co-
curricular service clubs under the umbrella of AIS high school Service Council to fulfil the
expectation by top universities that the applicant show “consistent engagement in contributing to
the common good of their communities” (Weissbourd, 2016).
Importance of the Study
At present, there is no unified framework that guides service-learning in AIS high school,
although experiential service is being carried out in various levels at AIS. Not all AIS high
school students currently avail themselves of voluntary service opportunities. This is a problem
that impacts the achievement of the organization’s mission because it affects the ability of the
high school to fulfill the AIS Vision 2020 Strategic Plan. Service-learning research argues that
participation in service-learning supports the goals of education by enhancing the personal and
cognitive development of students (Astin & Sax, 1998). Though there is broad support for
engaging students in community service at AIS, there has been resistance to incorporating
service-learning into high school academic courses or mandating community service experiences
beyond participating in a single week-long service based interim semester course of during a
four-year high school career (personal communication, D. Skimin, 2017).

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 22

Since only half the student body each year engages in voluntary service learning, the
school would take an important step toward fulfilling part of its strategic plan if the program
could support more students by providing more organizational resources in terms of professional
development in service-learning for faculty, remuneration for faculty service club sponsorship,
financial support for faculty sponsors traveling abroad on student service trips and K-12 program
coordination, management and leadership (AIS Service Council Club Sponsors Survey, 2017).
Yet, things are beginning to change for the better with the renewed focus on the DSLOs (J.
Sparrow, personal communication, 2017). The AIS Foundation funded a grant for one release
period for high school Service Council coordination by a teacher sponsor, as well as
implementation of an annual grant for $25,000. to be placed in the Executive Service Council’s
account to distribute Service Scholarships via application to support student-led service
initiatives. Since a formal high school curriculum for service-learning is not yet in place at AIS,
one logical place to start understanding the pedagogies of service-learning education is with
service educators themselves.
According to Catherine Berger Kaye (2014), exemplary service-learning educators are
aware that students seem to learn best when they can explore the world and interact with expert
adults (Kaye, 2014). When done well, service-learning education gives ample opportunities to
know one's self while viewing diverse populations both near and distant (Kaye, 2014). There
most likely are master service learning educators among the AIS high school service club
sponsors, as well as among other prominent international school faculties in Singapore and
Bangkok. Since service-learning educators are key to helping students learn desired outcomes,
the question becomes what practices do expert service-learning educators enact as they engage
students in pursuing their own passions to contribute to the common good?

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 23

Purpose of the Study
The purpose of my study is to gather master service-learning educators perception data
around their characteristics and practices to help students learn in Southeast Asian international
schools in Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand. How do these master service-learning educators
help high school students learn? As Clark and Estes (2008) contend, it is crucial to gather the
perceptions of those engaged in the work and to listen to them without judgment if we hope to
discover the causes of performance gaps.
The analysis process allowed me to investigate and validate the causes for successful
service-learning educators. The goal was to identify teaching techniques, pedagogical strategies
and behaviors that helped students learn from engagement in service and to gain understanding
of how why and if these techniques help students develop character and cultural competence,
leadership skills, critical thinking and empathy. This knowledge about practice in context can
provide insight into knowledge, motivation, organizational needs of teachers as they deepen and
broaden of service-learning experiences. By assisting teachers to deepen engagement in service-
learning with their students, I hope improved student self-efficacy, self authorship and strengths
in character, leadership, civic engagement, empathy and cultural competence will result.
Identified characteristics and practices of master service-learning educators might be
integral in conceptualizing the direction of service-learning education in AIS. The aim of this
instructional practice is to develop desired student service-learning outcomes, especially
character and cultural competence, by strengthening conceptual understanding of social justice
and environmental issues. Service-learning education is committed to nurture and sustain
student curiosity through personalized learning to build student agency and a set of transferable
skills and dispositions befitting the agenda of school wide curriculum reform (Rueda, 2011; J.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 24

Sparrow, personal communication, 2017). My study’s findings will provide important indicators
for faculty and administrators as they decide how to nurture global citizenship traits through the
design of service-learning programs and then train teachers to make experiential, personalized
service-learning opportunities.
Research Questions
The following research questions allowed me to learn more about international school
service-learning educators in the context of their work with high school students.
1. What are the characteristics and practices of master service-learning educators in
selected international schools in Southeast Asia and what do these teachers do to
connect service to their students’ learning?
2. What motivates the teachers to do what they do?
3. How does the school’s mission, vision and philosophy of service-learning effect
teacher understandings and performance as service educators?
My study’s findings serve as an evaluative tool for AIS as it moves forward in its Vision
2020 Strategic Plan to engage students in experiential learning opportunities including service-
learning (AIS Vision 2020 Strategic Plan, 2017). In the local context, my study aimed to find
out how master service-learning educators in selected international high schools in Singapore
and Bangkok help students learn. On a broader scale, the findings shared through this study may
offer guidance to other schools as they search for ways to build purposeful and transparent
teaching of skills and learning strategies central to developing student competence and preparing
them to be self-regulated, open-minded, culturally competent learners willing to contribute to
their communities to address authentic needs (Personalized Learning Instructional Practices
Institutional Commitment, AIS, 2017).

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 25

Theoretical Framework
The research approach in my qualitative investigation was based on grounded theory.
According to Christensen, Burke and Turner (2014, p. 359), the grounded theory method
generates and develops a theory that is “grounded” in empirical data (as quoted in Bryant &
Charmaz, 2007; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Reasoned by Glaser and Strauss (1967, p. 98)
“grounded theory would be more conceptually dense and potentially more useful if it had been
“grounded” in widely varying instances of phenomenon.” Patton (2015) suggests that similar
threads of ideas that emerge from varied qualitative data are important to record and then be used
to generate themes and central shared factors of phenomenon (p. 283). Therefore, the grounded
theory method used in this study will aid the researcher to induce a theory to identify how and
why master service-learning educators are successful and to describe their characteristics and
practices. As such, the theoretical framework will emerge from analysis of the data collected
about this phenomenon; it will be inductively generated (Christensen et.al., 2014, p. 359).
Limitations
There are two major limitations to my study. First, the use of only one criterion for
defining mastery is a limitation - perhaps multiple methods for measuring expertise is preferable
and would increase validity (Jennings & Skovholt, 2016). It is a beginning step in the
exploration of service-learning educator.
The second limitation is the inherent risk of potential researcher bias, which might take
the form of searching out and only confirming one’s preconceived notions (Christensen et al.,
2014, p. 347). Researcher bias in my study in particular may come from my involvement as a
service-learning faculty advisor in one of the international schools included in the sample,
namely, American Innovative School. The International Baccalaureate (IB) Creativity, Action

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 26

and Service (CAS) program exists in the other schools in the sample, together with their own
additional co-curricular community service programs and in some cases through coursework that
includes an element of civic action. In one of my courses, Advanced Topic Environmental
Science and Field Research, there is a service-learning component infused in the academic
curriculum, hence I may be considered a service-learning educator. Researcher bias may stem
from the preconceived notions of how, and in which settings, student learning outcomes are
developed and attained.
Delimitations
To ensure validity and rigor and control for potential researcher bias, the I employed
reflexivity by regularly attempting to identify potential biases and actively attempting to
minimize their effects (Christensen et al., 2014, p. 346). Reflexivity will required me to engage
in critical self-reflection and be aware of potential biases and predispositions in order to
minimize the effect on the research process and conclusions. As well, outside expert auditors
were secured to assess the study quality. An auditor known to be an experienced service-
learning educator will review the open coding data used to construct themes, as well as the
subsequent axial coding and final selective coding of qualitative interview transcripts. Expert
auditors were Associate Professor Vilma D’Rozario, experienced grounded theory researcher
and service-learning educator at the National Institute of Education, Department of Psychology,
Singapore, and Mr. Frederick Crawford, AIS co-sponsor of campus recycling. The plan is to
bracket biases at the beginning of the study. Using investigator triangulation in collecting,
analyzing and interpreting the data will also strengthen validity in my study. Finally, I will
conduct “member checks” of participants in the study to discuss the findings, and then based on

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 27

that feedback, make modifications so that participants’ ideas, cognition and intentions are
appropriately represented (Christensen et al., 2014, p. 347).
Definitions
The following are definitions frequently used in my study:
• Service learning: A form of experiential education where learning occurs through cycles of
action and reflection as students work with others in applying their knowledge to solve a
community problem and gain a deeper understanding of complex issues for themselves.
Reflection turns service into learning (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007).
• “Generic” Community Service, Community Service: Volunteer service usually not part of a
course or class, instead part of a non-mandatory, co-curricular service club or organization
(Austin et.al, 2000).
• For purposes of my study the terms “service learning” and “community service” may be
used interchangeably in some instances, while in others there will be an identified distinct
definitional difference.
• Service Educators, Community Service Sponsors: These terms have been used in the
literature to describe individuals who educate about community service to others in need or
the environment, often directing people to gain more awareness of societal issues and to take
responsible action (Kaye, 2014). The term “service educator” will be used to identify any
secondary teacher in the schools sampled in this study engaged in either service-learning or
community service or both.
• Categories of Service:

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 28

o Direct Service: Students engage in face-to-face interactions with people being served
in the community, or interact with animals or plants, or engage physically in
environmental action (Kaye, 2014)
o Indirect Service: With indirect activities students do not see the recipients, however,
students’ actions benefit the community or environment as a whole (Kaye, 2014).
o Advocacy: The intent of advocacy is to create awareness of or promote action on an
issue of public interest. Central to the word is voc, which is Latin for voice (Kaye,
2014).
o Research: Research activities involve students finding, gathering, and reporting on
information in the public interest. By participating in research-based service learning
students learn how to gather information, make discriminating judgments, and work
systematically (Kaye, 2014).
• Four dimensions of service-learning (National and Community Service Act 1990, as quoted
in Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, pp. 6-7).
o Students learn through participation in organized experiences that meet actual
community needs and are coordinated with school and community.
o The program is integrated into the academic curriculum with time to process those
experiences.
o Students are given opportunities to use their knowledge and skills in real-life
situations in communities.
o Learning is extended beyond the classroom into the community, which fosters the
development of a sense of caring.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 29

• Reflection as a learning tool: Reflection is where the actual learning takes place; it involves
making observations, asking questions, pondering experiences in a way that enables a person
to come to new understandings and ways of thinking. It provides feedback to correct
previous errors, feeding a continuous cycle of learning (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, pp.
123-124).
• Structured Reflection: The educator requires students to keep a written journal of service
experiences and/or facilitates discussions by students about their service experiences (Austin,
et al., 2000)
• Youth Voice: Student ownership increases the sense of meaningfulness and personal
investment in the service learning project. If it is not feasible to have students select the
service project, they should be given substantial roles in the planning, implementation, and
evaluation of the project (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. 116)
• Self-authorship: Defined by Kegan (1994), “A relatively enduring way of orienting oneself
toward provocative situations that includes recognizing the contextual nature of knowledge
and balancing this understanding with one’s own internally defined beliefs, goals, and sense
of self.” (Pizzolato, 2003; see also Baxter Magolda, 2001 for introduction of empirical
evidence for self-authorship, a way of knowing described by Kegan, 1994).

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 30

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The aim of my study was to understand the self-described views, knowledge, skills, traits
and talents as well as the pedagogical techniques and practices that master service-learning
educators in six private, independent international schools in Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand
perceive to be important for student learning. I hoped that my findings may be used to aid
teachers’ preparation for personalized service-learning education instructed through guided
inquiry. My review of the literature will begin by identifying learning outcomes of student
service engagement. Next I will report the findings in the literature about how service
opportunities are structured for learning outcomes, followed by a discussion of instructional
strategies used by educators of high school students engaged in service actions. Finally, I will
discuss the roles and characteristics of effective service educators explained in the literature.
Student Learning Outcomes of Engagement in Service
According to Gallagher and McGorry (2015) participating in generic community service
has positive affective and utility outcomes. Service-learning research argues that participation in
service-learning supports the goals of education by enhancing the personal and cognitive
development of students (Astin & Sax, 1998). In their study, How Service Learning Affects
Students, Austin et al., (2000) identify attributes of service learning in areas of academic
outcomes, self-efficacy, and leadership that were assessed through student self-perception
measures and faculty interviews.
Gallagher and McGorry (2015) applied a survey constructed by Toncar et al., (2006)
known as the Service Learning Benefits (SELEB) scale to assess undergraduates’ (majoring in
business and economics), problem solving and character development through learning
experiences outside the classroom. Their SELEB research found service and experiential

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 31

opportunities to learn beyond the classroom brought benefits in development of cognitive skills,
life skills and a sense of civic responsibility in students.
Cognitive development. Service learning supports academic skills (Austin et al., 2000;
Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007). Austin et al., (2000) found in university level service learning
coursework the service experience enhances understanding of the “academic” course material,
and the service is viewed as a learning experience. Furthermore, “the frequency with which
professors connect the service experience to the course subject matter is an especially important
determinant of whether the academic materials enhances the service experience, and whether the
service experience facilitates understanding of the academic material” (Austin et al., 2000).
Their research suggested that college service-learning courses should be specifically designed to
assist students in making connections between the service experience and the academic material.
In school-aged students, Wilczenski and Coomey (2007) found learning and career
exploration was complemented through service-learning by offering students real-world, hands-
on experiences to enhance traditional classroom instruction. Engagement in service seamlessly
integrates academic, career, and social-emotional education.
Life skills. Research by Wilczenski and Coomey (2007) into service education programs
found they vary in their ethical foundations. While some focus on charity, others focus on
change. Charity focuses on promoting a giving relationship that inculcates a sense of civic
responsibility and fosters the development of altruism. Conversely change emphasizes the
transformative potential of service learning. Importantly, change may involve a “caring
relationship that deepens understanding of others and the context of their lives. Emphasizing
change through service learning carries the moral, political, and intellectual implications of

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 32

caring and transformation. Students learn that social reform requires more than kindness”
(Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, pp. 7-8).
Character education. Character education is supported by involvement in service
(Lickona, Schaps & Lewis, 2003; Schaffer, Berman, Pickeral, & Holman, 2001; Cohen, 2006; all
as quoted in Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007). Swick et al., (2003, p. 8 as quoted in Wilczenski &
Coomey, 2007, p. 9) described how those character traits relate to service learning processes, as
shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Character Traits Related to Service-Learning Processes
1-2 Character Traits Service-Learning Processes
Moral language, open and
fair communications,
empathetic listening,
responsible behavior
Students use all language arts skills (researching, writing,
keeping journals, reflecting, sharing, presenting) and many
math and science skills (predicting, charting, graphing,
discovery, hypothesis testing, assessment, etc.) in designing
and implementing their projects.
Moral problem-solving,
ethical reasoning, fair
decision-making
Students research real community needs, plan projects, design
solution strategies, and solve problems in a fair and just
manner to benefit the community.
Responsibility, integrity,
self-control, punctuality,
sensitivity, kindness,
moderation, unselfishness
In carrying out their service-learning projects, students learn to
act responsibly, control their behavior to benefit others,
communicate with a variety of others of all ages. They must
meet their obligations in a timely and courteous manner since
other depend on them.
Equity and honesty
Students have to manage their own resources (time, space,
materials, etc.) in concert with others. In order to get the job
done they must share openly and honestly.
Caring, cooperating,
resolving conflicts, helping
others, trustworthiness,
keeping promises, loyalty,
empathy and respect
Students must work and communicate together as a team.
They must serve their clients who are often very different from
themselves (age, ethnicity, economically, etc.) and they must
rely on themselves to solve real-world problems.
Help other, act morally,
practice good citizenship
Students deal with numerous external citizenship systems
(schools, communities, agencies, and organizations) in which
they must make ethical choices on an ongoing basis.
Responsible use,
maintenance and care of
equipment, materials and
supplies
Many service-learning projects use a variety of equipment,
materials, and supplies which students must learn to use
properly.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 33

Although service-learning does not prescribe a specific character education program, nor
does it prescribe a specific set of values, its strength lies in its close connection with local
community values. In high school students the act of service itself conveys a sense of caring.
Because high expectations are placed on students when they voluntarily take on a service project,
students develop resilience, despite the added stress of being responsible to respond to a genuine
community need.
Asset development. A more recent approach to assessment in learning is centred around
asset development. The assets are grouped into two types: internal (capacities, skills, and values
that develop within young people) and external (support and opportunities that are provided by
family, peers, schools and communities). According to the Search Institute (2000, p. 14, as
quoted in Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. 12 ) service learning connects to eight categories of
developmental assets in school aged children and teenagers:
1. Support: cements relationships of support and caring between peers and with parents
and other adults;
2. Empowerment: through contributions to the world, young people become experts
about issues they care about and see themselves as change agents;
3. Boundaries and expectations: reinforced when activities involve ground rules, peers
become positive role models for each other;
4. Constructive use of time: opportunities for young people to expand their minds and
hearts, offer hope and support for others, and use creativity to deal with new
challenges;

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 34

5. Commitment to learning: education linked to action can unleash a new commitment
to learning as youth apply knowledge and are exposed to questions and issues that
challenge their worldview;
6. Positive values: young people express their positive values and have opportunities to
affirm and internalize values that are important to them;
7. Social competencies: nurtured as young people plan their activities, take action and
build relationships with their peers, adults who serve them and service recipients; and
8. Positive identity: is a catalyst for shaping positive identity as young people discover
their gifts and place in the world through their acts of service and justice.
These developmental assets are generally desirable for young people. Service learning has been
found to enrich the lives of students and increase their motivation to learn. Elyer & Giles, (1999)
reported cognitive gains such as problem-solving ability in applying abstract concepts to real-life
issues. Gains have also been reported in students’ ability to empathize with individuals
experiencing social injustice (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007).
Sense of civic responsibility. Students participating in service learning inevitably reflect
upon issues of social justice they encounter in the community; which cause some students to
consider social justice issues first hand for the first time. Service experience may build an ethic
of care (Gilligan, 1982; Noddings, 2005) in students. Consequently, students may learn
tolerance for diversity and differences through awareness of cultural traditions of others, human
rights, equality and social justice. Assuming ownership of the service and the learning
component of their projects (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007), students build resilience, persistence
and follow through to make local changes through service. By taking initiative to engage in
civic duties at a young age, Austin et al., (2000) found university students still involved in

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 35

service learning more likely to vote and contribute honest effort to uphold democratic values
compared with students having no experience in service learning.
In summary, service learning promotes facilitation of social-emotional development, self-
efficacy, agency, personal responsibility, value development, self-esteem, leadership, caring,
empathy, concern for others less fortunate, gratitude, and concern for biodiversity and
environmental quality (Austin, et al., 2000; Kaye, 2014; Skillicorn; 2010). According to Astin
and Sax (1998) and Gallagher and McGorry (2015) voluntary service work allows students to
grow as critical thinkers, initiators, and systems managers who reflect on success and failures as
a means to learn and develop empathy. AIS’s desired student learning outcomes, namely,
communication, creativity, core knowledge, critical thinking, collaboration, compassion, and
cultural competence, have been found to be outcomes in studies aimed to investigate how service
learning affects students (Kaye, 2014; Skillicorn, 2010; Austin, et al., 2000; Wilczenski &
Coomey, 2007).
Structuring Service Opportunities for Learning Outcomes
The seminal work of Astin et al., (2000) reports evidence that service-learning
coursework provides a concrete means by which institutions of higher education can educate
students to become concerned and involved citizens. Empirical evidence in the Austin et al.,
(2000) study showed the impact of service-learning and community service on college students
in eleven different measures in terms of academic outcomes, values, self-efficacy, leadership,
career plans and plans to participate in further service. How are programs structured to ensure
students may avail of learning through service? According to Skillicorn (2010, p. 4) there is a
“third bottom line”: the intangible and hard-to-measure effectiveness of the school’s pastoral
program.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 36

It is important to realize that parents may select schools for their children based on class
sizes, examination results, and success in university placements. Yet, Skillicorn (2010) states that
parents should be ascertaining whether the school they are considering will challenge their
children, and enable their children to feel good about themselves. Parents, Skillicorn argues,
would be wise to enquire how the good academic results are obtained, rather than ask what
percentage of students go on to attend the most prestigious universities. Parents are not often
able to perceive any connection between their child’s engagement in meaningful service, the
happiness of the child, and the achievement of good academic results because such things are
hard to empirically measure. Skillicorn further posits that if an institution wants to establish an
effective service program which will be educationally worthwhile and will facilitate growth
opportunities for its students, it should structure its program by asking how service goals may be
attainable by all students, including opportunities for self-discovery, opportunities for both
success and failure; and opportunities for true teamwork, where individualism is sublimated for
the benefit of someone else or for a common cause (Skillicorn, 2010, p. 5).
To illustrate how educational service programs may be structured to develop character,
social-emotional competencies and positive values, through teamwork in service projects, I have
described a few Singapore based school service models. My aim was to document a small
sample of local models’ work with school-centred and external communities to provide evidence
of how students can lead, care and inspire through service programs grounded in three academic
institutions in Singapore.
Creativity, action, and service (CAS) in the International Baccalaureate Diploma.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma used to contain a compulsory component of 50
hours of active participation in each of the following areas: creativity, action and service (IBO,

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 37

2017). CAS was designed to ensure students have an opportunity for education beyond the
classroom and examination hall (Skillicorn, 2010, p. 16). The desire of the IB Office (IBO) was
to enhance students’ personal and interpersonal development through enjoyable and challenging
experiential learning. Ideally, CAS activities develop students’ ability to see themselves as
people who can have influence. According to Kolb (1984), experiential learning involves much
more than just the activity itself. Planning, acting, observing, and reflecting all play crucial roles
in maximizing the educational value of the experience. All IB Diploma schools have CAS
programs coordinated by trained personnel on their campus.
Voluntary, co-curricular service: AIS high school – a model. In the AIS high school
guided inquiry by service club sponsors’, herein interchangeably referred to service educators, is
wholly a voluntary, co-curricular personalized learning program. Four areas of focus guide the
service program at AIS based on the work of Kaye (2014): direct service, indirect service,
advocacy and reflection. The Service Council is comprised of all the students and faculty
sponsors of 50+ sanctioned service clubs and nine service-oriented clubs (SOCs). One
representative from each club meets monthly with the Executive Service Council comprised of
six elected student officers and two adult sponsors.
Cognitive learning, skill acquisition, self-efficacy, empathy, and socio-emotional
development that may be built through service-oriented experiences are reported and evaluated
through annual student administered service club reviews. No school accountability systems for
service-learning educators are in place, yet this is beginning to change with the onset of
contracted co-curricular requirements K-12 (K. Criens, personal communication, 2017).
Approximately one-half of the student body is involved in co-curricular service clubs sponsored
by teachers (AIS Service Council, 2016). Engaged students do appear benefit from personalized

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 38

inquiry guided by enthusiastic, experienced and effective teacher sponsors of student service
clubs (AIS Service Council Club Reviews, 2016).
On average six-seven service clubs engage in self-designed service trips abroad each year
during holidays and summer vacation. Student research to plan and implement direct contact
with service partners and non-government organizations that builds tremendous executive
function skills in high school students (S. Ly, personal communication, 2017). Annual trips to
the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, and China are complemented by the
AIS Interim Semester Service Courses that travel beyond Singapore to the countries above and to
Thailand, India, Nepal, Laos, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Maldives, East Timor, Fiji,
Mongolia, and more to engage in environmental and/or humanitarian direct service (SAS Interim
Semester Program, 2017).
The Executive Service Council (ESC), composed of elected students and two teacher advisors, is
meant to provide each of the 59 service clubs support and guidance (during the regular school day and
beyond) to pursue their own service focused aspirations. Service Council’s systems foster service clubs’
development of action-based projects that call for engagement in the five stages of service learning,
namely; (1) research, investigation, and problem formulation, (2) action planning, (3) implementation, (4)
reflection and (5) demonstration of their learning with a sense of celebration (Kaye, 2014). The Service
Council has implemented positive changes over the past several years. For example, ESC has subdivided
all forms of voluntary service into categories under which clubs reside: Education for All, Poverty
Eradication, Help for the Disabled and Ill, Global Issues, and AIS Centric Service.
The home-grown ESC model has been lauded by external auditors for being student-led, well-
organized, for strengthening conceptual understanding of marginalized cultures and environmental
degradation, for being support-based and for maintaining high standards for the high school Service
Council members (S. Morris, personal communication, 2916).

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 39

Education for global citizenship: UWCSEA Singapore – a model. In addition to
CAS and experiential learning, UWCSEA has a school-wide emphasis on service (see Appendix
F Figures 1, 2, and 3). In the words of former Principal of the Junior School of UWCSEA’s East
Campus (as cited by Skillicorn, 2010),
A decent service learning program should be a cornerstone of schooling, and every child
should do service learning, as it is “real world learning.” Service learning makes pupils
think about issues they would not have done otherwise. It allows them to give meaning
to all global issues. It kills prejudices and allows children to confront issues and
challenges which other shy away from. Parents are missing out if they do not grab the
opportunity. (p.18)

UWCSEA is an International Baccalaureate (IB) school with a robust service program,
including the Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) program requirement common to all IB
schools, and required for the IB Diploma, as well as their home-grown Global Concerns
program, an independent off-island service program run and led by high school students and
sponsored by faculty advisors.
According to Skillicorn (2010):
The United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) in Singapore has placed
service at the center of its mission and encapsulates this in a statement of intent:
“Opening Eyes; Opening Minds; Opening Hearts.” They facilitate three types and states
of service for their students aged 4-18. The first is service within the College; the second
is service within the local community in Singapore; and the last is service in the global
community. It is the learning that takes place through three of these forms of service that

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 40

has given students the values and lessons in life that they take away from schools which
operate meaningful service programs. (p. 2)
The philosophy of UWCSEA’s service program is grounded in the ideas of Kurt Hahn.
His approach to involving students in community service was simple. He told students they were
needed. Hahn commented, “There are three ways of trying to win the young. There is
persuasion. There is compulsion; and there is attraction. You can preach at them; that is a hook
without a worm. You can say, “you must volunteer.” That is the devil. And you can tell them,
“you are needed.” That hardly ever fails.” According to Skillicorn (2010, p. 3), Hahn’s ideas
helped to counteract the paralysing influence of wealth and social prestige, or what Hahn termed
the “enervating sense of privilege.” Consequently, Skillicorn and his UWCSEA colleagues
constructed over two decades an action-based service program to enhance feelings of self-worth
among students. Families desiring that type of education have flocked to UWCSEA, now on two
campuses, Dover and East, the total student population is close to 8,000 students whose families
have bought into the school’s ideals for the education of their children.
As well, UWCSEA promotes global citizenship which reflects what is practiced in both
their local service and Global Concerns programs for the past 22 years at least. The Global
Concerns program was established by Alastair Christie in the early 1990s and transformed in the
mid 1990s by Anthony Skillicorn in order to move the focus of control from the faculty to the
students. Skillicorn’s goal was to empower students, which he stated “does not necessarily make
a teacher’s task easier, but makes it more enjoyable” (Skillicorn, 2010, p. 19). Rather than solely
focusing on fundraising, students became decision makers involved in establishing and running
programs to help others to experience and achieve better lives.

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Through Global Concerns students engage in advocacy and action for issues about which
students passionately care. Students are tasked to bring their ideas for action to an executive
committee comprised of elected and appointed student peers and faculty coordinators for
endorsement. Similar to the AIS ESC model, accountability to a student executive team made up
their peers, implies that students apply academic learning, social skills and personal skills to real-
life situations. By design, Global Concerns projects are located beyond Singapore’s borders.
This facilitates the need for student travel to have direct contact with their projects. Travel to
conduct direct service with their Global Concerns recipients is planned and implemented by high
school students travelling on their own during school holidays. The link of UWCSEA college
expeditions throughout all grades and Global Concerns travel focused on service reinforces the
school’s mission and ensures students do not see expeditions merely has holidays (Skillicorn,
2010, p. 12).
Youth expedition project (YEP) and group endeavours in service-learning (GSEL):
National Institute of Education – a model. Student teachers at the National Institute of
Education (NIE), Singapore, are challenged through their academic coursework to engage in
service learning as part of their teacher training. According to former Professor Lee Sing Kong,
2003 Director of The National Institute of Education (NIE) since 2002, the Youth Expedition
Project (YEP) has given the opportunity for student teachers to develop positive values and 21
st

century competencies through 34 projects abroad in China, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Working with local
communities in these countries through service-learning projects students met several objectives,
namely, infrastructure upgrading, teaching, exchange of knowledge and skills with teachers,
environmental conservation, and cultural exchange (Office of Teacher Education, NIE, 2010).

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According to Lee (2003), NIE student teachers have come away with compassion, enterprise
and a better sense of the university’s mission.
According to Chua Cheng Chye, Head, Faculty of Creativity, Action and Service, School
of the Arts, Singapore (2003), three areas contributed to sustained annual engagement: (1)
Having a champion: one, an associate professor in the Office of Teacher Education at NIE, and
another, an alumnus of the NIE YEP, of the Education Programs Division, the Ministry of
Education worked tirelessly to get the program going and growing. (2) Value proposition: to
sustain the program after Singaporean student teachers leave, beyond funds, youth exchange or
development, the student teacher’s expertise in educational pedagogy provides compelling
reasons for continued engagement. (3) The power of experience: travelling out of the heat of
Singapore to the low lands of the Himalayas provided student teachers metaphorical glimpses of
the essence of self, society and purpose.
Since its pilot in 2004, over 20,000 student teachers have implemented 1,000 service
projects (Low, 2010; NIE GSLE, 2017). By 2010 the YEP project had morphed into Group
Endeavours in Service-Learning Project (GSEL). Today, there are six elements radiating out:
reciprocity, academic connections, student teachers’ voice, community service, respect, and
meaningful service (NIE GSLE, 2017). Through participation in GSEL, according to Low,
Associate Dean, Program and Student Development (2010), student teachers have built “values
of teamwork, collaboration, caring for the community, honed their skills in organizing, planning
and learning to deal with the unpredictable and more importantly, forged strong bonds and
friendship . . . it also helped students put into practice what they have learned in their theoretical
courses like educational psychology.” The reflection piece has not been missed in the GSEL
program. More than two books have been written and a comprehensive website created by NIE

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student teachers recounting stories of their service experiences with the elderly, children and
youth, underprivileged, nature and conservation, and children with special needs. As Professor
Michael Shumer (2010) states, reviewing the book, Journeys of the Heart, “is right on target to
become an important piece of literature on service, character development and civic engagement.
. . each tale illustrates how service-learning is a powerful approach to help teachers acquire the
knowledge, skills and values to create educational programs that make a difference in the lives of
others and in the quality of life in Singaporean society.” Needless to say, Singaporean student
teachers learn cognitive and affective skills as a result of the six-nine month participation in the
GSLE program.
Aligning with the academic mission. Two of the three models I discussed above have
learning through service clearly aligned in the academic mission of their educational programs.
However, sometimes service-learning educators within schools can feel isolated from the
academic mission of the school (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007). There may be times in some
schools when it seems as though learning through service action is regarded as an add on, while
the spotlight is placed on core academic teachers, research and development projects, and
program innovators. Perhaps this is because service-learning programs are not always integrated
with the school’s primary mission. Often, faculty who guide service-learning, do so outside the
classroom, beyond their teaching assignments, as if social and emotional learning could be
segmented from other kinds of learning and only take place beyond the curriculum by volunteers
(p. 111).
However, Skillicorn (2010, p. 4) believes that service should not be simply added on to
existing schedules. Instead it should reflect the values and mission of the school, and help guide
students towards recognition of what is right. According to Wilczenski and Coomey (2007, p.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 44

58) social and emotional learning are often not aligned with the mission for which schools are
help primarily accountable, that is, academic achievement. Service learning can be the tie that
binds all of these together. Skillicorn’s perspective is in agreement, “If an institution wants to
establish an effective service program which will be educationally worthwhile and will facilitate
growth opportunities for its students, it needs to grapple with both the practicality and the
philosophical underpinnings of any such program” Skillicorn (2010, p. 5).
Educational Administrators, Teachers and Shared Responsibilities.
In order to restructure service education in schools whose mission is not aligned to the
provision of authentic service opportunities, Wilczenski and Coomey (2007) point to some ways
to move service from the margins to the center of school reform efforts. According to research
conducted by Wilczenski and Coomey school administrator’s responsibilities for evaluating past
efforts and identifying current needs could connect with teachers responsibilities to identify
student needs; both administrators and teachers could share the responsibility to define goals.
Providing the opportunity for professional development in-service, administrators could
facilitate community contacts and partnerships which by could be met with faculty participation
in curriculum development and by creating an academic service-learning curriculum. If
administrators recognize the importance of reflection in learning, then teachers could provide
ample opportunities for students to reflect upon service learning activities; both teachers and
administrators could take responsibility for compiling data on student reflections. Incentives for
engaging in service with students could be created by administrators, and teachers could in turn
evaluate community impact. Everyone should be responsible to recognize student achievement
(Wilczenski & Coomey). Skillicorn goes on to add that for meaningful service programs in
schools to be effective their staff must be fully aware and supportive of proposed service

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 45

initiatives. In addition, administrators must make certain that their teachers are willing to
actively undertake service themselves and lead by example.
Instructional Strategies to Guide Student Learning Through Service
According to Cathryn Berger Kaye, author of a well-known book, The Complete Guide to
Service Learning: Proven, Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic
Curriculum, and Social Action (2010), learning through service offers a wide array of choices,
opportunities, challenges. Kaye (2010) is a firm proponent of service educators guiding students
through the five stages of service learning, namely, research into the needs of the community,
planning, implementation, demonstration of learning and when appropriate, celebration, and an
ongoing cycle of reflection.
Pedagogical tools in the K-12 setting. To assist teachers to get started, Kaye created a
seven step blueprint essentially listing instructional strategies for school teachers engaged in
service learning. Kaye’s instructional steps are primarily intended for course-based service
learning, however may be adapted for co-curricular service program work:
1. Points of entry – here Kaye cautions teachers to think about thematic units and
commensurate skills and concepts students should come away with – what are the school
or community needs?
2. Review K-12 service learning standards – a document produced by Kaye that identifies
and describes meaningful service, link to curriculum, reflection, diversity, youth voice,
partnerships, progress monitoring, duration and intensity.
3. Map out your plans – this is an initial framework design to help meet academic standards
- identify and record community needs, include content and skills that will be taught,
cross-curricular connects, reference materials for students, and community contacts.

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4. Clarify partnerships – establish partnerships with collaborators – teachers, parents,
community members, agency representatives, and so forth, discuss reciprocal nature of
relationships for all.
5. Review plans and gather resources – review plans with students, determine needed
resources, gather and organize them, let students schedule visits, field trips, and guest
speakers.
6. Begin the process of service learning in action – begin it in a classroom or beyond,
initiate the five states of the service learning cycle, encourage youth voice and choice, be
flexible as unexpected things may happen.
7. Assess the service learning experience – do this through each state of the service learning
process, reflect, demonstrate, reflect and then assess the learning accomplished, impact of
service, reciprocal benefits for all involved, including a debrief with all partners,
including students.
Kaye (2010, p. 41) claims that school teachers are integral to structuring the process of
learning through service by committing to intense pre-planning, meeting often with students to
provide feedback and guidance as they develop their projects, giving students voice and choice
to design service projects that both meet and community need and stem from student creativity,
desire and initiative, and guide structured, albeit open ended reflection for students to process
their learning. In the middle school setting, Wilczenski and Coomey, (2007, p 83) describe how
teachers use student reflection prompts after the service learning experience to facilitate student
reflection and learning. A study at the community college level by Prentice and Robinson (2010,
p. 7) showed, “As long as faculty related the experience directly to the curriculum, service
learning aided students in learning more than in courses without service learning.” Prentice and

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Robinson’s 2010 study revealed service learning teaches every student how to get into a real-life
situation and think about it critically and logically; service learning increased retention of
academic content because it provided students with experiences that had real-life consequences
(p. 7 and 9). Students acquire a deeper sense of the purpose of school values when they
themselves experience those core values through their work and are prompted by their teachers
to reflect on teacher designed criteria. Faculty in Prentice and Robinson’s study affirmed that
service learning enhances student learning.
Teachers have shared with Kaye their pedagogical strategies built on the foundation of
the five stages of service learning in four areas, direct, indirect, advocacy and research.
According to Kaye (2010, p. 43) teachers have designed instructional strategies connected to
service learning to use with their students. Some of Kaye’s reported instructional strategies
include: improvement in observation and analytical skills, ability to see modern applications of
issues studied in ancient civilizations, learning how to write editorials, understanding the inner
workings of government on a variety of scales, respecting elders, examination of the impact of
climate change on everyday choices, clarification of biases, misunderstandings and perceptions
about a population, replacement of bullying with respectful relationships, conflict resolution
strategies while studying war, improvement of knowledge retention through application. With
service learning as an integral part of school life, young people have a greater likelihood of
achieving a sense of self.
Instructional strategies in the university setting. Austin et al., (2000, p. 93) found
college professors facilitated the positive effects of both service learning and of “generic”
community service by mediating the reflection activities involving faculty-student and student-
student interaction. Although the study by Austin et al., (2000) did not set out to investigate

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 48

specifically the role of service educators, however qualitative data in the study showed indirectly
the role of the service educator. For example, college instructors required the use of a journal
during the service learning course to document student’s thoughts, impressions and learning.
Evidence gathered and analyzed in the Austin et al., study showed the importance of keeping a
journal was as important as interactions between students and faculty and students. Faculties in
the study clearly had an impact on student learning through the design of reflection strategies of
the service experience. The substantial body of research (Austin, 1974, 1977, 1993; Prcarella and
Terenzini, 1991) suggests there are three forms of involvement that enhance student
development: academic involvement, interaction with faculty, and interaction with fellow
students. As a pedagogical tool, service learning appears to involve the following forms of
involvement:
• Academic involvement: e.g. theoretical grounding/course content/journal writing
• Involvement with people at the service site
• Student-student and student-faculty involvement: e.g., reflection
• Student discussions facilitated by faculty
Austin et al., (2000) admit their research is limited in regards to evidence concerning how
involvement might facilitate the learning process, yet because the college level service
engagement by students is ultimately facilitated by faculty, it follows that the role of the educator
has substantial importance. For example, faculty in Austin et. al. study expected their students to
become involved with people at the service site, even though as the study reports, “an enormous
amount of cognitive dissonance” evidently resulted from these visits. The study reports that
even though students may have felt uncomfortable at first, because faculty expected long-term
commitment, through repeated visits students’ empathy may have grown as they began to move

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 49

their focus from themselves and internal processes to the feelings and thoughts of clients and
staff at the service site (Austin et al., 2000, pp. 94-95).
Instructional strategies that service educators enact range from developing in their
students skills in writing, negotiation, speaking, thinking critically, weighing risks and options,
leadership and the ability to understand when failure is their responsibility (Kaye, 2014). In
traditional, non-service-learning classroom settings, professional service instructor skills, traits
and talents do not necessarily exist with the same sustained impact as with voluntary community
service advisor ship, but that does not mean co-curricular service teacher educators do not have
sustained impact – it may be less consistent (C. Kaye, personal communication, 2016). Teachers
guide students to develop their own perception of equality and justice and civic duty. Students
develop reasoning, logic and sensibility, organization and executive function as a result of the
pedagogical practices of faculty advisors/sponsors/teachers (C. Kaye, personal communication,
2016).
Roles and Responsibilities of Effective of Service Educators
Service-learning teacher responsibilities, according to Wilczenski & Coomey (2007, p.
59) include the need to identify student needs, participate in professional development in-service,
participate in curriculum development, create academic curriculum, begin community
experiences, provide opportunities for students’ to reflect upon social, emotional, ethical and
academic learning, reflect upon service-learning experiences, measure and evaluate service
learning academic outcomes, and evaluate community impact. Co-curricular teacher sponsors of
community service responsibilities, according to the AIS Service Council (2015) include:
providing a meeting space, chaperoning out-of-school activities, participating in club meetings,
checking in on club status regularly, managing communication as the adult representative,

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 50

defining what constitutes an “active” member and officer, checking and updating service hours,
submitting club reviews twice a year (signing to verify students officers work), collaborating
with students to work toward achieving DSLOs and maintaining the budget, grant requests, and
accounting.
Complementing responsibilities to manage logistics and resources involved in service
programs, effective service educators also possess the ability to coordinate (and assess) social,
emotional and academic learning objectives. Cognitive development and global citizenship are
traits, skills and talents, as reported by Wilczenski and Coomey (2007). These characteristics
and practices are vital to facilitating student engagement and empowerment in learning through
service. As well, service educators must possess the ability to structure reflection (Austin, et al.,
2000) and the ability to facilitate creativity (Kaye, 2014) in service projects, in thought, problem
solving, and in students’ focus based solutions. In addition to practical and pedological
strengths, effective service educators also promote a sense of purpose in youth (Wilczenski &
Coomey, 2007) includes the ability for the teacher to promote prosocial behavior, moral
commitment, academic achievement, and high self-esteem. Skillcorn (2010) argues that faculty
must be committed to the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of learning through
service in order to effective in the international high school setting.
Having a sense of purpose is further described by Kegan (1994) as self-authorship. As
children mature and grow apart from their parents and teachers influences, a personal identity
based on the child’s own worldview may develop, known as self-authorship. According to
Pizzolato (2003), self-authorship is “a relatively enduring way of orienting oneself toward
provocative situations that includes recognizing the contextual nature of knowledge and
balancing this understanding with one’s own internally defined beliefs, goals, and sense of self.”

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(Pizzolato, 2003; see also Baxter Magolda, 2001 for introduction of empirical evidence for self-
authorship, a way of knowing described by Kegan, 1994). Engaging in meaningful service
action throughout high school may promote in students self-authorship in order to prepare them
for an ever changing future.
In summary, professional instructors employed by universities, American high schools
and international high schools around the world are effective as service-learning educators when
they apply their instructional skills, traits and talents, independent of their particular academic
discipline, to guide students through the five stages of service-learning, or stages outlined in
design thinking, or problem-based learning. The literature on service-learning shows that
instructional practices require the ability to strengthen conceptual understanding, facilitate
student-to-student discussions, student-to-faculty discussions and most of all, provide
opportunity for students to self-reflect and to give and receive peer feedback via reflection of
each step in the service process for optimal learning and to make connections to their own
worldview and place in civic society. However, there is a gap in the literature of empirical
studies that focus specifically on the characteristics and practices of effective service-learning
educators, themselves.
Summary of Literature Review
Review of the literature shed light on the learning outcomes from students engaged in
service and the means by which service-learning programs in U.S. and representative Asian
international schools and U.S. colleges may be developed and sustained. Findings from Stanton,
Giles and Cruz 1999 work on pioneers of service-learning discussed the impact of
institutionalization of service-learning on creative practices and responsibilities of administrators
and educators who design and lead service programs, and the responsibilities of service-learning

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 52

educators to develop student learning through engagement in community service. The debate in
the literature continues on whether or not to require, mandate or institutionalize service-learning.
I predict this debate will most likely will continue throughout the global period of 21
st
century
school reform efforts. The literature shows that one’s stance on the “service-learning: voluntary
or not” debate depends on one’s worldview and often on the mission of the institution (Stanton,
Giles & Cruz ,1999).
In service-learning literature of the past twenty years, common recommendations were
found considering the present and future for service-learning. Recommendations written by
Stanton, Giles and Cruz (1991), based on their work with pioneers of service-learning appear to
be representative of researchers’ data and practitioners’ perspectives found in the literature
(Austin et al., 2000; Kaye, 2014; Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007). Therefore, I have paraphrased
Stanton, Giles & Cruz’s recommendations here as they act to summarize findings in the literature
regarding the status and continued need for reform of service-learning: (1) Increase attention to
clarification and debate of varied purposes and definitions that exist in service-learning to
strengthen the field and connect it more effectively with efforts to reform education. (2)
Strengthen pedagogical strategies that most effectively combine service experience, critical
reflection, and subject matter knowledge in ways that increase learners’ knowledge, learning
skills, impact on communities, and democratic commitment to social justice. (3) Increase focus
on the role of community partners and their knowledge in service-learning practice,
policymaking, and advocacy. (4) Continue efforts to make the service-learning community more
inclusive and representative of society as a whole. (5) Increase understanding of and debate on
the relationship between the varied outcomes sought through and practices contained in service-
learning and efforts to institutionalize it within mainstream education (p. 243).

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Many of the empirical studies found in the literature focused on measuring the value and
benefits of service-learning to service learners compared with nonservice learners. Studies
conducted by Austin, Vogelsesang, Ikeda and Yee (2000), Wilczenski and Coomey (2007), Astin
and Sax (1998), Gallagher and McGorry (2015), and Prentice and Robinson (2010) have
investigated the relationship between service-learning participation and academic learning in
secondary and college level learning institutions using either quantitative or qualitative (or both)
methods to evaluate learning outcomes in both institutionalized and voluntary situations.
Collectively, their research shows that in schools and colleges students do learn from voluntary
community service, however, students score higher on various measures of cognitive, academic
and social learning if the service-learning is interwoven to course curriculum and academic
outcomes.
Prentice & Robinson’s 2010 study showed service-learning provides students with
experiences that can be linked back to course content, so they gain both of what Hussey and
Smith (2002) note as “knowledge that” (knowledge of facts, rules, procedures) and “knowledge
how” (learned skills and abilities) (p.2). When student service learners were compared with
nonservice learners in terms of demographic data, course grades and a variety of cognitive,
social-emotional measurements, service learners scored significantly higher on measured
learning outcomes of critical thinking, communication, career and teamwork, civic
responsibility, global understanding and citizenship, and academic development and educational
success than nonservice learners (Prentice & Robinson, 2010).
In answer to the rhetorical question, “why should a school spend resources and effort for
service-learning?” the literature showed that service-learning participation was a predictor of
increased student learning outcomes. Whereas, there exists a perceived dichotomy regarding the

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 54

need to take time away from academics and course work or arts or athletics to give it to service-
learning; most of the literature in this study found that is a false dichotomy. Instead of some
educators and educational policy makers insisting that there will be “compromised academic
learning because of the need to make room for service-learning time” and making the assumption
that parents demand uncompromised academic learning time, the reality of the situation in
studied schools and populations is, “academic learning through and connected to service-
learning actually strengthens learning overall” (Skillicorn, 2010; Austin, Vogelsesang, Ikeda &
Yee (2000), Wilczenski & Coomey. 2007; Astin & Sax, 1998; Gallagher & McGorry, 2015; and
Prentice & Robinson; 2010). Although much of service-learning action is done beyond the
classroom and school hours for good reason, it can and does qualify as meaningful personalized
learning connected to academic standards and desired student learning outcomes. According to
my brief case-study research into a few exemplary voluntary and compulsory service-learning
programs in Southeast Asia, engagement helped students experience the joys and excitement as
well as the frustrations and setbacks that are a part of any career or work situation, and that
service-learning provides students with a “safe arena in which to apply their learning and make
mistakes in the process” (Prentice & Robinson, 2010 p. 10).
The literature also emphasized the importance of doing service well. On one side of the
coin is service-learning done wrong in the following ways: by being disrespectful to service
partners, by taking away valuable time of service partners to deal with one’s logistics, by taking
a neo-colonialist and patronizing standpoint when working with marginalized populations, by not
being inclusive of diversity of the servers or the served, by using “one-and-go” service without
building relationships with served communities, by failing to seek to understand and analyze the
real needs of service partners, but instead “do service to them” by providing what either they

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 55

don’t need or what they can do for themselves. According to Kaye (2014) service-learning
educators are aware that students seem to learn best when they can explore the world and interact
with expert adults. When done well, service education gives ample opportunities to know one's
self while viewing diverse populations both near and distant (Kaye, 2014). Research by
Pizzolato (2003) shapes “to know one’s self” and deepens it in the concept of “self-authorship,”
a way of orienting oneself toward situations that balances knowledge with one’s own internally
defined beliefs, goals, and sense of self. Self-authorship gained through service action is a
valuable attribute for empowered, third culture youth. Description in the literature of service-
learning pedagogy leads me to predict there are may be multitudes of effective educators
facilitating service-learning programs and coursework with third culture kids among the
international school faculties in Southeast Asia. Since service educators are key to helping
students learn desired outcomes, the question then becomes what characteristics and practices do
expert service educators in Southeast Asian international schools have and use as they engage
privileged third culture students to pursue their own passions to contribute to the common good?
Purpose of this Study and Research Questions
The purpose of this study was to understand the personal and situational characteristics of
master service-learning educators and how their techniques influenced how their students
learned. Specifically, I explored how master teachers create situational learning opportunities for
secondary international third culture students to improve learning outcomes through experiential
service-learning. Since this study sought to understand how teachers’ perceptions of their craft
in their set of circumstances helped their students learn, a grounded theory approach allowed me
to investigate through the participants’ perspectives (Merriam, 2009).

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 56

Therefore, the purpose of my study was to address these research questions:
1. What are the characteristics and practices of master service-learning educators in
selected international schools in Southeast Asia and what do these teachers do to
connect service to their students’ learning?
2. What motivates the teachers to do what they do?
3. How does the school’s mission, vision and philosophy of service-learning effect
teacher understandings and performance as service educators?

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CHAPTER 3: METHODS
This chapter outlines the qualitative approach, research design, instrumentation, sampling
strategy and data collection methods I used in this study. I wanted to understand a phenomenon,
and as such qualitative methods was the appropriate approach to seek understanding. I used
grounded theory design to explore the characteristics and practices of master service-learning
educators that engage in service education as a part of the formal curriculum and co-curriculum
in five international schools on six campuses in Singapore and Thailand (Merriam, 2009).
Using this approach allowed me to better understand how teachers developed in their students
desired service-learning outcomes such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork, civic
responsibility, global understanding and citizenship, academic knowledge, self-efficacy and self-
authorship through service-learning action (Kaye, 2010; Prentice & Robinson, 2010, p. 6;
Pizzolato, 2005). I wanted to apply my understanding so I could improve the effectiveness and
of service-learning to reach a greater number of international high school students. To do this I
focused on the personal and situational characteristics of the best-of-the-best, their formative
development, intrinsic motivation and the influence their current school’s service-learning
philosophy had on their craft and student learning outcomes.
I selected a grounded theory method to generate and develop a theory or conceptual
framework that was “grounded” in empirical data (Christensen, Burke & Turner, 2014, p. 359;
Straus & Corbin, 1998). Grounded theory methodology is more “conceptually dense and
potentially more useful if it had been “grounded” in widely varying instances of phenomenon.”
(Glasser & Strauss, 1967, p. 98). Using a grounded theory method allowed me to induce a
substantive theory which I have called the conceptual framework in this study to explain how
and why master service-learning educators in varying Southeast Asian international school

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 58

contexts are successful and to identify and describe interrelated supportive factors. As suggested
by Patton (2015, p. 283) I wanted similar threads of ideas to emerge from qualitative data and to
generate themes based on ideas that emerged from central shared factors of phenomenon.
Sample and Sampling Strategy
Site Selection
This study took place at five urban international schools on six campuses in Southeast
Asia. Private, independent international schools were selected because these settings most
closely aligned to the type of programming offered to a largely third culture student body and
faculty of interest in my study. Because one of the goals of this study is to inform American
Innovative School (AIS) on best practices in service-learning education, only international
schools, and not local, host nation schools were selected for ease in translation to independent
international schools. Local schools in the host countries were omitted from the sampling pool
because these settings have curricula and programming mandated to reflect the national
education. Since there is greater programming autonomy in private, independent international
schools than in local schools in Singapore and Thailand, it therefore allowed me to investigate
how these overseas schools have developed unique service-learning programs and have thus
informed teachers’ characteristics, techniques, and have affected their motivations, as well as
how teachers in my study may have informed their host school philosophies and programs.
I chose to study high school because the research regarding service-learning outcomes
suggested that at this grade level, self-authorship is at a crossroads through which direct
engagement in service-learning influences students’ immediate and future trajectories (Kaye,
2010; Pizzolato, 2005). Self-authorship is defined by Robert Kegan (1994) as an "ideology, an
internal personal identity, a self-authorship that can coordinate, integrate, act upon, or invent

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 59

values, beliefs, convictions, generalizations, ideals, abstractions, interpersonal loyalties, and
intrapersonal states.”
I used purposeful sampling with the criteria outlined below to select six study sites that
allowed me to obtain the most relevant and useful information for this study. In this section, I
will outline the sampling strategy and the criteria used to establish the samples for this study. I
will also explain why these criteria were important in answering my research questions.
According to sampling protocols used by Patton (2002), I referred back to my research
questions to identify what criteria would allow me to establish from which international schools
that I could learn the most. To identify potential sites, I used network sampling in order to put
my connections in the region to work. I started by consulting my third dissertation committee
member about identifying potential school sites in Singapore. She recommended that I select
international schools in Singapore that are similar in size and are known to have service-learning
programming for their students. As well, she suggested that I use my Global Issues Network
(GIN), Compass Education and Global Citizenship networks to select appropriate schools. Thus,
I used a mixture of site specific purposeful sampling and convenience sampling, as it allowed me
to learn the most about my topic (Merriam, 2009; Patton, 2002).
It became apparent when examining my networks that two international schools in
Bangkok, Thailand would make excellent study school choices and allow my study to extend
beyond more economically developed, “clean and green” Singapore to investigate potential
differences in the qualities of service-learning programming or practices of master service-
learning educators in relatively less economically developed, Thailand. Therefore, I broadened
my list of schools beyond Singapore to include two international schools in Thailand.

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The school sites had to serve an international population of students, as my research
questions aimed to understand characteristics and practices of service-learning educators in the
Southeast Asian international school context. Furthermore, the school sites needed to have a
robust enough service-learning program to warrant employment of master level service-learning
educators. Finally, high school principals at the school sites had to be willing to participate in
my study by nominating three master service-learning educators based the list of criteria
described below (see Appendix B).
Once a pool of private, independent international schools in Singapore and Bangkok,
Thailand were selected I verified that these school sites met my criteria by looking at the
schools’ websites to review their missions, visions, belief statements and philosophies, their
heterogeneity as a third culture student body as well as evidence of having a service-learning
program. After reviewing their webpages and publications, I was able to determine the
demographic populations served delineated by nationality and gender. The schools were
comprised primarily of third culture students many of whom received tuition credit from their
parent’s employers and the remainder whose families directly paid tuition (with the exception of
one school with an additional small number of scholarship supported boarders from less
economically developed countries). From this, and for the sake of convenience, I identified six
school sites that met all the above criteria as well as the following seven criteria: (1) established,
high profile, private, independent international school in Singapore or Bangkok, Thailand, (2)
student body size of 500 or more high school students, (3) international curriculum and (4)
international student body, (5) international faculty. Each international school selected was
focused on (6) college preparation using (7) external examinations such as College Board
Advanced Placement (AP) tests or International Baccalaureate (IB) exams leading to an IB

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Diploma. I selected participant international schools that met the criteria established based on
convenience. Pseudonyms have been given to afford anonymity to the schools. The six study
international high schools I selected were:
1. American Innovative School (AIS) – (two participants)
2. Global Citizen School - Campus Earth (GCS-CE) (one participant)
3. Global Citizen School – Campus Sky (GCS-CS) (one participant)
4. Hill Top International School (HTIS) (one participant)
5. Grand Thailand International School (GTIS) (one participant)
6. Bangkok International Community School (BICS) (two participants)
Participant Selection
The process began by asking participants permission to conduct a qualitative interview
study of one or two nominated master service-learning educators in their faculty. I wrote to high
school principals at each study site via email to explain my study and to request them to identify
three master service-learning educators under their charge that I may use as informants in my
study. After several back and forth emails discussing the intention and time needed to complete
this study, each high school principal agreed. In addition to general agreement to join my study,
I asked the high school principals to nominate three high school master service-learning
educators based on a list of descriptive criteria detailed (below) for me to interview for this
study. Two principals only nominated one person which led to a scheduled interview with each.
At two of the school sites, two nominated participants were interviewed.
Nominations by the principals of three candidates were based on criteria developed with
reference to research on service-learning and master psychotherapists and master nature
educators (Kaye, 2014; Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007; Astin, Vogelgesang, Ikeda & Yee, 2000;

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Jennings et al., 2012, Tang, 2016). From the principals’ lists, I contacted the first nominated
candidate from each campus, adjusting for schedule conflicts (and then moved on to the next
candidate, if needed), ultimately I selected one to two master service-learning educator(s) from
each of the purposefully selected international school for my study.
I adapted my participant nomination criteria from Tang’s 2016 study on master nature
educators: (a) this person is considered as the best of the best; (b) passionate about service
education; (c) passionate about providing service experiences for students (through service
program sponsorship, or the any means) service club sponsorship; (d) knowledgeable about the
five stages of service learning (research, planning, implementation, demonstration and
reflection); (e) this person is someone that students like to learn from; (f) energetic and engaging;
(g) inspiring to high school students; (h) inspiring to fellow educators; (i) works well with
students; (j) active in volunteering for direct humanitarian and/or environmental causes.
Nominees were not assessed based on their education level, gender, age, or race (Tang, 2016).
Refer to Appendix B to see the Master Service Educator Nomination Form Letter.
In all, a total of eight service-learning educators from purposefully selected international schools
in Singapore and Thailand were chosen from this pool as master service-learning educators for my study.
Participants
Nominated by their high school principals, all participants were teacher leaders of
service-learning (all except one teaching at least one class) in a variety of professional capacities
in their international schools. Five of the six international schools offered the International
Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma with the compulsory Creativity, Action, and Service (CAS)
requirement, extended essay, and the theory of knowledge course. One school offered, in
addition to the IB Diploma, a Global Citizenship Diploma and another school a robust Global

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Concerns program. Another school provided the College Board Advanced Placement and
original Advanced Topic courses with voluntary, co-curricular service learning.
This section provides a demographic depiction of the participants. Pseudonyms were
used to produce confidentiality and anonymity regarding the participants. Professional job titles
of the participants listed by school are shown in Table 2. below.
Table 2. Study Participants Location of International School and Job Titles
Pseudonym of Participant International School Job Title
Sid Singapore
Co-Sponsor of Service Council, Service
Clubs Sponsor, Biology Teacher
Maria Singapore
Service Clubs Sponsor, Humanities
Teacher, previous Service Learning
Coordinator in the U.S.
Betsy Bangkok
CAS Coordinator, High School Service
Learning Coordinator
Anders Bangkok
Service Learning Coordinator, Former
CAS Coordinator, IB Geography
Teacher
Cathy Bangkok
Service Clubs Sponsor, Biology
Teacher, Compass Education Trainer,
previous Service Learning Coordinator
in Bangkok at another school
Carrie Singapore
Chair of Service, Head of Middle
School Service, SEED teacher
Sally Singapore
Head of Global Concerns, K-12, Head
of High School Global Concerns
Program
Will
Singapore
CAS Coordinator, High School Service
Learning Coordinator, IB Biology &
ES teacher

Three of the interviewees were high school Service Learning Coordinators at three different
international schools; these were two biology teachers, Sid and Will in Singapore and one humanity IB
Geography teacher, Anders, in Bangkok. Only Anders had the equivalent of one class period release
time; the other two Service Learning Coordinators had none. Cathy was the full-time IB CAS coordinator
at her school in Bangkok. Cathy had been an IB Higher Level (HL) Chemistry teacher up also highly

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involved with service-learning until last year. Sally, an English teacher by training, was Head of Global
Concerns for her high school in Singapore as well as campus-wide Head of Service, teaching one English
class. Carrie was Head of Service campus-wide and Middle School Head of Service teaching a middle
school course she created called, Social and Environmental Entrepreneurship Development (SEED,
formerly called, Be the Change, BTC). Two participants were former Service Learning Coordinators at
previous schools, Cathy, an environmental science teacher in Bangkok and Maria, a humanities teacher in
Singapore. Both Cathy and Maria were starting their second years on their respective schools, thoroughly
engaged as service club sponsors and facilitators of service learning in their relatively new positions.
I sent out an invitation to participate in the study via e-mail to each of the eight
candidates (see Appendix C). Attached to the invitation email, I provided participants an
opportunity to read over the informed consent (see Appendix E), which was signed in person
after discussion in advance of the interview meeting.
Instrumentation and Data Collection
Interviews. I conducted semi-structured interviews comprised of eight open-ended
questions. Interviews lasted between an hour to an hour and a half. A pilot interview was
conducted with a faculty member fully well versed in service-learning education. I encouraged
participants to provide detailed responses about themselves, their views on service-learning and
their practice of service-learning education, what motivated them and how their school’s service-
learning ethos effected their practice. I developed the interview questions based on a study by
Jennings, et al. (2016) on the multicultural knowledge and skills of Singaporean master
therapists, and Tang’s (2016) study on master nature educators. After critique of my initial
interview questions by one of my dissertation committee members, I edited the questions and
adapted them to better fit the aims of my study (see Appendix D). I obtained approval from the

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University of Southern California Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to the commencement
of the study (see Appendix A). Pseudonyms were used for school sites and individuals.
Recording and transcribing interview data. I audio-recorded each interview for full
transcription. Transcripts of the audiotaped interviews were written by a paid third party,
Datagain, in the United States. I took written notes during each interview on a form I devised
for myself with space for my thoughts on their answers. In the written notes during the
interview, I recorded my reactions to something the respondent said, body language and
reactions of the respondent, and the pace of the interview. To try to diminish biased
interpretations, I listened to the audiotapes immediately following the interviews. I also
embellished verbatim transcription of audio-recorded interviews with memos recorded
immediately following each interview. Meanwhile, I listened to each audiotaped interview
(some several times) to let the study participants’ perspectives sink in.
The opening interview question asked the informant about his or her all-time favorite
service-learning experience with students leading into questions about the subject’s journey to
becoming a service-learning educator with reference to personal childhood experiences. Next, I
asked questions focused on the informant’s experience working with teenagers in the realms of
community service and service-learning. I then probed the informants perceived benefits for
teenage students of engagement in service experiences, followed by informant’s concerns about
service-learning education, and its impact on teenagers, and finally the service-learning
educator’s perspective on the relative importance of their school’s written mission, vision and
philosophy to managing a robust all-encompassing service-learning program for as many
secondary students as possible on campus during their secondary school years. I used the

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questions used flexibly by omitted a question if the informant had already touched on it, and I
adapted questioning according to the demands of the interview context (Tang, 2016, p. 30).
In total, 9 interviews were conducted. Initially, I had interviewed three candidates from
one school, Global Citizen School with two campuses (Campus Sky and Campus Earth).
However, to control for the number of participants from a single school (a maximum of two per
school), I decided not to include one of the interviews from Campus Sky. The interview that I
did not include was informative, however, it was the final interview of my study and the data
themes were saturated. I found no new themes in the transcripts of the one I chose not to include
in my study.
Documents and Artifacts. At least two weeks before each interview, demographic data
were requested via an electronic Google Form that I emailed to participants. Questions gathered
data on the informant’s age, level of education and certification, area(s) of professional training
and professional development, number of years in service-learning education (community
service sponsorship and service-learning), settings in which he or she conducted service-learning
education, age group(s) he or she has worked with, whether he or she held an administrative
service coordinator position (full-time or part-time leadership position with release time from
teaching plus teaching one or more classes at the school), and the approximate percentage of
service-learning work with students (in terms of hours) done for service-learning (Tang, 2016).
Soon after the interview I sent an e-mail to each informant thanking them for their time and to
possibly request another brief meeting (member check) to verify transcribed interview data.
I took photographs of service-learning office facilities, posters and banners at the time of
interviews to verify respondents descriptions of their service-learning education work. When
possible I collected published documentation from the high school which described myriad

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service-learning opportunities for students and ways in which faculty were involved. Informal
conversations with administrative secretaries, faculty and administrators were held at each
campus to learning about the school’s service program.
Data Analysis
In qualitative research, analyzing the data is an ongoing process which entails several
steps. Creswell (2009) recommends using six steps for analysing data. In this study I followed
Creswell’s prescribed data analysis steps to (1) organize and prepare the data for analysis, (2)
read through all of the data to gain a general sense of the information and its overall meaning; (3)
begin the coding process of organizing the material into chunks of text before bring meaning to
the information; (4) use the coding process to generate a description of the setting or people as
well as categories or themes for analysis; (5) advance how the description and themes will be
represented in the qualitative narrative to convey the findings; and (6) interpret the data by
asking “what are the lessons learned?”
As I continued to peel back the many layers that were represented in the data, I uncovered
deeper understandings and new interpretations of the data. My overall purpose at this point was
to understand how the participants made sense of their expertise and experiences as secondary
master service-learning educators.
Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed by categorizing main ideas during a first
phase of open coding as I identified and described categories of themes that emerged. I
constructed a code book using a Microsoft Word table to create a matrix of transcript line
numbers, main themes and informant’s quotes for reference. However, to avoid chopping the
interviews into tiny pieces risking potential loss of overarching perspectives, I made an effort to
maintain the big ideas put forth by constantly connecting back to transcripts of interviews. As

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such, I constructed a theoretical framework through analysis of the qualitative data collected
about the characteristics and practices of master service learning educators; it was inductively
generated using the grounded theory method (Christensen et.al., 2014, p. 359).
Coding and application of grounded theory. My data analysis consisted of collecting,
categorizing, connecting, coding and analyzing the data, guided by theoretical sampling
(Maxwell, 2013). On the master codebook matrix I created, first, Apriory codes were added
with descriptions (without quotes). My codebook acted as a retrieval system that explicitly
identified points and recorded those that did not initially seem to fit into existing organizational
or theoretical categories. My aim here was to avoid ideas getting lost or underdeveloped
(Maxwell, 2013). I repeatedly magnified and then stepped back for a bird’s eye view to see
relationships that connected statements in order to place data into a coherent whole (Maxwell,
2013). According to Maxwell (2013, p. 113), “The connecting step is necessary for building a
theory, a primary goal of analysis.” I found the two strategies categorizing and connection
needed one another to provide a well-rounded account (Maxwell & Miller, 2008).
After an entire read-through of each transcript while note taking and memo writing, the
codifying process began. I created a Word document table to organize interview transcripts by
participant (on the y-axis). Transcripts were categorized and codified by recording in column #1
the interview and line number code data, in column #2 the code name, column #3 an exemplary
quote for example, column #4 a place for notes, categories and column #5 overarching themes.
The codebook grew in two dimensions, deeper in meaning and wider or narrower in code
category connections to organize relevant data in particular substantive or theoretical categories.
I found scrolling between screens on the computer through a 150 page codebook became
cumbersome and nearly impossible to see the forest for the trees. Therefore, I wrote each code

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and it’s corresponding description by hand on separate index cards. Half-way through the
interview data coding process, the index cards were made and spread out on a table for full view,
categorizing, reorganization, some were collapsed under a single code (or renamed code), and
new categories were created. I used color coded felt pens to label cards that fit under each
research question. Larger categories were written on each code card in the bottom right corner.
Sorting at this point occurred several times. Changes were made each time. The forest began to
take shape.
The reminder of new code cards were created real-time while reading codifying the
remaining four interviews. Then I created new code cards to sort into the appropriate stack of
index code cards. Following the completion of codifying all transcripts, and creation of the
reminder of code cards, I proceeded to display all cards on a large table once again. Finally,
after moving around the code cards to see new relationships I added new axial code cards and
then settled on final over-arching categories or themes under each of the three research
questions. The data analysis was nearly complete.
Data was analyzed further by going back in a second phase so I could deal with potential
limitations of the code cards and code book matrices in order to capture the narrative quality of
the data (Miller as quoted in Maxwell, 2013, p. 114). My narrative summaries used the constant
comparative method of data analysis which involved comparing one segment of the data with
another to determine similarities and differences. It was an iterative process of moving from
categorizing to contextualizing strategies and back again (Miller as quoted in Maxwell, 2013, p.
114). By grouping data together by similar dimension and given a name, the data then became a
category. Patterns that emerged were identified and arranged in relationships to each other in the
building of the grounded theory (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 32).

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An open and emerging grounded theory design explored the characteristics, practices,
perspectives and skills of international master service-learning educators in my study.
According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016, p. 24), “A grounded theory study seeks not just to
understand, but also to build a substantive theory about the phenomena of interest.” The
inductive comparative nature of data analysis in grounded theory provided me a systematic
strategy for analyzing this data set (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 32).
Corbin and Strauss (2015) differentiate grounded theory from other types of qualitative
research by the nature of theory construction. In particular, the objective of this grounded theory
study was to build a substantive theory of the interplay between the (1) characteristics and
practices of master service-learning educators, (2) their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and
(3) the influence of their international school’s organization as it pertains to service-learning
programming based on the data collected. The analysis of qualitative interview data and
observations made in my study resulted in a theory that emerged from, or was “grounded” in, the
data, hence, grounded theory (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 31).
Credibility and Trustworthiness
I implemented multiple strategies to try to ensure trustworthiness and validity of the
research conducted. I referred to Creswell (2009), Christensen et al., (2014), and Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) to select several strategies for assuring accuracy of my findings. Seven of the
recommended strategies seemed valid for me to use in the data analysis of my study:
triangulation, member checking, rich and thick description, and peer review intended to clarify
the biases of the researcher, reflexivity, reliability, a journal including records or memos
comprising an audit trail. Below I describe why and how I used each of these research strategies.

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Validity Threats. Two specific validity treats I recognized were my own researcher bias
and the my effect as the researcher on the individuals studied, referred to by Maxwell (2013, p.
124) as reactivity. Although it is impossible to eliminate my theories, beliefs and perceptual
lens, it is important to understand how my values and expectations may have influenced the
conduct of the interviews and the conclusions of my study by avoiding the negative
consequences of these (Maxwell, 2013, p. 124).
I have had contact through collaborative work with high school teachers and students at
each of the selected international schools selected in this study. As a high school advanced
biology and advanced topic environmental science teacher I have more than thirty years of
experience guiding international high school students through curricular and co-curricular
service-learning experiences. My experience has influenced my positionality. Over the years
my initial tendency to micromanage students’ service projects has given way to encouraging
self-authorship and student voice and choice to design their own personalized service-learning
actions based on their original research and analysis into the needs of the community. Guided
and personalized inquiry is the pedagogy of my choice to work shoulder-to-shoulder with
voluntary high school students to facilitate student-led and run service clubs. I feel service-
learning pedagogy, instructional strategies and facilitation skills should be part of an
international school teachers’ toolbox gained through ongoing teacher education, training and
professional development. As well, I believe effective personalized learning and the
development of transferable skills through collaborative engagement in diverse communities will
add value to students’ skills and traits. It will also increase their ability to become self-authors of
their own personal academic connections. This is my researcher bias. The influence I may have
had on the setting and the individuals studied was a potential problem in my study. I was the

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only interviewer in this study. According to Hammersley and Atkison (1995, as quoted in
Maxwell, 2013, p. 125) eliminating the actual influence of the researcher is impossible. My goal
was not to eliminate this influence, but to understand how I may have influenced what the
informants said, and how this may have affected the validity of the inferences that I drew from
the interviews.
Triangulation. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016, p. 245), “whether you make
use of more than one data collection method, multiple sources of data, multiple investigators, or
multiple theories, [triangulation] is a powerful strategy for increasing the credibility or internal
validity of your research.” I tried, as Creswell suggests (2014, p. 245) to triangulate different
sources of information from each school’s website, community publications and the service-
learning literature by examining evidence from these to build a coherent justification for themes.
I went on site visits to make observations at each of the selected international schools
along with conversations among educators involved in service-learning to inform how, when,
why and where service-learning is conducted in the secondary program of each school. As well,
I collected at each site artifacts in the form of printed service-learning program brochures and
campus newsletter articles on service-learning projects and experiential education. I observed
and took photographs of original posters, branding banners and photographs on walls,
photographs of office spaces, store rooms and some classrooms of each study school site. When
possible I entered into casual discussions with personnel in schools’ service-learning office
areas. In these service-learning ‘hubs” I collected evidence on how service educators managed,
involved, and held accountable other teachers and students for guiding learning through service
engagement. Face-to-face qualitative interviews with selected master service-learning educators
comprised the main method of data gathering, backed up with on-site observations and informal

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discussions with school site personnel. I used the casual conversations with administrators and
other teachers at the school site to determine if they were in agreement with the interviews to
determine if there was corroboration (Christensen et al., 2014, p. 347).
Member checking. Also called respondent validation (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 246,
Creswell, 2014, p. 201); I used this method to accurately portray the meanings given by the
participants and document their viewpoints. After reviewing all of the data, coding and then
separating into themed categories, and then constructing a graphic theoretical framework, the
fairly polished product was brought back to several participants to ensure that it generally
represented their perceptions well (Creswell, 2014, p. 202). I contacted three Singapore based
study participants to schedule conversations at their convenience. At these member checking
half hour to hour long meetings, I shared with them my main themes and induced conceptual
framework I constructed of three domains found in the data. It was clear to me, as Maxwell
(2013, pp. 126-127) suggests, that this was the most important way of ruling out the possibility
of misinterpreting the meaning of what participants said and did and the perspective they had on
what was going on in the realm of service-learning under their management. As well, it was an
important means to identify my own biases and any misunderstanding of what I had heard
observed and interpreted (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Member checking provided my
participants the opportunity to comment on my findings. I have incorporated members’ feedback
into my final analysis.
Rich, thick description. The provision and depth of understanding necessary for
qualitative research demands detail. The more detailed the participants were in their
descriptions, the more realistic my findings became. I aimed to capture from our interviews
direct quotations about participants’ personal perspectives and experiences (Christensen et al.,

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2014, p. 345). Therefore, I hand wrote notes during each interview, memos following each
interview and upon listening to each audio-recording. Unsolicited observations such as facial
expressions, body language, emphasis and so forth were recorded at the time and added to in
reflection after each interview. On-site observations and analysis of school service program
documentation added to the validity of the findings (Creswell, 2014, p. 202).
Peer review. In order to determine if the theoretical explanation of the interview data
accurately fit the data, I made it a point to discuss my findings with other people both colleagues
familiar with the topic and my dissertation committee member in Singapore, Dr. Vilma
D’Rozario. Furthermore, a service club sponsor colleague played the devil’s advocate, to
challenge the me to provide solid evidence of any interpretations of themes and categories
visualized in my induced conceptual framework. I asked one peer to scan the raw data and
assess whether the findings were plausible, based on the data (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 pp. 249-
150). My peer’s perspectives on the findings and explanations helped me to verify findings and
provided me a fresh perspective.
Reflexivity. The integrity of the researcher conducting qualitative research is always in
question. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016), the researcher’s position may affect and be
affected by the research process. Thus, my inherent biases, assumptions and worldview have
been explained here to allow the reader to better understand how I may have arrived at the
particular interpretation of the data. The idea was not to eliminate my view point, rather to
understand how my values and expectations may have influenced my conduct and themes in the
study (Maxwell, 2013, p. 124 as quoted in Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 249).
Reliability. An important question in qualitative research is whether the results are
consistent with the data collected (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 251). Qualitative research in

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contrast to quantitative experimentation, is nearly impossible to reproduce, but there are ways to
tighten up the qualitative methodology. Following Creswell’s advice (2014, p. 202) I checked
transcripts to eliminate mistakes made during transcription. The interviewer-respondent
interaction is a complex phenomenon. Whereas, the interviewer brings biases, a skilled
interviewer accounts for this factor. I can’t say that I am a skilled interviewer, but it did feel
more fluid over the course of the interviews. I attempted to take a stance that was non-
judgemental, sensitive and respectful of the respondents (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 130). As
well, I kept an audit trail and requested a peer to review findings to help to reduce my bias.
Audit Trail. I kept an “audit trail” notebook of processes throughout the qualitative data
collection and analysis. Reflections, questions and decisions made with the data, interaction with
the data were regularly recorded (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016, p. 253). The audit trail described
in notes how I derived categories and how decisions were made throughout the inquiry (Merriam
and Tisdell, 2016, p. 252).
Ethics
I realized when examining my study’s validity threats that conducting interviews of
individuals could present ethical issues for me as a researcher (Merriam, 2009). Therefore, I
applied strategies to ensure my study was conducted in an ethical manner. First, in order to
protect the subjects, I referred to the IRB policies (Creswell, 2012) and developed an IRB
information sheet with my dissertation chair (see Appendix C). I stressed that participation in
the study was voluntary. I then obtained consent of each member of my study to participate and
provided each with a copy of the consent form. Second, I tried to be cognizant of my own
reactions and perceptions of respondents stories. As I said earlier, my experience has informed
my positionality. Therefore, I attempted to minimize judgement to maximize focus on my study

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participants’ perspectives of what works to help students learn. I constantly reminded myself
that my aim was not to judge, rather to keep an open mind to varied perspectives. By listening
carefully and analyzing data thoroughly, my findings had the potential to inform program
development, creation of accountability measures and design of proper training to model
empathetic behavior, build relationships and empower students as they create their own
experiences working in the field with service partners’ needs. My aim was use the data to
consider transformational changes applying a systems thinking approach.

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CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
This section presents the research findings as they relate to six themes under three
discrete yet interrelated spheres (domains) of activity, knowledge, motivation and organizational
support.to six themes in three domains of the perspectives of international school master service-
learning educators in this study: Domain (1) Results of research question 1 – Knowledge: of
service-learning pedagogy, sustainable development issues and systems thinking, and then
divided further into separate sections to describe personal characteristics – more explicitly, as
Kaye (2010) writes in her personal inventory curriculum, skills, traits and talents of master
service-learning educators. (2) Results of research question 2 – Motivation: What motivates
master service-learning educators to do what they do? Are there motivation killers? And (3)
Results of research question 3 – Organizational Support: How does the school's mission, vision,
and philosophy of service learning affect these teacher-leaders’ understandings and performance
as service-learning educators? What happens if the school’s philosophy or administration is not
aligned with master service-learning educators? What if all systems are go, but the school lacks
experienced service-learning educators?
Summary of Findings
What follows are my grounded research findings and analysis. The data yielded six
themes that identify factors that impact an international school’s ability to educate relatively
privileged, third culture high school students in cognitive, personal, social and civic domains.
These findings of representative international schools in Singapore and Thailand, are:
1. In order to innovate the richest and most meaningful service-learning experiences
to help international, third cultural students in Southeast Asia learn and develop
empathy, cultural competence and self-authorship it requires well-trained service-

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learning educators with deep knowledge of and experience with service-learning
pedagogy.
2. Skills to build relationships with a variety of people in a plethora of settings give
service-learning educators the ability to navigate and guide students’ authentic
community service in multiple settings.
3. Personal traits of humility, empathy and passion and being visionary matter.
4. Talents to work closely, albeit as a guide to empower teenage students to lead
their own civic and environmental actions helps them to develop self-authorship.
5. Intrinsic motivation to develop global citizens matters. A culture of intentionality
is shared by master service-learning educators that implies these practitioners are
intrinsically motivated and committed to prompt learners to become part of a
social movement – to be change makers.
6. Organizational support and systemic alignment matters for master service-
learning educators to guide a comprehensive service-learning program. The
greater the institutionalization of learning opportunities associated with service-
learning the greater the possibility of students building relationships and making
connections to their academic learning, community members, service partners,
teachers, peers and societies throughout the world.
The concept of service-learning is broad dynamic and seen by different people in
different ways – all valid. My study findings supported research by Cuoto (as excerpted by
Stanton, Giles & Cruz, 1999, p. 210) that service-learning educators’ work represents the
most comprehensive spectrum of service-learning expressions, all the way from noblesse
oblige (fulfillment of social responsibilities) to curriculum and instruction policy making

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guided by school mission and vision statements. The next section will describe findings by
research question and theme.
Research Question 1:
Characteristics and Practices of Master Service-Learning Educators
Theme 1 – Knowledge of service-learning pedagogy matters.
Deep understanding of the educational foundations, concepts, and processes of service-
learning was found to be in common to all participants. Interviewees in this study have been
trained in the Southeast Asian region by service-learning expert Catherine Berger Kaye. Kaye's
systematic approach to leading service-learning programs have helped the participants in this
study set up instructional strategies and categories for emphasis divided similarly across each of
the participant’s international schools, namely, campus service – Carrie and Sally described
gardening, assisting in the elementary school, Sid described campus recycling, rainforest nursery
work. Local service in the community surrounding the international school with national service
partners and NGOs, hospitals, orphanages, special needs schools, low-income food banks,
coastal clean ups, endangered species and animal shelters, environmental restoration projects,
disabled people associations, special Olympics – both "push-out," go on bus to the site or "pull-
in," bring in kids or service partners to use school facilities. Regional service in country, but far
away such as the Om Goi project in Northern Thailand described by Andres and Cathy. Global
service outside of city or country, as part of student-led service trips to work with their service
partners and on Interim Semester or Week Without Walls or Global Concerns type programs
with or without NGOs such as, Tabitha in Cambodia, and Caring for Cambodia; Blue Dragon in
Vietnam; XS Project and the Island Foundation in Indonesia; Gawad Kalinga, Stairway
Foundation, Wish4Kids in the Philippines; Read Bhutan and projects in Thailand, Malaysia,

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Indonesia, Nepal, India, China, Bhutan, Tibet, Laos and farther afield in African (Nayaka in
Uganda and others) and South American countries.
Regardless of a self-described shortage of undergraduate university academic course
work in service-learning education, all study participants had conducted themselves as scholarly,
skilled professionals in service-learning. Interviewees reported that their knowledge and skills
were learned on the job and through professional development as adults. Through work
experience, most interviewees had become masters at their craft of guiding service-learning with
high school students. Many had made public presentations at community gatherings,
professional conferences and had mentored and trained educators in professional settings, several
had published work on service-learning for their communities. All had read widely in the field
(for example, Half the Sky by Nicolas Kristof, and Service-Learning: A Movement’s Pioneers
Reflect on Its Origins, Practice, and Future, by Stanton, Giles and Cruz, 1999) and had
participated in professional development in service-learning on many occasions in Southeast
Asia. Several had attended as student-delegate facilitators in Global Issues Network (GIN)
Conferences and the Bangkok-centric equivalent, ServICE Conference (I = Inspire, C = connect,
E = Empower) with students. Five had been certified in Compass Education, an interdisciplinary
approach to teaching the four compass points, N = nature, S = society, E = economy, W =
wellness, and one was a Compass Education trainer. Compass Education "is a leading actor in
the global movement to transform learning, thinking and action by youth, educators and school
leaders, and educational institutions, to contribute to building a flourishing and sustainable future
for all" (extracted from Compass Education website, 2018; see Appendix F for image).
Most participants had been trained in systems thinking to teach sustainability concepts
which dovetails with Compass Education philosophy. In any system, the whole is greater than

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the sum of its parts. Study participants described the collaboration between students and their
service partners, peers, teachers and community members likewise creates a whole greater than
the sum of its parts. Scholars among participants who had recent experience in systems thinking
pedagogy described how they used systems thinking to guide learners to make salient
connections between science, sustainability, society, policy, and technology. In common with all
participants was the knowledge that working directly with teens on service projects requires a
nuanced approach. As Cathy said, “One must provide guidance, facilitation, teaching and a safe
setting to allow students to discover, initiate, fail, and develop self-efficacy.”
Knowledge of Compass Education. In addition to the SDGs used as an educational
touchstone, many of the study participants have been trained in Compass Education (see
Appendix F for Sustainability Compass figure) which they "drip feed" as Cathy said, to their
students. Carrie described a conversation with a student who wanted to make mugs for his
group. She told the student to sit down and "Compass it." She said her students “understand that
language; it means to grab a pen draw a big X on a piece of paper marking in each quadrant,
Nature, Society, Economy, and Wellness.” The student with the mug idea looked up and said,
"This is not a sustainable idea." Carrie replied, "OK, bye. See you in three months when you've
figured it out." She said they take their piece of paper and are now on a mission to make their
idea sustainable and come back to re-pitch. As well, systems thinking is a pedagogical strategy
that often works in concert with Compass Ed.
Knowledge of systems thinking. Systems thinking is a strategy to investigate how
elements interact and affect one another, for example, in the case of climate change, learning the
link between politics, policy, natural and physical sciences and a person's worldview (McGrath
and Martinez, 2017, p. 143). In interviews with Carrie and Maria, they described how issues

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such as climate change, economic breakdowns, food insecurity, biodiversity loss and escalating
conflict are matters not only of science, but also of geography, economics, philosophy, and
history. Maria described how these issues cut across several academic disciplines and are best
understood when these domains are addressed together. Students and adults must be able to see
such important problems as systems interacting and affecting one another. Carrie, Andres, Sally,
Sid and Maria are proponents of teaching about closed-loop circular economies in their
discussions of sustainability with students; all the participants mentioned the importance of
teaching sustainability principles divorced from linear make, take, use, lose practices to more
closed-loop circular economy practices.
Knowledge of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Several of the
participants (Anders, Cathy, Carrie, and Sally) relied heavily on the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) also known as the Global Goals (see Appendix F Figure 4), as a
means of motivating and equipping their learners to more strongly connect their service to
learning through theoretical grounding, course content, journal writing. Seventeen interwoven
goals give classroom teachers structure and a plethora of resources. Conversations with
student’s center around the Global Goals, as recalled by Carrie when she was speaking with a
student, “My interest matches goal #6. OK, this is what we have at our school on that goal
(topic). Come back after you have learned how your idea and service partner fit under that goal."
Cathy described, “Because the interconnections of the SDGs, it doesn’t matter if you care for life
on land or gender equality. They are interwoven.” Large SDG banners grace three of the
schools pronouncing that the school supports the SDGs. Carrie explained how focus on SDGs
had encouraged rich dialogue between service groups on her campus. It has helped balance
student participation in categories of service available, "Okay, you are composting. Which

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SDG? And the kids can tell you, that one, that one, and that one." She added that, “their
community of care has since grown wider and they see more passionate kids in the school that
they're connected to through similar SDGs." Carrie mentioned a blogging network around the
SDGs is starting K-12 on her campus, "so that kids can speak to each other and share."
Networking, sharing, demonstration, communication is all a part of service-learning pedagogy.
Carrie described her perspective that, “A more sustainable, just, and compassionate world will
only happen if there are more people able and motivated to steer the world in that direction.”
The data shows that is what the master service-learning educators aim to do as they build
character, self-authorship, motivate and enable their students to act as competent moral agents.
Theme 2 – Skilled Relationship Building Matters
Skilled relationship builders with students and service partners. A common practice
of all participants was their long-term, deep seated engagement with student-centered service-
learning. All the while, teachers reported wearing many hats while facilitating a group of
students doing a service project. Sid said that he acts as a role model for his students, especially
in regard to modeling reciprocal interactions between server and client, at the Leprosy Home, for
example:
Facilitating a group of kids doing a service project requires many different hats. A hat
for showing kids. A hat for modeling for them. A hat for having the skills to be able to
relate to sick, elderly, disadvantaged, disabled people. A hat for understanding elements
of the degraded environment. A confidence hat to know that it's seamless to let the kids
go.
Authentic and meaningful engagement and relationship building with students active in
service-learning seemed to be central to study participants’ professional practice. No matter

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which service hat they were wearing, whenever they were with students doing service work in a
community, each of the participants reported building close relationships with the service
partners and students. “It’s all about relationships,” Anders said. Conversely, not all traditional
teachers guiding experiential learning are successful at relationship building. Anders sums up
how angry he felt while observing minimalist teachers who would go on a service trip with
vendors and then disengage:
. . . the school books the trip and they'll come along, and the teachers basically hand over
the students. "Okay they're yours for three days," and they'll sit down and have a snooze
and watch and stuff like that. So, I think teachers have got to be engaged. You've got to
send the right people.
Skilled bridge-builders. A vital part of relationship building based on the perspectives
master service-learning educators was to seek not just to understand, but also to build bridges
into local and regional Southeast Asian communities and world cultures to bring folks together.
The study found several examples of bridge building in campus, local and global communities.
Maria recounts an interdisciplinary bridge-building experience with students while she was a
teacher in America:
We were working out of some STEAM book that had something to do with bridges. We
were using this idea of bridges metaphorically, and so, while in their robotics class, they
were going to look at how do you build bridges? We did a field trip where we took them
down to the river walk, and they looked at the different types of bridges that existed, and
so, they were looking from an engineering perspective of bridges. We were looking at
design, but then in the English and Social Studies class -- Because I was teaching sixth
grade. . . World cultures and geography. We wanted to look at the idea of a metaphorical

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bridges. How do you bridge community together? They had read some story about a
community that was separated because there was a river and they could not cross, and so,
they were disconnected. The kids were going to be looking how to build a bridge to unite
the community, and we were looking for ways to join the community in another way.
In the end, Maria facilitated her students to build a community garden as a means of establishing
bridges into the community.
Skilled counselors and coaches. Relationship building with international high school
students required mentorship, counseling and coaching. Interviewees described how they
frequently acted as counselors by giving personal advice to students or groups who wished to
initiate service-learning projects. Participants mentored for students how to reflect on significant
events. Serving as a coach while engaged in service-learning facilitation, as in an instructional
coach, literacy or numeracy coach is so familiar that Carrie suggested: "citizenship coach" (or
whatever the term) be added to the academic job mix in international schools. Sid remarked that,
“students benefit from their service mentors facilitating reflection on mistakes because learning
from failure can be powerful human development tool.” Carrie said, "you remember the pain of
the failure and do not want to experience that again." All participants remarked that it is
important to reflect together and decompress and that it required a skilled service-learning leader
to know how, when and how often to direct students to reflect on their service plans, projects,
actions, communication and relationships. As a caution, however, since studies show student
stress can be a problem in the high school, Betsy warned, “service coordinators need to be
careful how much time they require from kids; deep reflection takes time.”
Skilled relationship builders in professional settings. The professional job titles and
responsibilities of service-learning leaders was shown to influence the impact they had in schools

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(refer to Table 2 for an overview of job titles held by study participants). Respondents in
leadership positions reported one of the aims of their role was to design systems to build
students' cultural literacy. Sally reported that running programs that are experiential, student-
centered and focused on reciprocal learning activities required being seen and treated as a
professional with the ability to implement systematic coordination. Andres, Sally, Carrie and
Will described that whether or not it is written into the curriculum, much of service engagement
is intentionally conducted outside of the classroom either during breaks in the school day or after
school, on the weekends, during holidays, school sponsored trips or during summer, ultimately
coordinated by service-learning teacher leaders who were expected to build sustainable
relationships and to behave professionally as a would a varsity team sports coach or orchestra
director.
On a broad scale, emergency relief actions that are school-wide fundraisers for an agreed
cause falls under the domain of service coordinators as they guide students who professionally
manage logistics, research, communication, finance. On a narrower scale, Carrie described her
professional oversight, thus need to build relationships with teachers focused on environmental
stewardship to guide campus service endeavors that elementary and middle school students do,
“The worms, you know, all those kinds of stuff, so more of the environmental stewardship piece.
So, a grade five teacher and a head of middle school Spanish, they are our environmental
stewardship coordinators that I professionally oversee.”
Each of the participants is undoubtedly a professional leader of service-learning in their
school, most of whom have professional responsibilities to manage and build relationships with
other adults as well as teenage students. Carrie is the Chair of Service and Head of Middle
School Service. She works in the central service office she likes to call the Be the Change Suite

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in collaboration with heads of high school and elementary school service each is responsible for
overseeing campus service, local service, and global service. At Carrie's school in addition to
two environmental stewardship coordinators, there is an overall director of sustainability with, as
Carrie said, “a balcony view of sustainability pieces.” As well there is a sustainability logistics
person on the ground and four full-time service officer staff members. These non-teaching adult
service officers are trained in Adaptive Schools, Cognitive Coaching, Compass Education and
child safety, each filling a distinct supportive role: environmental stewardship, local service
partnerships, global services and a liaison in child safety. All of these service-oriented positions
are dedicated to connecting service activities to students' learning. All have in the past or now
act as professional service coordinators. At Will's IB school in Singapore, there are four
stipended service-learning leadership positions: Grade 11-12 CAS Coordinator (Will's
position), grade 9-10, grade 6-8 Middle Years Program (MYP) and K-5 Primary Years Program
(PYP).
Skilled relationship builders as CAS Coordinators. Betsy and Will are the IB CAS
Coordinators at their schools. Anders was the IB CAS coordinator at his school for eight years
up until this year. He said he, “got sick of Managebac”, the CAS web-based platform that
houses IB Diploma candidates' records. Andres and Betsy both described that students log in
and go to tabs to work on their IB Diploma expectations. For example, there is a tab for
extended essay files, a tab for CAS experiences, a tab for internal assessments for teachers, and
so forth. In the CAS section, students write the proposed purpose of their service-learning
experiences and reflect on each service-learning experience. Betsy said she received an email
every time a student makes an entry in Managebac. The CAS Coordinator then approves or
disapproves the student's plan, and not without making direct contact and building a relationship

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with each student under her charge. There is much counseling and coaching on the part of the
CAS Coordinator. Anders' school initially piloted Managebac. Thus, Anders said he, “must have
seen more student files than anyone on the planet.” He found it time consuming and tedious. He
raised an important point. Potential burn out. This roadblock can be ubiquitous to service
coordinators. Frankly, Will, Anders, and Carrie reported being stressed and exhausted by the
amount of time and emotional energy dedicated to their CAS centric service-learning leadership.
Skilled relationship builders as logistics managers. Risk management and child
protection during field study and experiential learning are lately developing “crushing new
rules,” according to Andres. Because traveling locally and internationally is par for the course in
the world of service-learning, it follows that risk management and new building relationships
with campus and vendor child safety experts is a vital part of a service teacher-leaders' job.
However, Anders expressed frustration that the new child protection rules may, “stifle outdoor
education experiences and adventures” he certainly benefited from as a young person growing up
in New Zealand exploring mountain streams and wild lands with a mentor teacher and solo.
Anders was short-tempered as he described how the training for risk management is being done
at his school. His school “hired a group of millennials from a local NGO. . . We’ve got these
people who’ve got absolutely no idea about what they’re doing. And now we’ve got all risk
management . . . child protection.” Difficult relationships exist too.
Facilities need to be managed as well. In two schools there is a central Service Office
space dedicated to organization and program management, storage of student’s project materials,
meeting space and so forth run by the study participants. Rainforest sapling nurseries exist on
two of the campuses run by dedicated students and their expert environmental service-learning
and sustainability educators, for no remuneration. Cathy volunteers to manage her school’s

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rooftop vegetable garden where school community members bring in compostables. Under
Cathy’s management, volunteers gather together before school, during school, after school and
on the weekends to tend the garden and grow food for their community. Therefore, Cathy said
she must be willing to interact with and build a relationship with anyone volunteering in any
capacity with their rooftop garden. Recycling, composting and gardening are regulars on
campuses dedicated to service-learning. It is the service coordinators that build relationships to
collaboratively manage the labor, facilities, and finances with school facilities and curriculum
and school finance personnel. As well, participants reported that finance management of
fundraising budgets, service scholarship requests, and service clubs’ budgets oversight falls
under the responsibility of service coordinators. Indeed, they possess myriad relationship
building skills and wear many hats.
Theme 3 – Traits of Humility, Empathy, Passion and Being a Visionary Matter.
Humility as a trait. Having no need for the limelight but dedicated to working in teams
collaboratively was one of the character traits in common with all participants. Each of them
expressed reticence to consider themselves a master and most were slightly embarrassed to be
called a master service-learning educator. Betsy described how she felt; “It’s really flattering to
hear that I’m a master service-learning person because I don’t feel that way. I feel like I’m still
learning, and I feel like there’s always more you can do.” In a similar statement, Anders
described himself as a "co-learner" in his field; truly, a humble co-learner both with his
colleagues and his students. As described in Jennings and Skovholt’s study on master therapists
from around the world (2016), I found in my study, none of the master-service learning
educators, were arrogant, but rather aware of how much they do not know, how complicated
human beings [and relationships] are and how much there is to learn.

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None of the participants had university-level academic training or coursework in service-
learning while an undergraduate, and it seemed they were humble when reporting how they
learned the skills, traits and talents necessary to lead robust school service programs. Primarily
study participants were discipline experts in science, geography, social studies or English, their
service-learning leadership was learned out of curiosity and intrinsic motivation while on the job.
Cathy reported that she did not have any real formal training in service-learning before she
became a teacher. But over time, as she engaged in service-learning conversations with students
she “started to see light bulbs go off” and started to see the positive difference that it made in her
students, thus continued to avail of as much professional development as possible in both
sustainability education and service-learning to inform her teaching. Maria had extensive
service-learning experience when she spent a year with AmeriCorps, as she reflects,
I did a year of AmeriCorps which is the domestic version of Peace Corps, and not that I
want to trivialize -- Because the Peace Corps is powerful, can be powerful, but I chose to
do AmeriCorps for various reasons, and that's a year of service. I'm working with these
agencies, going out into the community, doing service, and while I was never asked to
reflect, much of the service that we were offering was going into the school systems.
Empathy and passion as traits. Empathy and passion for service work is “part of their
DNA” as echoed by Sally. In fact, Sally suggested that empathy is the most valuable trait of
anyone involved in service-learning. Although all informants indicated that they possess
empathy and had developed it in their formative years, because each showed great humility, none
of them professed loudly to being empathy stars. However, their stories were rich in descriptions
of their empathy. Along with empathy, having passion for service-learning was a trait
commonly discussed among participants. When asked to describe their favorite service project

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of all times it was difficult for a few participants to pick and choose. Sid recalls, “Well, I think
it’s maybe a tie … the first … was a sensory trail for visually handicapped folks that I helped to
develop with a number of colleagues." Other favorite service-learning experiences participants
were passionate which indirectly displayed their personal empathy about included: (A)
Development work with marginalized communities in Northern Thailand. (B) Working with
Thai and Indonesian fisher folk to aid the transition to ecotourism. (C) Building and working
together with the public tending community vegetable gardens and rooftop gardens. (D)
Building water treatment systems in Indonesia for a small community. (E) Bringing a source of
fresh water to a village community for 70 homes for the first time, ever. (F) Building toilets for
village families. (G) Nursing rainforest saplings and planting them to restore a patch of forest.
(H) Bringing relief to Typhoon Haiyan victims in the Philippines, Earthquake victims in Nepal
and 2004 Tsunami victims in Ache, Indonesia, for over 14 years straight, funding to Goonj an
NGO in India to help South Asia flood victims in 2017, to name a few. Their empathy had
sustained their passion to guide these and many worthy projects over the years.
The trait of being a visionary. This study discovered master service-learning educators
are visionaries. Similar to the pioneers of service-learning in the 1970s described by Stanton,
Giles and Cruz (1999), to service-learning masters, closed doors were there to be opened or, as
Herman Blake described Page Smith's philosophy, "Damn the rules: full speed ahead" (Stanton,
Giles & Cruz, 1999, p. 182). This study revealed that master educators of service-learning are
self-directed, independent educators, able and willing to choose or create their projects, find their
service partners through often unchartered paths. According to Stanton, Giles & Cruz (1999),
who researched pioneers of service learning from the 1930s to 1980s in America, "the passions
and commitment of this group were much more strongly connected to a vision, or a set of morals

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and values, than to a pedagogical method." Whereas the method is indeed necessary, the data
show these Southeast Asian international school masters are deeply connected to their political
and moral values and to educating children to develop their own.
As visionaries, master service-learning educators are experts at initiating new service
learning projects. Anders for example, launched eight years ago, the Om Goi project in Northern
Thailand. He spent two years with his students doing a needs analysis before taking specific
action. Anders recounted this story when asked to describe his favorite service project:
That would the Om Goi Project, which is a project in Northern Thailand working with
hill tribe people. It's my favorite project because it was pretty unique at that time, taking a
group of students in, to actually doing a needs analyses with the community. So, we went
in not knowing anything with a group of 9 students, stayed with them for three nights,
doing the needs analyses and then come back to plan the projects. And why I say it's
satisfying coz it grew from nine students the first trip, to 16, to 25 and then we had to cap
it at about 30 for each trip. So, the demand was really high. We then go in with pre-
conceived ideas of what we were going to do project-wise. We came out with some pretty
ambitious goals and pretty much did them all. So, in over three years space, we brought
safe and secure water source to the village of 300 people, for the first time. We ended up
building 24 bathrooms. And the community of about 70-80 homes. We helped with
educational supplies and NIST fair trade coffee scheme which is gone on to be one of the
best social enterprises, in international school, kick-started from there. So pretty amazing
projects and some eight student trips to the same community.
Anders’ Om Goi project with high school students was so authentic, well thought out systematic
and successful that is now the star case study in the IB CAS textbook.

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Another stand out project initiated by Sid and a small group of teachers in Singapore was
the Sensory Trail on Pulau Ubin for visually handicapped clients (VH) from the Singapore
Association of the Visually Handicapped (SAVH). It started more than 20 years ago as a
temporary trail with laminated numbers tied to trees to mark stations. Sid would ride a bike
ahead of the students to tie the numbers to trees in advance of his students guiding their visually
handicapped clients on the trail. Sid's students researched the fauna, flora and natural heritage of
the rustic island off Singapore. A laminated guidebook was created, written and photographed
by students, and copied for student guides who slung it on their shoulders with a long shoelace,
out of the way when guiding their blind clients. Singapore National Parks (NParks) became
involved, and the school and SAVH became co-adopters of the Pulau Ubin Sensory Trail.
Students raised $60,000 (in 1997 figures) by writing funding grant requests and holding Earth
Day walk-a-thons. The funds were used to create permanent plaques in large font English and
Braille for the VH to read and interpret for themselves. Reciprocity was critical to the learning
and enjoyment of students and the VH who told stories of kampong life and described medicinal
and culinary uses for plants they smelled, tasted and felt. NParks twice gave the school the
Creative Adopters Award for the Sensory Trail. The experiential learning opportunity for
students and partners required logistics management, communication, budgeting by Sid and his
student leaders over the years have taken on with a long-term commitment and sustained
passion.
Theme 4 – Talent in Advancement of Student Empowerment Matters.
Talent in promoting student empowerment – voice, choice and activism. Through a
pedagogy of empowerment, master service-learning educators reported how they shared their

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power with learners. Study participant, Sid said he tries to be a “guide on the side” to empower
his students doing service work as young activists:
I try with service stuff that I've done to be on the side as much as possible. Once I feel
like the aid of path, the basic knowledge like how to transplant a seedling into a larger pot
or how to guide somebody who is visually handicapped. I'll let him go and do a little bit
of trial and error work on their own because I think that can be an important part of
learning and you make your mistakes and as long as it's not going to be life-threatening to
a little baby plant or the person you're guiding, then I'll let him kind of sort that stuff out.
A little bit of guidance and then let him go I think is where I feel works in most kind of
service learning activities.
Will said of student empowerment, "I prefer it not come from me and I want them to lead
me, take me, show me the way to making a difference." Carrie described how her students want
to be responsible people, and that feeling of being needed is in itself empowering to children.
"They love it. They have a lot to offer. They're motivated. They feel a great sense of
connection to other kids on the planet." Cathy described her supportive and questioning
strategies working with service-learning based on her philosophy:
My philosophy is, a good and meaningful service project needs to come from the student,
and it needs to be student led. My role is more of a supporting if the student needs my
support. So, when students come to me with a great idea, I would ask them a lot of
questions. If you would like that idea to come true, what do you think you need? What
do you think we have in place? What would you like your service group to be called?
When would you like to meet? How are you going to keep your meeting minutes? How
are you going to recruit? Many questions. Hopefully, the students could have a good

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thinking process of how to make a good idea into a tangible project, making it happen.
And it's very important to become active with a local community partner NGO or else; it
might be potentially just within the school type of project. Which there's nothing wrong
with that, but it will be much more meaningful if that connection is there.
Collectively the study participants said it is important for both their service partners and their
students to have their voices heard and engage in activism of their interest, and that it requires
time, patience, dedication, good listening skills and strong relationships.
Talent as a roadblock remover. Sally suggested that master service-learning educators
go beyond how we teach and what is taught to focus on ensuring the path for learners is clear and
open for them to decide the direction they will take. In other words, master service-learning
educators in her view are talented roadblock removers. Maria described her experience as a
remover of roadblocks with classroom teachers who, “use the extra expenditure of time as a
reason to avoid integrating action-based service learning into their curriculum." She described
herself as being intentional in planning an eye-opening experience for students, in essence to
intentionally remove the road-block “blinders” from her students’ eyes. Maria told the story of
how she modeled (while teaching in the States) intentionality for her colleagues and students
who conducted a beach cleanup on a beach that was cleaned daily – watching the students half-
heartedly pick up trash. Then, the next day she took the students to the other side of the island,
not cleaned for tourists where huge volumes of marine debris had accumulated over the years:
Very, very seldom have I worked with educators who do what we did on the second
beach because they don't want to give more than one day. They feel like they cannot give
up more than one day, or they don't see the value to their curriculum because it then all
becomes about, "Well, this is what I have to accomplish. This is where I need them by the

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end of the year." Rather than thinking long term of, "Here is the kind of student I want to
see graduate from here. Here is the kind of student I want to see enter the world." They're
not looking long-term or holistically. They are only looking from the narrow scope of
what they have to do within their discipline by the time a standardized test, or by the time
the end of the year is. They’re not looking long term.
Carrie described working with faculty to remove the roadblock for her teachers who can’t
decide which service-learning area to select. Carrie helped them find a match for the type of
service they facilitate with students and their personality, if you are a short-term thinker – engage
in campus service – long-term thinkers are better suited to global service. Similarly, other study
participants described their leadership roles as roadblock removers who understand and deal with
other teacher' avoidance, help to get them on board and do their part based on their druthers.
Maria did caution that roadblock removal seemed especially awkward for schools that have no
mention of service-learning ethos in their mission or vision statements. Because, why should
teachers care if there is no accountability?
Talent as educators of character and cultural competence. Some study participants
wrestled with the risks involved of having inexperienced teachers guide traditional volunteer
service to build cultural competence. Carrie mentioned that more harm than good could come of
a service experience if it was done in a neo-colonialist, patronizing manner. Andres said he felt
betrayed by his school by letting untrained, inexperienced teachers travel with high school
students on service trips. In his perspective, Anders said, “Doing service wrong is worse than
doing no service at all.” Hence it is not surprising that master teachers held high standards for
their colleagues’ own character and cultural competence, especially when guiding students to
build their own cultural competence through service-learning. Character education and cultural

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competence are central learning targets for creating and sustaining a just world. According to the
Worldwatch Institute (2017), "Good character education is good education. When done
comprehensively and well, it leads to a caring and temperate school climate, prosocial and
responsible student behavior, increased academic achievement and development of character in
youth." The masters educators of service-learning showed talents in this area. Interviewees
were found to be strategic and intentional about nurturing healthy relationships, positive
character traits and cultural competence among all stakeholders.
Sid described how he modeled the character and cultural competence he wished to see in
students. Instructional strategies he designed fused with his modeling of respect and
appreciation for diversity. Sid had oriented himself to nurture his students mature into culturally
competent young adults by internalizing of the value people no matter their ability, wealth, age,
gender, literacy, nationality, or cultural heritage. Some of his students’ families were steeped in
community service, others were new to it, regardless, by the end of high school, Sid was
convinced that his modeling and provision of service-learning opportunities for his students led
to them developing their own intrinsic motivation to do good in the world. Contact with alumni
Sid taught and guided showed evidence that his students furthered what they learned under his
care. Many of his alumni students and those alumni students of Sally, Andres, Maria, Will,
Betsy, and Carrie are engaged today in social entrepreneurship, forestry, environmental
engineering, public health, social justice and environmental policy work throughout the world in
multiple countries and cultures. Strategically, interviewees showed talent to self-model and
create the conditions that led to positive character development, cultural competence and self-
authorship especially over the long term as their students select college majors and transition into
careers.

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Talented global citizenship teachers. Study participants agreed that developing
learning outcomes for global citizenship, character and cultural competence can’t be done in
silos and must be done through student empowerment. Sally, Carrie, Andres and Cathy strongly
believe global citizenship education and service-learning need to be integrated into curriculum
and co-curricular life of the school. Maria remarked that, “service-learning cannot merely be an
add-on.” At Cathy and Andres international school in Bangkok, a Global Citizenship Diploma
program exists for interested students who also may earn a high school degree and IB Diploma.
The Global Citizenship Diploma acts to recognize, account for and document student
achievements outside the realm of academics. Participants suggested that global citizenship
needs to take priority and be implemented with intention.
Maria said of her experience with typical classroom teachers, "Most of the people I talk
to, they didn't understand the value of service-learning, not service. They see the value of
service; they don't see the value of service learning.” She said it was because these teachers had
never done service-learning as a student themselves, so they don’t understand how
transformative it can be and how it can take learning to a whole new level to develop culturally
competent global citizens. Further, Maria described her take on the purpose of engaging in
service-learning done intentionally and over the long-run:
What's our purpose of engaging in service? We have to be honest that much of what we
do for service isn't to benefit the communities that we're actually engaging in service, it's
about transforming a child. It's about changing who they become as adults. We are doing
this for our students and through our students I think -- Because as educators we realize
that who they become as adults shapes the world and what it will look like in the future,
and if we think that we are sending our students off to do a day, or even a week of service

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because somehow, they in that moment as a 15-year-old, they're going to change this
community, we're naive. We are very naive, and we need to be educated ourselves if
that's what we really think. We are doing it for the benefit of our students and who they
can become one day if we teach them how to use their privilege, their power, and their
opportunities in a way that might change how they engage in the world.
Talented experts at facilitating reflection and demonstration. Just as master
educators in this study feel student empowerment is the keystone of service-learning, in order to
deeply learn and grow from their experiences, self-reflection is paramount. All participants
reported having learned from professional development workshops in Southeast Asia given by
Catherine Berger Kaye how to follow the five stages of service learning, namely, 1) investigation
and research and needs analysis, 2) planning, 3) action, 4) reflection which is ongoing and
through all stages, 5) sharing and demonstration of learning (Kaye, 1999). Student and teacher
reflection is an especially vital process of the learning and is integral to CAS and every service
project described by study participants. According to Kaye (1999), it is through reflection that
the learning solidifies and deepens. Sid explained how he and the student leaders of his school's
service council reflect together:
. . . And then again take that time in the big picture for reflection where we break the year
into two and think about things we'll do in the first half of the year and when that is over,
try to sit and think, are we successful? The plus delta [tool to guide reflection, modeled
by Kaye], I really like because it gives everybody the chance to say, “This was good.
This part of it worked well. This part I’m proud of,” but then also to reflect on how it
could have been better.”

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Maria expressed frustration that teachers in the past have told her that reflection takes too long
and it's tedious. Betsy has heard her CAS students complain about the onerous nature of
reflection as well. Betsy described her take on the value of reflection this way:
My spin on it comes from Cathy Berger Kaye, the idea that, it might seem like busy
work, but this is how you become a reflective person. You've got to train yourself, just
like you have to train yourself to do other things in school. The more you know your
strengths, and what you're not good at, and what you don't like and what you do like
when it's time to make big decisions like going to college, you can make a better
decision. These experiences are really good. You don't learn anything until you reflect on
them, and I don't know how to make us as a school better than that. I’m working on that.
Examples of demonstration and sharing of service-learning activities is another a source
of student learning described by study participants Student delegates and service-learning
educators who attend GIN and ServICE Conferences have built synergistic networks through
collaborating. For the benefit of sharing, Will described a conversation with one of his students:
I said, "So you see, that's why we share what you do because you never know when
something that you've done as a young person will inspire another young person. Now,
because she brought the dance troupe here in Singapore, the dance troupe now is going
to Manila, and another student is going to get the opportunity to grow through the
experience." Part of it is the benefit of the student involved, but the other part is when
they share what they do to other people, then other people are inspired. Even adults are,
"Hey, the kids can do that. Look!"

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Demonstration helps to communicate project ideas across the community. It builds a network.
Sharing resources is not difficult. Nor is finding them. Demonstration and reflection are central
to master service-learning educator’s practice to provide desired student learning outcomes.
Talented teachers with intentionality and purpose. Master service-learning educators
described that they approached project-based service-learning with intentionality and purpose.
Sally illustrated how nearly everything that they do in her international school is guided by
service-learning, for example, their U.N. Night. All senior students run the show. Sally
described, “apart from the food stalls and performance which is brilliant with everyone dressed
in their national costumes”, all the funds raised from ticket sales go to a group called, The
Theater for the Oppressed in Uganda. The theater troop works in refugee camps of the South
Sudanese. Furthermore, master service-learning educators meet regularly with students to set
goals, reflect on mileposts and see the big picture. Most of the schools in the study have an
executive service council of student leaders who manage their peer's service activities, working
shoulder-to-shoulder with master educators on experiential education opportunities, outdoor and
nature and environmental education, cultural immersion and everything in between.
Talented at seeing pedagogy of need. A central topic of service-learning conversations
between student and teacher is need. Maria asks her students, "How can you make what you
have to offer valuable and needed? You don't give what's not needed. You don't force
something on a community. You do it because you can do it and you want to do it and it is
needed." Anders learned from one of his colleagues a great saying, "Don't ask them to do what
they can't - and they can't fund it, can they? And they can't do technical stuff. Don't do what they
can do, because that is not a partnership." The example he gave is painting (all too typical of
traditional service work). "Well, if they do need their wall painted, give them the paint. You

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know, how ludicrous is it to go into poor communities and they watch you paint their walls."
Slowly and carefully, participants in this study nurtured their learners' understanding of
researching the needs of their service partners, communities, and natural environments. Andres
suggested that conducting a thorough needs analysis requires adult facilitation and the deep
understanding that relationship building between server and served is paramount.
Talented at nurturing reciprocity. Specifically, study participants reported how they
nurtured reciprocity, empathy, civic engagement & citizenship. Nurturing in students’
reciprocity; that service-learning is a two-way partnership was one of study participants’ deep-
seated practices. As both Maria and Carrie said, kids sometimes need to be told, "Don't be a
hero." By teaching reciprocity, subtly but firmly neo-colonialism actions such as, “we will paint
your school for you" may be nipped in the bud. The entire community benefits from reciprocity
that in turn helps to build desired 21
st
Century student learning outcomes of collaboration,
cultural competence, and character. Sid and Betsy described that through reciprocity their
students built self-efficacy, leadership skills, research skills and group management skills.
Master service-learning educators modeled empathy and nurtured it in their students. Empathy
is core in motivated student leaders of service, who Sid dubbed, "the pied pipers of empathy."
Maria described that civic engagement; the hallmark of a democratic society becomes second
nature for students who have witnessed their teachers model and nurture it. Being nurtured to be
an active part of one's community as well as learning how to play a part in a "foreign"
community builds cultural competence. Will remarked that his school is focusing this year on
nurturing on global citizenship, ". . . for it to be set that the emphasis of our school this year is
global citizenship, that says something. That says a lot." Global citizenship develops in students

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as they learn through empowerment by their master teachers that they are a part of a bigger
whole focused on a sustainable, peaceful future.
Research Question 2:
What Motivates Master Service Educators to Do What They Do?
Theme 5 – Motivation to Develop Global Citizens Matters.
What does it take to ensure that service-learning educators are there to teach, guide,
model and mentor? What does it take for them to care enough about the world and each other to
commit to collective efforts to address poverty, social justice or climate change? In two words,
intrinsic motivation. Study participants professed to being intrinsically motivated for a variety of
reasons described in this section to help international school teenagers learn social and emotional
skills to develop self-authorship along with their rigorous academic cognitive gains to thrive in a
fast-changing society.
Motivation – previous exposure. When I prompted participants to think back to their
childhoods, most said exposure as a child growing up in a service ethos (Andres said being
active in outdoor education) positively influenced them to continue the service work as adults
and eventually guide students to do the same. Sid described how his motivation is sustained:
I think it’s just that the reward of knowing in my heart anyway that the exposures that I
had at their age helped influence me through to my adulthood and so just giving them that
opportunity helps to sustain.
Anders considers himself a “nature boy” heavily influenced by his teachers who took him out as
a youngster, beyond school to adventures in the wilderness. To this day, Anders travels with his
students into rough and tumble areas of marginalized Thai and Cambodian civilians to work
together with the communities based on their needs. Sally told of how community service was

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part of her DNA growing up. Sally saw service work in her own family and her community as a
young girl. Her grandmother was always involved in lots of stuff with the community such as
the auxiliary fundraising committee for the closest hospital. Fast forward a few years and her
grandmother was nominated for a British Empire Medal for her service to the community. That
made an indelible impression on Sally to continue contributing to the common good in her role
as an educator.
When she was young, Cathy attended Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok,
Thailand and graduated from there. Service has always been a part of the school culture there.
Therefore, Cathy grew up learning through service experiences. She thought the reason she is
motivated to facilitate service-learning still today is that she "finds children very inspiring - they
give her reason to be an educator."
Motivation – passion and purpose. Maria said although she had no formal training,
having an authentic purpose behind teaching motivated her to use the vehicle of service-learning
to teach social studies:
I think just slowly over time that's when I needed to learn about service-learning and the
intentionality of it that [in] any good teaching there has to be real purpose behind why
you are doing what you are doing, or why are you even doing it?
Will described a student who initiated a service project about the Union Carbide chemical release
accident in Bhopal, India that grew into a community-wide advocacy campaign. Will observed
his student build on the spark of her initial idea through her research and investigation, expand
the program and eventually connect with the author of a play on the Bhopal disaster to put on an
original performance. Will told me his students motivate him, "These kinds of things where you

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have students who have this kind of ambition really made me motivated to want to nurture the
natural desires in people to do good." The passion in students drives Will’s motivation.
Motivation – movement consciousness. Although Cathy says this indirectly, she and
other service-learning educators seemed to be motivated by a sense of being part of something
larger than themselves – larger than their individual calling, their communities, or their schools
(Stanton, Giles & Cruz, 1999, p. 243). This finding of “movement consciousness” supports
earlier research by Stanton, Giles & Cruz (1999, p. 243) that culminates in a list of
characteristics of pioneer service-learning educators at the collegiate level. Both Carrie and
Cathy identified as changemakers, as well: being part of social and political struggles,
particularly civil rights. Carrie replied to the question of what motivates you as, "Outrage!"
Carrie explained:
It’s just not fair that some kids have, and some kids don’t. That some places are clean,
and some are filthy. And I think it's a moral obligation for those with to understand those
without and do something about it. Get off their ass and move.
She later said her middle school students are outraged, too. "They're outraged. They want to be
in control of some things. So be in control of doing something good for somebody else," Carrie
said, “be part of a social movement; of social change.”
Sid, Cathy, Carrie, Will and Anders also displayed “environmental-movement
consciousness” through their work with students outside of the classroom and in natural
environments. Whether in waste management (annual coastal cleanups were guided by Sid,
Cathy, and Maria), campus recycling (facilitated by all study participants on their campuses and
in their communities), rainforest nursery work and reforestation (facilitated by Sid and done on
Sally’s campus), organic vegetable gardening and composting, vermiculture and general

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gardening (common to most schools in the study in various states of progression), coastal
conservation (facilitated by Cathy and members of Sid’s and Carrie’s schools), nature
appreciation (facilitated by all interviewees), biodiversity preservation (all), climate change
abatement (facilitated by all) and the Global Goals (SDGs by Anders, Cathy, Carrie and Sally)
focused on environmental quality and life.
Anders and Sid explained that environmental service-learning is much more than outdoor
adventure or experiential education, alone. Students make contributions by volunteering their
time, research energy and brawn to improve, mitigate, recycle, restore, conserve and advocate for
the preservation endangered ecosystems, advocate for divestment from fossil fuel companies
(starting at Sid’s school), and promote alternative energy (photovoltaic solar panels at Sid’s
school) and energy efficiency (innovative light boxes made by a service partner for sale at
Sally’s school, GINergy committee at Sid’s school working to reduce loss of cool air escaping
from 23 campus computer server rooms).
Motivation – changemakers. Changemakers are folks who desire change in the world
and by gathering knowledge and resources make change happen. It is motivating to call oneself
a changemaker. As stated earlier, both Cathy and Carrie proudly identified as changemakers.
Cathy described when sees her students excited about a success that they have achieved, it means
a whole lot to her. Further, "If a student is sparked because of an idea or tool she has introduced
or something that they have all experienced that that is most meaningful to me" Cathy explained.
She said she received personal fulfillment of being part of a movement and that she could make a
change. "We are the change makers who could influence the mindset of our students and hope
that the world will be a more sustainable, better place because we have kind of mess it up."

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Motivation – civics education. Maria served as a role model in civics education while
she was a teacher in the United States. She explained that her motivation to engage in service-
learning is inextricably linked to her teaching:
My biggest motivation and I would say -- Okay, so I've got two major motivations as to
why I am a teacher and I can't separate out the service-learning from why I teach, I just
can't. If this means that I am somehow deviant in my reasons for teaching, my ethos, it is
because I fully believe in the idea of citizenship. I feel like, especially as a social studies
teacher, I am doing a disservice to the world, I am doing a disservice to the community if
I don't teach students how to become active participants of society, which means they
have to be engaged. How else am I going to engage them unless I get them involved in
the community? How am I going to get them involved in the community? To get them to
care about the community. How am I going to get them to care about the community? Get
them into the community. How am I going to get them into the community? Through
service. I can't do what I want to do as an educator in the kinds of students I want to see
graduate. The kind of students I want to see inheriting the world unless I do service. I
cannot achieve my goal as an educator unless I do service. It just won't happen.
Maria makes a reasonable claim that as a social studies teacher the idea of citizenship is
foundational to the study of humanities; citizenship requires action. For example, the new
American based, College, Career and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies (C3) curriculum
(adopted by Maria’s school) has been designed to add rigor by building critical thinking,
problem solving and participatory skills to become engaged citizens. In order to motivate
students, who are naturally curious about the complex, multifaceted world they inhabit, C3 has a
built in “take action” components. In Maria’s perspective, the future of our democracy is at

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stake. “Young people”, Maria explains, “deserve high quality social studies education in order
to learn the responsibilities of active citizenship.” Maria’s motivation as a master service-
learning educator is woven into her pedagogy and personal experience facilitating students’
learning through engagement in community service projects.
Motivation – value and benefits of service-learning. A significant motivator was
knowing the value and benefits that their pre-collegiate students receive from learning to be
global citizens through interdisciplinary experiential learning, focused on the SDGs and
reciprocal in nature. Carrie said, "we are doing it for the benefit for our students and who they
will become one day when we teach them how to use their privilege, their power, their
opportunity that might change the world." In their perspective this intrinsic motivation sets
effective service-learning educators apart from traditional teachers. Not everyone, including the
school leadership in some of the schools, apparently values service-learning. Conventional
teachers who display a lack of motivation may be a problem. Maria mentioned it would be
helpful to place as much value on collaborative and community problem solving, as to
competition on sports trips and MUN and debate at her school:
So, we are valuing competition but not problem-solving and collaboration. And that's I
guess what I mean when I talk about until the leadership values this kind of education, it's
just not, we're not going to see the shift in the culture of the school dramatically, and
teachers aren't going to be willing to put themselves out there until they are either told to
do it, or they see the value of it themselves.
Master service-learning educators in this study have learned about this pedagogy through
professional development opportunities described above (Cathy Berger Kaye, Compass Ed,
AmeriCorps, IB CAS workshops, conferences, NGOs and experts in the field). Sid said, “The

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rewards are more the growth in your character and the warm feelings you get from helping other
people." Maria had an idea - to prompt motivation in students and teachers to engage more
regularly and deeply in community service – schools need to better recognize students engaged
in service, for example, "best globee" for Global Issues Network delegates. As for the adults,
she suggested:
There are a variety of human beings on this campus that are really dedicated to their
service with co-curriculum and to have them recognized as mentors. To have them win a
scholarship or give them a scholarship, to have that skill base actually picked out and
focused on might be a good start for other faculty members to realize, "Oh, that’s pretty
cool.
Sally explained that her motivation was driven by her school's values and ethos. As well as the
benefits of “knowing about other communities and feeling sameness in that that you not doing to
others, but we are all part of this big evolving piece." She said being honest with herself, "it
brings enormous benefit, joy and positivity, and a haunting drive as well to do more with her
kids and family to be part of that discussion." There are benefits for the students regarding
wholeness of their educational experience. She remarked it is sometimes elusive albeit powerful:
Sometimes you feel like we're holding water regarding our values and our ethos and the
water is just going through our hands. But at least you can have those touchstones, and
you can come back, you can always bring it back to that especially in the international
paradigm, you've got this oneness that most definitely comes into play should
conversation, positivity, master community, reasons to bring the community and it’s not
just about one's self, but it is celebratory, and it's also, you know this aspirational
positivity piece I think is really powerful.

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Motivation killers. All is not always rosy for teachers steeped in leading service-
learning. Will described how sometimes administrators don't realize that, "when teachers get
stressed that they can't function effectively and then they do not want to do the things they know
they can handle." He went on to describe teachers who are over-worked or are insufficiently
trained often receive inadequate system and strategic support in this area from school
administrators. If the administrators have not yet developed the understanding of the value of
service-learning, they may be blind to the work of teacher leaders in service-learning. According
to Barker and Franklin (2017) despite evidence to the contrary, such learning is perceived to be
cost prohibitive and to take precious time away from teaching academic content and preparing
for high-stakes testing. Overcoming these challenges requires attention to essential steps in
program implementation through dissemination, adoption, evaluation, and support for
sustainability of programming and teacher-leaders of the long-haul.
Study participants also described some of the drawbacks to the practice of service-
learning if not done well. Pragmatic drawbacks have in some cases disrupted masters’
motivation and certainly have led to frustration. Anders described service-learning is done
wrong by teachers who, "model privileged, neo-colonialist behavior while interacting with who
they perceive as poor, unfortunate, disadvantaged service partners." Anders is frustrated by the
relative “lack of administrative accountability for untrained or unmotivated, uncaring
conventional teachers who are still put in charge of leading service-learning with students.”
Maria warned that over-involvement or using a heavy-handed approach is the antithesis of the
service-learning movement. Student voice and choice is key. Empowerment is the foundation of
the work. Maria said of teachers, "one needs to learn to let some things go, and to resist

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controlling everything." Guidance from an experienced adult may reduce the risk of service-
learning doing more harm than good as Maria describes can put a damper on motivation:
Right, or do they have a misunderstanding of what service is? Is their idea of service
really being, "I'm going to go out and do this one-day thing?" Or they do volunteerism?
And they think their one day visiting, or think that while on vacation, I go visit an
orphanage, and I play with this child for one day, and I bring them toys, or I donate
money, that I've somehow made a difference when you may have actually done more
harm than good.
Research Question 3:
How the School's Mission, Vision, and Philosophy of Service-Learning Affects Masters
Theme 6 – Organizational Support and Systemic Alignment Matters.
Organizational support – is it written? An element that varied widely among study
participants was if they felt connected and cared for in a contributing role in their international
school. In some of the study schools it was expected that one would participate in service. In
others, it was wholly voluntary. Whether or not there were service-learning competency-based
progressions, customized pathways, flexible learning times and spaces were components linked
back to the overarching school ethos. If an ethos of contributing to the common good was
written in its mission, vision or values statements then benefits for student learning were in
place. Guiding statements that imply systematic integration of service-learning varied in the
schools of the study participants. All but one of the international study schools had an ethos of
civic-mindedness in which students contribute to the common good somehow written in their
mission, vision or value statements. Maria remarked of her school in which there is no mention
of civic-mindedness in the mission, vision or value statements:

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"I can't wrap my brain around it other than it speaks volumes about the leadership's vision
of their goals for the graduate profile of this is the type of student and the skills that we
want them to graduate with, and that service is not part of that profile or is not the right
type of service. We are not graduating global citizens the way I would define a global
citizen. We are graduating globally elite students, who are highly capable, highly skilled,
intelligent, involved, dedicated, but not necessarily civic-minded.
In agreement with Maria’s sentiment, yet in a situation on the other end of the spectrum in a
school centrally focused on service-learning, Sally found herself thinking that students would not
develop broad civically-minded critical thinking skills if service-learning were not written into
the school's mission. Sally said if an ethos of service-learning were not written, there might be
merely pockets of it, but in her school, “right from the School Board on down any innovative
educational initiative can be done as long as it is connected to that ethos.” Kaye (1999) says
"language defines culture," Carrie, in whose school mission and vision the philosophy is written,
feels Kaye is right on that front. How can a school sustain a culture of service, civic-mindedness
and contributing to the common good if there is no language to define, support and account for
it?
Organizational support – are we on the same page? When study participants were
asked if they felt their school was on the same page as themselves philosophically and
pedagogically compared to their own worldview in regard to service-learning education, the
answer appeared to depend on two (possibly interrelated) factors: (1) their current schools’
foundational service-learning ethos and (2) teacher burn out. In other words, their “same page”
answers depended on the level of organizational support as well as the relative level of teacher
stress experienced in their service coordinator jobs. The data showed that if a service-learning

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ethos was written into their school's mission and vision it had a positive impact, and study
participants were on the same page, unless there were perceived administrative and
organizational management issues. If not, then it had a negative impact on both master service-
learning teachers who felt they were not on the same page philosophically as their school’s
mission. Furthermore, these same study participants said it negatively impacted the full potential
of all students meeting desired student learning outcomes.
Maria, from AIS in Singapore (with no written mention of service ethos in its mission,
vision or value statements) replied to the “same page” question emphatically with, "No. A big
no!" Maria suggested that she firmly believes, "it is possible at her school, but it would require
the leadership to see the value." She doubted they [the leadership] would see the value “unless
they either experience for themselves or if the community and the students push it.” Maria said
she thought that service-learning would become a sustainable part of the written curriculum if
her school had a Board of Governors that says, "we want this" or if “students somehow make the
school realize the value that the shift will happen albeit a long and arduous process.” And Maria
said she has hope:
. . . but man, you talk about how amazing with the resources that the school has, the type
of educators and level of professionalism and dedication to their students, students’ own
dedication and connections that students and parents have. . . Oh, God, you talk about
how it can be powerful for our school, and it can be powerful for the world because these
kids are going to move into positions of power as adults.
Anders (Service Learning Coordinator and former IB CAS Coordinator from BICS in Thailand,
a school with a tradition of service learning, global citizenship and civic engagement written into
its mission, vision and value statements) replied to the “same page” question with, "No.

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Definitely not." He mentioned, “When Catherine Berger Kaye was traveling the world two to
three years ago service-learning was the thing.” But, he said his school was now rapidly
changing, perhaps too rapidly. Recently Andres' school timetable changed to remove half of the
lunch period and service meetings stopped because after school activities times were already full.
He felt now "not all of the students at his school see and experience it." He said in a rather
anguished way about his school program, "I sit there, and I have no idea what we're trying to do
anymore." It sounds like a case of initiative overload – a common pitfall for independent
international schools. Sid remarked he would really love to see service "built into his school's
curriculum more thoughtfully and more upfront that kind of just levered in a place or two. In
content-heavy courses, it may not work well but for elective courses, it would". He said the
logistics would be difficult and the politics probably even more difficult.
Study participants who said they were on the same page as their school mission, vision
and philosophy also reported they thought their whole community was very supportive. Sally
(Head of Service and Global Concerns from GCS-CS in Singapore) replied to my “same page”
query, "Oh, no question. It is absolutely; it is a school about creating leaders and the mission and
vision guide that." Will (IB CAS Coordinator from HTIS in Singapore) replied, "I want to say
100% [on the same page], but for the most part, I feel like a lot of things we do as a school I
cannot agree with, I cannot take part in." I believe he meant he was not a stakeholder brought to
the leadership table on major curriculum initiatives based on the mission and vision, rather than
describing his own refusal to take part in the things. Will evidently wants to have more input but
is rarely brought to the decision table. The development of Will's school's vision statement was
"done through a collaborative school process that involved all stakeholders, students, teachers
and parents, and then, later on, they revised their mission statement." He said they periodically

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revisit their mission statement. He incorporates phrases from the school's written statements
such as making a difference and global citizenship, in his writing and he believes it is "important
for a school to have those ideals under what they do and to ensure their involvement relates to
what it says on the wall."
Betsy (CAS Coordinator from GTIS in Thailand) stated that her school recently changed
its mission and vision statements. She recounted phrases from it, "getting our students to be
caring global citizens" and "creating authentic learning opportunities" and "enriching
communities" and said, "the statements say clearly who they are as a school culture." As well,
her school has a "set of eight values including gratitude, caring, responsibility, integrity – all
things fit service-learning perfectly.” Cathy (also from BICS in Thailand) exclaimed, "I feel like
the message's there, the support is there that way. . . [Therefore], any service learning project,
you could argue, fits into the curriculum because it fits those things in our mission, vision, and
value."
Organizational support – systemic alignment and articulation. The data showed that
study schools who possessed systemic, school-wide curriculum standards and programing for
service-learning also possessed service-learning ethos written into the schools’ mission and
vision and value statements. Sally described that years ago her school had no written standards,
assessments or desired student learning outcomes for service learning; yet her school’s beacon
was “global citizenship through service-learning.” After reflection, Sally recalled, academic
leaders at her school saw the gap, recommended changes and worked collaboratively with the
leadership team to create a rather a cumbersome alignment process. She said it was a huge job
albeit holistically successful in constructing a service-learning standards policy, which was

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recently completed at her school: I wrote in my memo journal that it makes Sally overtly [and
understandably] proud.
For us to, we’ve just written our service curriculum at the end of the last academic year,
so we’ve gone through a big service, sorry, we’ve gone through a big articulation process and
that was brought on by the, our sister campus and with our bits of paper and again, that
professionalization of how the document and the curriculum and so on, and we were
predominantly giving that throughout our sister campus, so there you go, but there weren’t
enough people there to actually explain it on a day to day basis of what that looked like, so it
didn’t look like very much, but we’ve been operating for 40 odd years and so here was the big
need for us to go through this process, the scales go articulation.
After describing initial friction among service-learning leaders, eventually, everyone was on the
same page, speaking the same language. Sally said they met to discuss, brought action research to the
table and then documented the curriculum vertically. According to Sally, the process happened due to
leadership seeing the value in service-learning.
Conversely, Maria remarked of her school, "If leadership doesn't value service-learning then
neither do the teachers and neither do the students." At Maria's school the newly adopted C3 social
studies curriculum is supposed to have a take action piece, however, because it is a Professional Learning
Community (PLC) school, she finds a drawback that there is no administrative accountability to ensure
PLC teams integrate service action into their curriculum and instruction:
"I think as a PLC since everything is done as a group, and I will speak from my own experience.
Here I am as someone who truly believes in service learning, and yet I can't in my own classroom
provide my student's opportunities for service learning when the rest of my PLC doesn't value it,
and the rest of my PLC doesn't value it because they have never done it. They haven't done it
because no one has put the expectation on them that they are to offer it. It’s never been part of the
focus. It’s never been part of the mission. It's never been a priority, and when it's not a priority,

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and we know how difficult it is to create these opportunities. We know that it does require work
and while it is rewarding, it's enriching, it changes who you are as a teacher, and it changes who
the student is as a learner, and as a person, and it changes your relationship that you have with
students when you've had those experiences together, but until you've experienced that, you don't
know that. Until someone had said, "This is a priority or an expectation." It's not going to happen,
and when you do everything as a group, one person can't make it happen until you can convince
the rest of them. I cannot convince the rest of them because they don't see the value and they see
it as more work, and it's not worth it. I'm asking too much of them, and it's not required. There is
no stipend for it; it's not written as it is in the curriculum, even though it's there. I teach social
studies, we are now C3 framework, it says take action, and it is the last thing to be considered,
and there is no real take action. And if we are to do take action, their idea of taking action is that
we will do something in a way that allows them to showcase their work to other students, not to
the community.
Maria’s statement sheds light on large international PLC schools, whose administrators may not
have their finger on the pulse of some PLC workings. The lack of explicit administrative expectation and
accountability measures to ensure that humanities PLCs write civic-action elements into C3 curriculum
and roll out civic-action activities using a student-centered approach is a roadblock to systemic alignment.
Systematic alignment is vital in schools K-12 to provide students a dependable timetable for
service meetings and execution of service activities with partners after school, on weekends and during
holiday breaks. Carrie described how they had mapped it across her school, so they don't have a clash for
students or teachers: “On Monday it is music and academic clubs, Tuesday it is officially campus service,
Wednesday's leadership and Thursdays global service, Fridays are community days for advocacy and
fun.” Carrie and her assistant officer are available to walk the corridors during global service days and
look for learning, touch base with all projects in one lunch hour. She sees kids typically in four little
subcommittees within their global service groups (as modeled by Kaye): indirect service (fundraising and
donation drives), direct service (service trips, Skype sessions), advocacy (pamphlets, surveys, and

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assemblies), and research (SDGs, finding materials for inspiration). Carrie reports it has been a big win
for teachers, "You're still teaching. You are teaching citizenship and service. . Yes, oh, I can teach." She
tells teachers to take out their typical teaching tools and apply them through that lens. Study participants
perspectives and experiences show a connection between whether or not service-learning ethos is written
into the mission, vision and values statements, and the extent and quality of organizational support,
systemic alignment of standards and assessments in service-learning curriculum, instruction, leadership,
accountability, resource distribution and opportunities available to the student body.
Organizational support – dream school. Cathy explained when I asked if she could create a
dream school, “the mission would describe a value-based curriculum engaging students with the local and
global community working towards a sustainable future." In her opinion, Cathy believed that academic
subjects were important (all study participants agreed). Academic subject knowledge, Cathy explained,
“is precious because they are the pillars of us understanding the world, but that we are lacking connection
between the subjects." Going to the extreme and not having any subjects would be imbalanced as well,
she said, but more interdisciplinary units across the curriculum would be helpful in Cathy's perspective.
Will's dream was to teach out of an airplane. Seriously. Will said he wished to “travel to field study sites
with students to learn in real time together with diverse communities in varied environments.” Will’s
idea has merit, especially with today’s blended-learning, fully digital and virtual school innovations.
Donors will be needed to fund the expense of having an airplane to travel from culture to culture, but it
may be worth it to swap out bricks and mortar in one economically developed nation like Singapore, to
instead travel, like semester at sea, to societies, environments and cultures to learn new languages, build
relationships and fill community needs.
Conclusion
This study has found there are universal pedagogies, character traits, skills and talents of master
service-learning educators as scholars, relationship builders, visionaries, coaches, bridge-builders,
activists with movement consciousness, empathetic and passionate modelers; roadblock removers, student
empowerers and so forth. Universal pedagogical strategies to deepen learning such as: intentionality,

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applying the five stages of service learning, character and cultural competence development, Compass
Education, Systems Thinking, Sustainable Development Goals are used by master service-learning
educators in this study to help their students learn.
Six significant themes emerge from the data: (1) In order to innovate the richest and most
meaningful service-learning experiences to help international, third cultural students in Southeast Asia
learn and develop empathy, cultural competence and self-authorship it requires well-trained service-
learning educators with deep knowledge of service-learning pedagogy, (2) skills to build relationships
with a variety of people in a plethora of settings give service-learning educators the ability to navigate and
guide students’ authentic community service in multiple settings, (3) personal traits of humility, empathy
and being visionary matter, (4) talents to work closely, albeit as a guide to empower teenage students
helps to develop their self-authorship matter. (5) Intrinsic motivation to develop global citizens matters.
Master service-learning educators share a culture of intentionality. Intentionality of these practitioners
shows they are intrinsically motivated and committed to prompt learners to become part of a social
movement – to be change makers. (6) Organizational support and systemic alignment matters for master
service-learning educators to guide a comprehensive service-learning program. The greater the
institutionalization of learning opportunities associated with service-learning the greater the possibility of
student’s building relationships and making connections to their academic learning, community members,
service partners, teachers, peers and self-authorship.
Furthermore, the fewer logistics and recordkeeping details that leaders of service-learning must
attend to, the greater the focus and concentration on doing what they do best, namely guiding service-
learning and the less likely they are to experience burn out. The master service-learning educators in this
study possessed all the qualities of servant leaders (Keith, 2012) and activists who, as secondary teachers,
work with passion and purpose to motivate and teach the next generation just as they have been motivated
and taught.
Conceptual Framework

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The graphic shown in Fig. 2 below has been designed to illustrate the interconnection of the
findings; it is the induced conceptual framework grounded in the empirical data of this study. Inside each
of three overlapping rings of the Venn diagram is written one significant theme of how master service-
learning educators help their students learn, through organizational support, shared exemplary knowledge,
skills, traits and talents with intentionality and motivation as master service-learning educators (MSLE)
who consistently and effectively negotiate time and resources and innovate instructional practices for
their students’ experiential learning. Three themes in the Venn diagram shown in Figure 2 (below).
1. Shared knowledge, skills, traits and talents as master service-learning educators,
leaders and experts in the pedagogies of character development, self-authorship
and cultural competence via contributing to the common good.
2. Shared and unshared cultures of organizational support around whether service-
learning is written in the school mission, vision, values or not. Including ways of
negotiating resource and time allocation within. The amount and effectiveness of
organizational support impacted MSLE job satisfaction and the depth and breadth
of desired student service-learning outcomes.
3. A shared culture of motivation and intentionality to make service-learning work
through collaboration, belief in values-based education for 21
st
Century learners,
social and environmental sustainability, social justice and peace.
Right in the middle inside the Venn diagram is the central grounded theory induced by this
research study. Personalized student service-learning is the crux of the practice. On a set of x- and y-
axes, student learning increases on the x-axis. Engagement in meaningful service increases on the y-axis.
Plotted as a continuum from the origin, increasing in relative quantity (of students reached) and
importance to ensuring student learning are, (a) voluntary, co-curricular (service-learning), (b) curricular
and co-curricular (service-learning), (c) written into the mission and vision (service-learning ethos),

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followed by (d) systemic alignment (K-12) at the top. An arrow, plotted at a 45-degree angle leading
upwards at a constant linear slope, is labeled "depth of connection and student learning."
The arrow indicates connections between cognitive learning (assessed through formative and
summative internal and external examinations), personal learning (empathy, caring and compassion),
social learning (a sense of maturity and self-authorship), and civic learning (initiatives, good citizenship,
integrity, working collaboratively) (A. Green, personal communication, 2016). As well, there is a
connection between the number of students involved in service-learning and the depth of organizational
support for service-learning; this study has found a positive correlation between these two variables – as
systemic alignment increases so do the number of students learning through meaningful service action.
Analysis of my data shows that as Southeast Asian international MSLEs and their students build
relationships and make connections in their local, regional and global communities students have an
opportunity to learn by taking meaningful action to improve the common good. Through experiential
service-learning concepts in civics, environmental systems, science, technology, engineering, art,
mathematics (STEAM) and sustainable development may be learned, while being constantly connected to
what it means to be a self-authored, civically engaged global citizen.

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Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
Southeast Asian International School Master Service-Learning Educators’ (MSLE) Perspectives on How
Service-Learning Helps Students Learn

Service-learning practitioners, the masters in this study, have worked collaboratively with their
secondary students to lead programs across disciplines of independent, international schools in
Southeast Asia. All are advocates, all practice the basic ideals of service-learning pedagogy.
Nevertheless, although there is broad reach, there are roadblocks in some schools and for some
students. In some cases, this pedagogy has flourished in sufficiently supportive schools to be viewed
MSLE
Organizational Support
MSLE
Knowledge,
Skills, Traits
& Talents

MSLE Motivation
Student Learning
Depth of Connections and Student Learning

Voluntary
Co-curricular
Curricular &
Co-curricular
Systemic
Alignment
K-12
Written into
Mission & Vision
Engagement in
Meaningful Service
Student Learning:

¨ Critical thinking
¨ Communication
¨ Teamwork
¨ Civic responsibility
¨ Global
understanding and
citizenship
¨ Academic
development and
educational success
¨ Self-authorship

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as mainstream. In other schools this pedagogy has been adapted to survive within institutional and
organizational constraints. Although all schools in the study support service-learning in some form,
the amount of institutional and organizational support varies, thus the data show that master service-
learning educators have had to hone negotiation skills to lobby for (1) facilities usage, (2) budget
support, especially for service trips, (3) release time to facilitate students’ progression through the
five stages of service-learning, (4) quantity and quality of service-learning leadership positions and
facilities, and so forth.
Why may this be so? Questions related to service-learning’s connection to both knowledge and
the study schools’ intra and extra community relationships and development exist. Questions on
whether voluntary service should be recorded, assessed, accounted for and awarded or recognized
exist. Questions on whether too much time may be taken away from disciplinary core curriculum
learning for service-learning exist. As well, several new questions arose from analysis of challenges
reported by participants concerning the relative reach of their schools' service-learning. (1) Is the
service-learning program institutionalized within the independent international school of the study
participant? (2) If so, is the running of the program effective and efficient for all stakeholders? (3)
Are service-learning-specific learning outcomes in place? (4) Is curriculum developed through
design of innovative curricula and personalized instructional strategies that will benefit all students?
(5) Is there kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) alignment in the service-learning goals, standards,
curriculum, instruction and assessment of students’ learning and program effectiveness? (6) Will the
broader community of local and international service partners equally benefit from the interactions
among all stakeholders involved in reciprocal service-learning? The next chapter will discuss
implications for practice and possible solutions to some of these dilemmas.

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CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, and RECOMMENDATIONS
The first two chapters of this dissertation discussed the historical characteristics and efficacy of
service-learning educators and their programs (Austin, Vogelgesang, Ikeda & Yee, 2000; Stanton, Giles
and Cruz, 1999; Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007) commensurate with desired student service-learning
outcomes (Astin & Sax,1998; Gallagher & McGorry, 2015; Kaye, 2010; Prentice & Robinson, 2010;
Pizzolato, 2005). The aim was to fill the gap in the literature on the educator and international school
situation characteristics related to service-learning and pedagogical techniques of successful international
school service-learning educators who help students learn and gain self-authorship.
The research questions were answered through the examination of the findings based on semi-
structured open interviews and artifact analysis. Six themes emerged from the master teacher’s
perspectives on how service-learning educators help students learn: (1) Knowledge of service-learning
pedagogy matters, (2) skilled relationship building matters, (3) traits of humility, empathy and being
visionary matters, (4) talent in advancement of student empowerment matters, (5) motivation to develop
global citizens matters, (6) organizational support and systemic alignment matters. In this section, I will
discuss insights raised by my investigation, followed by study implications and recommendations.
Discussion
Empirical data from this study provided insight into the educator and situation characteristics and
pedagogical practices of eight master service-learning educators (MSLEs) within six independent
international schools in Southeast Asia from Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand which are engaged to
various degrees in the 21
st
Century school reform movement. In participants’ perspectives, service-
learning is central to the school reform movement as a means to learn core competencies, inquiry,
analysis, research, creative expression, empathy, reflection, the value of diversity inclusion, global
citizenship, relationship building and leadership.
Key to school transformation is the need to reconceive the role of teachers and revise the
relationship between teachers and students. This study shows, in particular, there is a specific need to
reconceive of service-learning educators’ roles – as multi-faceted professionals in danger of burn out, and

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student relationships – as highly engaged guides on the side as students take the lead. Michael Fullan and
Maria Langworthy (2013) describe recent school reform through their research on New Pedagogies of
Deep Learning (NPDL), a new model of learning partnerships between student and teacher aiming toward
deep goals and enabled by pervasive digital access, self-directed, independent learners capable of
managing their own learning. This study supports Fullan and Langworthy’s work; learning partnerships
are core elements in service-learning and point the way toward student self-authorship; pervasive digital
access is a given in well-to-do international schools.
In fact, digital access in Southeast Asian international schools has allowed them to create service
webpages, Blogs, Google folders, files, docs, forms, spreadsheets (autocratted), Facebook pages,
messenger posts, WhatsApp group posts, Instagram posts and so forth to communicate, organize and for
reference in service organizations. Digital assess is a fluid means by which AIS and all schools and their
students engage through service; (1) by teaching English to Cambodian students through the service
organization, Tassel, and (2) by GIN students creating their digital divide committee to design curricula to
teach village Indonesian students how to use personal computer tools and applications. (3) Digital
Frontiers and Migrant Workers Outreach Program (MWOP) in the mid 2000’s provided free computer
basics workshops for primarily Philippina helpers. As well, my study verifies school reform research by
McGrath and Martinez of Worldwatch Institute (2017, p.138) that illustrates effective educators seek to
empower students as learners, so they can direct their own learning.
Are master service-learning educators supermen or wonder women? No, they're human. It
should be noted that either exhaustion or cynicism or both exists especially in study participants who
reported being burnt out. Andres, Carrie and Will reported being burned out by expending substantial
emotional capital in their jobs for years. What to do? There may be workarounds by greater attention of
administrators to provide teacher-leaders guiding service-learning more release time and institutional
resources. Although a tension exists in all schools surrounding prioritization of (a) expenditures, (b)
teacher-leader positions and (c) facilities creation, international school administrators may benefit from a
close look into the values and benefits of service-learning when considering strategic plans, mission,

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vision and values statements revision, resource allocation and future directions. Given that burn out
exists among a minority of study participants, and frustrations exist over the relative lack of emphasis on
service-learning in some schools – optimism and idealism over cynicism has fueled master service-
learning educators. Maria, Sid, Sally, Cathy and Betsy remain hopeful and optimistic. Anders will
always be a self-professed idealist with a penchant for creating innovative new projects. It is the day-to-
day management of students' service-learning and all it entails that can drag teacher leaders like Anders,
Will and Carrie down. Regardless, masters inspire and give people the courage to be idealistic and to use
that as a motivating force.
Although I chose to study how MSLEs in Southeast Asian international schools help students
learn, the sum of data that emerged from the study seemed to indicate that in terms of the proportion of
students impacted by broad-reaching, vetted service-learning programs, organizational support or the
lack thereof in mission, vision and value statements and school ethos, were more influential determiners
of effective system-wide student-learning through service action, than the masters themselves. The
interview data indicated that flourishing service-learning educators may be remarkably similar in different
international schools in Southeast Asia. Study participants shared common thinking, motivation and
skills, hence differences in school culture and schools’ philosophical orientation do not equate to
differences in service-learning educator expertise. This early data verifies Jennings and Skovholt’s 2016
findings on characteristics and practices of master psychotherapists from a variety of cultures. Jennings
and Skovholt’s data showed common personal characteristics and practices among master-
psychotherapists, although study participants had each originated from a unique culture and then practiced
in a variety of different cultures.
To qualify as having functional organizational support for service-learning, this study found the
following practices from the participants’ perspectives: the school’s philosophy, mission, vision, core
values statements, grade level curriculum standards and assessment systems, teacher accountability and
remuneration systems, administrator accountability systems, social, political and community buy-in and
systems in place for recognition of the value and benefits of service-learning.

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Organizational support for service-learning looks like:
• It mattered deeply to the school leaders.
• It mattered to the school community to develop deep and broad desired student
service-learning outcomes, curriculum standards and performance rubrics,
especially character development and cultural competence.
• It mattered and there was willingness for stakeholders to collaborate in the draft,
of a guiding vision for a service-learning ethos.
It mattered to distribute fair and balanced appropriation of international school resources
(time, funding, facilities, communication, professional development training, leadership
positions) toward managing student service-learning, civic engagement, values education
and cultural competence with partnerships in the school, local, regional and global
community.
Implications and Recommendations for Practice
This study focused on understanding how service-learning educators help third culture
international school students learn. Four implications for practice and recommendations can be drawn
from my research results: (1) define a vision of service-learning, (2) create flexible structures where
service-learning can take place, (3) strengthen the capacity of school leadership to shape practices toward
service-learning among faculty, and (4) prioritize, even institutionalize the double-helix of academic
success and well-being by providing values and character education (Cheng, 2018) and foster relationship
building while contributing to the common good.
Define a vision of service-learning. The debate on whether or not to institutionalize service-
learning in schools continues as depicted by master service-learning educators from various schools in my
study. The first implication is based on finding an unapologetic compromise to this debate: define a
vision of service-learning for third culture students in international schools. On one end of the

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continuum of Southeast Asian international schools in this study lie voluntary, co-curricular service-
learning experiences in international schools with no reference to the ethos of service-learning or
contributing to the common good in their mission, vision and value statements offered by schools. On the
other end of the continuum are compulsory, curricular and co-curricular service-learning based on
intentionally written service-learning ethos in mission, vision and value statements and curriculum
standards and competencies to support teaching and learning. Considering the reported burn out
(exhaustion and frustration) of three study participants who work in schools that require service, perhaps
the most effective approach lies somewhere in the middle. At the very least it is recommended that
schools adopt a vision for service-learning, whether or not student participation is voluntary.
Voluntary service-learning programs can undoubtedly ensure that some of the motivated students
have trained teachers to guide them through their experiential learning and self-authorship. However, the
puzzle exists that in voluntary programs, students may be missed. How many students may miss service-
learning pedagogy in voluntary programs? It could be hundreds of privileged third culture students will
graduate without ever genuinely and meaningfully engaging in service-learning and gaining benefits from
it. Some students will avail of deep voluntary involvement all four years of high school, however for
many students, service-learning experiences may pop up here and there, but without full accounting
mechanisms in place in voluntary programs, hundreds may either be missed altogether or worse engage in
service work done wrong. This study found that organizational resources of time, funds, leadership
positions and professional development may not be forthcoming for voluntary programs in schools
without explicit vision statements in support of civic engagement through service-learning.
Inexperienced teachers may not receive proper, adequate and of-the-minute training on service-learning
or systems thinking pedagogy. Therefore, it is recommended for all international schools to reflect on
approaches, policies, and standards by defining and adopting a guiding vision on service-learning.
Create flexible structures. The second implication addresses creating flexible structures where
service-learning can take place. It is recommended to establish organizational structures including work
flows, adequate times and venues for student planning meetings, times that do not complete with other

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after school activities for visits to local and regional service partners, times for overseas trips to engage in
sustained service and build deep relationships with service partners. It is further recommended to create
central service-learning campus office and storage spaces, provide adequate financial support, and ensure
trained personnel have accountability measures in place to buoy up the service-learning program at the
school. It is recommended that educators apply tight and loose service-learning guidelines (DuFour et al.,
2016). Tight guidelines to establish that every teacher will work collaboratively with colleagues and team
members to clarify; what is it we want our students to learn in terms of character, self-authorship and
cultural competence? Loose guidelines could entail how service-learning is done on a day-to-day basis;
that implementation is grounded in freedom to use tools to allow every stakeholder to contribute good
ideas to the process. Transparent accountability measures are recommended to ensure high quality
processes and outcomes for students and teachers.
Build capacity. The third implication focuses on capacity building. According to Fullan’s 2006
Change Theory, nothing will count unless people develop new capacities. It is the route to motivation.
Fullan suggests, adding positive pressure to motivate, be palpably fair, and provide reasonable resources
for capacity building. This will also help to balance the load on exemplary service-learning educators to
avoid burn out and shift it more toward all educators. Such balancing and capacity building is needed in
each of the schools studied. Burn out in the “gifted” service-learning portion of the faculty is a real
problem. Organizational support and professional development is needed to build capacity in service-
learning skills, traits and talents in faculty and administrators. The aim would be to increase individual
and collective effectiveness in terms of knowledge and competencies, resource provision and motivation
to facilitate character development and cultural competence through service-learning experiences.
Lateral capacity building in the Southeast Asian region occurs in pockets through Global
Citizenship Summits, GIN Conferences and EARCOS workshops in service-learning by Catherine Berger
Kaye and other consultants. Increased school-to-school lateral capacity building would improve service-
learning program and teacher quality and student opportunities. As well, vertically, K-12 permeable
connectivity through service-learning coaches and consultant-provided professional development would

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benefit educators. DuFour et al., (2016) suggests, as two schools in this study have done, developing
standards for service-learning, common formative assessments and rubrics for character and cultural
competence will improve practice.
Prioritize the double-helix of academic success and well-being. The fourth implication for
practice is for schools to prioritize the double-helix of academic success and well-being by providing
values and character education as well as model how to form relationships while contributing to the
common good. In a 2017 BBC article entitled, Why High-flying Singapore Wants More than Grades, Dr.
Lim Lai Cheng, Director of Singapore Management University (SMU) described a positive psychology
model by Dr. Martin Seligman, director of Positive Psychology Center at University of Pennsylvania.
His model advocates that academic success and well-being form a double helix, and that the best
schooling must include educating children on values and character, as well as how to interact well with
others (cultural competency), set goals for themselves (self-authorship), and work toward achieving those
goals.
Prioritizing program and teacher development on academic personalized learning, without an
overt focus on the provision of service-learning, may still leave faculty poorly trained on how to
appropriately guide and empower students to build relationships and develop cultural competence.
Master service-learning educators in my study have shown a giftedness to guide students and allow them
to lead because students want to and know community partners need them. Service action helps students
mature into self-authors.
Personalized learning in Catalyst type programs are hit and miss. Whereas, there may be training,
curriculum, standards and assessment in place for project-based learning, inquiry-based teaching and
learning, design thinking and personalized learning in schools, without an ethos of service-learning firmly
established there is a risk of graduating young adults with limited civic engagement experience, limited
tolerance for diversity and marginalized cultures, limited desire to be of service to others, and limited
desire to develop servant leadership qualities down the line in their careers. A chance exists that
attributes and competencies of global citizenship will not be created even in cognitively sharp,

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academically stellar graduates. Without an explicit emphasis on challenging students to make systematic
connections among U.N. SDGs and students’ current and future civic engagement, international schools
may risk graduating students who lack empathy, political tools or know how to apply ideals of social
justice and environmental sustainability in their lives. Independent, original, personalized student
projects in privileged schools without many empathetic connections between U.N. SDGs and their own
civic engagement may be devoid of education on human threats to social justice and sustainable
development. An aligned and articulated service-learning program will be likely to empower students to
willingly engage in their communities and the democratic process with purpose and passion.
If a school’s goal is to graduate young people prepared for the future in an increasingly changing
world, dedicated positions in schools for service-learning leaders are needed along with organizational
resources of time, facilities and standards to hold stakeholders accountable. Support systems and
accountability mechanisms are required, or sadly some learners may be prepared for their academic
futures and careers but not necessarily for their civic lives. Good intentions aren't enough. Students need
service-learning programming and someone to talk to – an informed teacher to help them out when they
are on their own. Rubin, (as excerpted by Stanton, Giles & Cruz, 1999, p. 47), goes further to say, "You
can still screw things up if you have a great support system and a wonderful faculty member to talk with,
and a set of terrific readings, but you're less apt to if you are focused on what needs to be learned as well
as the service to be provided." Well trained service-learning educators can provide the focused,
meaningful, authentic civic learning.
Conclusion
Collectively, participants in this study have described their motivations to practice service-
learning pedagogy as efforts to do the following: empower and build agency in students, facilitate
inquiry-based learning, oversee the acquisition of transferable skills, build cultural competence, develop
character, nurture empathy, prompt students to care, spark creativity, deepen academic content knowledge
and improve curriculum, instruction and change education all for the sake of student learning. Master
service-learning educators were found to be “movement conscious” (Stanton, Giles & Cruz, 1999, p. 243)

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 132

by being active in the service of something they believed in, which might not be in the classroom, but is
morally compelling, joyful and politically exciting. In common to each study participant is the belief they
and their students can be actively involved in contributing to the common good as a complement to their
intellectual work. The focal point of their work as educators is student learning; the means is through
service activities connected to academic work. John Dewey wrote back in 1893:
If I were asked to name the most needed of all reforms in the spirit of education, I should say,
cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of
the present life.
Master service-learning educators in this study seem to live by Dewey’s sentiment. Creating
experiential learning opportunities in communities while contributing to the common good is learning
about the present life, in the present life, for the present life. Educational systems in this study are
transforming with Dewey's ideal in mind, some faster than others. Service-learning masters see it as a
means of student development and a route to social change.
Recommendations for future research into master service-learning educators include gathering additional
teacher and administrator perception data from those experienced and new to service learning pedagogy,
as well as those with no interest in service-learning. A variety of research methods such as focus groups,
interviews, observations, case studies, and longitudinal studies could add to the body of research. Filming
on location those involved in a service project would help to bring the outside work into the teaching
community on campus to model what it takes to become a master. It is also recommended to gather
student perception data be via similar qualitative methods to gain insights into what motivates many of
them to move out of chronic disengagement.
In participants’ perspectives, service-learning is central to the school reform movement as a
means to learn core competencies, inquiry, analysis, research, creative expression, empathy, reflection,
and tolerance for diversity, relationship building and leadership. Key to the transformation is
reconceiving the role of teachers and revising the relationship between teachers and students. Fullan and
Langsworthy (2013) describe school reform through their research under the New Pedagogies of Deep

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 133

Learning (NPDL) umbrella as a new model of learning partnerships between student and teacher aiming
toward deep goals and enabled by pervasive digital access, self-directed, independent learners capable of
managing their own learning. This study supports the work of Fullan and Langsworthy in that learning
partnerships are core elements in service-learning and lead to self-authorship; pervasive digital access is a
given in well-to-do international schools. School reform research by McGrath and Martinez (2017,
p.138) of Worldwatch Institute also illustrates effective educators seek to empower students as learners,
so they can direct their own learning.
Are master service-learning educators supermen or wonder women? No, they're human. It
should be noted that either exhaustion or cynicism or both exists especially in study participants who
reported being burnt out. Andres, Carrie and Will reported being burned out by expending substantial
emotional capital in their jobs for years. What to do? There may be workarounds by greater attention of
administrators to provide teacher-leaders guiding service-learning more release time and institutional
resources. Although a tension exists in all schools surrounding prioritization of (a) expenditures, (b)
teacher-leader positions and (c) facilities creation, international school administrators may benefit from a
close look into the values and benefits of service-learning when considering strategic plans, mission,
vision and values statements revision, resource allocation and future directions. Given that burn out
exists among a minority of study participants, and frustrations exist over the relative lack of emphasis on
service-learning in some schools – optimism and idealism over cynicism has fueled master service-
learning educators. Maria, Sid, Sally, Cathy and Betsy remain hopeful and optimistic. Anders will
always be a self-professed idealist with a penchant for creating innovative new projects. It is the day-to-
day management of students' service-learning and all it entails that can drag teacher leaders like Anders,
Will and Carrie down. Regardless, masters inspire and give people the courage to be idealistic and to use
that as a motivating force.
At the forefront of transformative education, study participants used design thinking, systems
thinking and a personalized learning inquiry approach to (1) design competency-based progressions, (2)
customized pathways, and (3) flexible service-learning venues to prompt learners to question, investigate,

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 134

prototype, create, reflect and demonstrate in order to develop their own agency, self-authorship, curiosity,
and transferable skills. Service-learning educators working closely with students in myriad settings
sought to contextualize knowledge, so it is coherent and non-disjointed, isolated or taught in a vacuum, as
they helped students acquire understanding of content knowledge. Informants intentionally connected
learning to real problems, global issues and experiences to make learning meaningful and tangible for
students. By extending learning beyond the school, educators provided students with access to experts,
insights into marginalized populations and threatened ecosystems, opportunities to conduct authentic
needs analyses, avenues to contribute to their communities, and access to extended networks of civic
support and learning. The masters in this study gave students empowerment to personalize and customize
their own service-learning experiences to allow them to make connections between social change, natural
resource conservation, policy, worldviews and activism, leading ultimately to self-authorship. Crucially,
the establishment of strong relationships with students via coaching, but never controlling was found to
be the common means of facilitating students to pursue their own learning and unleash their energy and
intelligence for good.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 135

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APPENDICES
Appendix A: IRB Approval

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MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 144

Appendix B: Master Service Educator Nomination Form Letter

Dear _________________ (High School Principal of Selected International School in Singapore)

This letter to request your permission for participation in a research project that explores
how exemplary teachers are enhancing service education through facilitation of service learning
and/or community service in your school. I am an Ed.D. doctoral candidate in Educational
Leadership from the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. The title of
my study is, “How Service Learning Educators Help Students Learn: The Master Teacher’s
Perspective.” As a member of Southeast Asian international school faculties for 31 years, and
Singapore American School for the past 21 of those years, I want to improve the learning
students gain through service by improving the facilitation of service learning in Singapore
American School.

Research Summary
This study aims to identify the educational methods and benefits of learning through
service action so as to promote and support service engagement both as generic, co-curricular
community service and as part of formal curriculum in schools. In order to achieve this end, I
would like to draw upon the knowledge and experience of “Master Service Educators” who are
experienced in teaching and learning in a humanitarian and/or environmental service context,
with a special focus on service education within the prominent Singapore international school
environment. I seek your help in identifying “Master Service Educators” to assist in the
research.

Research Background
No qualitative studies exist of service learning guidance in Singaporean independent
international schools. What works for independent international Singapore-based high school
students’ learning about contributing to the common good is not known. In order to understand
how teachers can help high school students learn basic tenants service and global citizenship
skills, I have proposed to do a qualitative study of five purposefully selected Singapore-based
international school (on six campuses) master service learning educators to answer the following
research questions:
• What do exceptional service teachers do to help students learn how to contribute to the
common good; how and why do these techniques help students learn?
• What motivates the teachers to do what they do?
• How does the school’s mission, vision and/or philosophy of service learning effect
teacher understandings and performance as service educators?

Research Aims

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The goal is to identify teaching techniques and behaviors that help students learn from
engagement in service and to gain understanding of how, why and if these techniques help
students develop character and cultural competence. This knowledge about practice in context
can potentially be taught to teachers in faculty development workshops designed to improve
teachers’ facilitation of service learning. By teaching teachers how to better help students
engage in service learning, it is hoped improved student self-efficacy and strengths in character
and cultural competence will result.

Please nominate 3 high school teacher candidates (or staff in other high school
positions) based on the criteria given, to the best of your knowledge. Candidates will not be
assessed based on education level, age, gender or race. Following your nominations, I will
briefly discuss the candidates with person on your campus in charge of coordinating service to
identify only one candidate from each Singapore-based international school to participate in the
study. The other two candidates from each school will be held in reserve. The selected
candidate will be given time to learn about the study and to read and sign an informed consent
form prior to being interviewed for 50-90 minutes at a time, date and location of his or her
choosing during the months of October – November, 2017.

Criteria for Master Service Educator
● Best of the best
● Passionate about service
● Passionate about providing service experiences for students (through service program
sponsorship, or the any means)
● Knowledgeable about the five stages of service learning (research, planning,
implementation, demonstration and reflection)
● Person is someone that high school students like to learn from
● Energetic and engaging
● Inspiring to high school students
● Inspiring to fellow educators
● Works well with students
● Active in volunteering for direct humanitarian and/or environmental causes

All nominations will remain anonymous and nomination results will not be disclosed.
Thank you very much for helping in this study.

Martha Began Crawford
Singapore American School
40 Woodlands St. 41
Singapore 738547
mbegan@sas.edu.sg
+65 63633404 (SAS), +65 97561102 (hand phone)
Candidate for Doctorate in Educational Leadership
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 146

Appendix C: University of Southern California, The Rossier School of Education
INFORMATION SHEET NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

How Service Learning Educators Help Students Learn: The Master Teacher’s Perspective
We invite you to take part in a research study conducted by an EdD candidate from the University of
Southern California. You must be 18 years or older to participate in the study. Your participation is
voluntary. Please take as much time as you need to read the consent form. You may want to discuss it
with your family or friends. If you find any of the language difficult to understand, please ask questions.
If you decide to participate, you will be asked to sign this form.

WHY IS THIS STUDY BEING DONE?
This study is about how high school teachers’ educational methods help students learn through service.
We hope to learn characteristics and practices of master service-learning educators that support service
education as part of the formal curriculum and/or robust co-curriculum in six international schools in
Singapore. You are invited as a possible participant because your school Principal as nominated you an
exceptional service educator. About six participants will take part in the study.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
We are asking you to take part in a research study because we are trying to learn more about
exceptional teachers who facilitate service learning as well as the perspectives of service learning
of their Singapore-based international high school.

PROCEDURES
If you decide to take part your participation in this study will involve you being interviewed
twice, the first interview being for 50-90 minutes in person and the location will be according to
your preference. It may be conducted in your office, nearby coffee shop, or other locations you
prefer. You will be asked to respond to 10-12 open-ended questions designed to highlight the
personal characteristics and practices of service educators and how you perceive your and your
school’s roles. The interview questions are attached in Annex A. The interview will be audio-
taped, and transcribed. The second interview will be an hour or less, to verify we have all the
information correct. The location of the second interview is also up to you.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no anticipated risks to your participation. Some of the questions may make you feel uneasy or
embarrassed. You can choose to skip or stop answering any questions that make you uncomfortable.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR SOCIETY
You will not directly benefit from your participation in this research study. You will be given an
Amazon gift certificate in appreciation for your time and energy.

The overall goal is to reveal the practices and characteristics of exceptional service educators.
The findings about practice in context can help to improve service programs in international

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 147

schools and be taught to teachers in faculty development workshops designed to teach teachers
how to improve their facilitation of service learning. By teaching teachers how to better help
students learn through service, it is hoped improved student learning, character development and
cultural competence will result.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
Whereas you will not receive any payment for your participation in this research study, you will
be given an Amazon gift certificate as a sign of gratitude for your time and expertise.

POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The investigators of this research do not have any financial interest in the sponsor or in the
product being studied.

CONFIDENTIALITY
There is a small risk that people who are not connected with this study will learn your identity or your
personal information. We will keep your records for this study confidential as far as permitted by law.
However, if we are required to do so by law, we will disclose confidential information about you. The
University of Southern California’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) may review your records. The IRB
is a research review board that is made up of professionals and community members who review and
monitor research studies to protect the rights and welfare of research participants. We may publish the
information from this study in journals or present it at meetings. If we do, we will not use your name.

Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will
remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. The
information collected about you will be coded using a fake name (pseudonym) or initials and numbers for
example, abc-123 and so forth. The data which has your identifiable information will be kept separately
from the rest of your data.

The data will be stored in the investigator’s office in a locked file cabinet/password protected
computer.

The data will be stored for approximately one year after the study has been completed and then
destroyed. Your consent will be asked for audio recording. You may decline to be taped. The
investigator will transcribe the tapes and may provide you with a copy of the transcripts upon
request. You have the right to review and edit the tapes. Sentences that you ask the investigator
to leave out will not be used and they will be erased from all relevant documents.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no information will
be included that would reveal your identity. If photographs, videos, or audio-tape recording of
you will be used for educational purposes, your identify will be protected or disguised.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWL
You can choose whether to be part of this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you
may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may also refuse to answer
any questions you are reluctant to answer and will remain in the study The investigator may
withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 148

ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative would be not to take part in this study.

COSTS OF THE STUDY
There is no cost to you for taking part in this study.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
Your participation in this study is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to take part will not
affect your current or future care at this institution. You may withdraw your consent at any time
and discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or
remedies because of your participation in this study.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about the research and are unable to contact the
research team, contact the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Office at 323-223-2340 between the
hours of 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, Monday to Friday. (Fax: 323-224-8389 or email at
irb@usc.edu).

If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant, or want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, you may contact the Institutional Review Board Office at the
numbers above. You will get a copy of this consent form.

IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact the Ed.D.
Candidate for Faculty Advisory:

Martha Began Crawford
Ed. D. Candidate
Singapore American School
High School Science Department

40 Woodlands St. 41
Singapore 738547
+65 636-33404 mbegan@sas.edu.sg (SAS)
+ 65 975-61102 (Singapore hand phone)
marthabc@usc.com (USC email)

Dr. Ruth Chung, Ph.D.
Professor Advisor
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0043

AGREEMENT

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 149

I have read (or someone has read to me) the information provided above. I have been given a
chance to ask questions. All my questions have been answered. By signing this form, I am
agreeing to take part in this study.

Name of Research Participant Signature Date Signed
(and Time*)

I have personally explained the research to the participant using non-technical language. I have
answered all the participant’s questions. I believe that he/she understands the information
described in this informed consent and freely consents to participate.

Name of Person Obtaining Informed
Consent
Signature Date Signed (and
Time*)

* If a study procedure is done on the same day the informed consent is signed, the time and date
are required. No study procedures may be done before the participant has signed the informed
consent

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 150

Appendix D: Interview Questions
Category I. What do service teachers do to help students learn how to contribute to the common
good; how and why do these techniques help students learn?

1. Briefly describe your own education and/or professional development background. How
did you become involved with service education?

2. Tell me about your role and how you facilitate service at your school.

3. Identify and describe pedagogical techniques you have applied to help students learn
through service.

4. A. How do the instructional practices use to you guide student service influence your
students learning outcomes? B. Briefly describe your favorite service project of all time
with high school students

5. Does your participation in service education differ from other types of collaboration or
teaching within your school? Explain.

Category II. What motivates the teachers to do what they do?

6. Identify and describe what motivates you to facilitate student learning through service.

7. Describe the factors that influenced you to facilitate service at your school?

8. A. Are there benefits to your facilitation of service learning? Any drawbacks? B. How
is your facilitation sustained? C. Why do you maintain your participation in service
education?

9. What do you hope to achieve through your service facilitation of high school students?

Category III. How does their school’s mission, vision and/or philosophy of what helps service
learning effect teacher understandings?

10. What are your school’s mission and vision and/or philosophy in regards to service
learning? Do you feel it supports learning through service? Why or why not?

11. Does your school have an unwritten philosophy, policy, approach, or belief system about
learning through service?

12. Do you feel your school is on the same page with you philosophically and/or
pedagogically compared to your intentions in regards to service education? Why or why
not?

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 151

13. Do you feel your school cares if teachers are trained to be involved in service learning?
If not, why not? If so, how does your school support professional development in service
education with students?

14. How does your school support teachers who facilitate learning through service – a) in
their curriculum, b) co-curricular involvement?

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 152

Appendix E: Demographic Information Form
MASTER SERVICE EDUCATORS STUDY
(transcribed to a Google Form and then distributed to participants)
Date____________
Dear Participant,
Thank you once again for agreeing to be interviewed for my study. I would like to gather your
demographic information my study. Kindly complete the questions below. It should only take a
few minutes of your time.

Demographic Information

Please complete information requested in the spaces provided below that describes you.

1. Name______________________________________________ Gender____________
2. Age (yrs): _____20-30 _____31-40 _____41-50 _____51-60 _____61-70
3. Country of Passport _____________________________
4. Cultural heritage of your parents ____________________________________________
5. Countries in which you have lived____________________________________________
6. International Schools in which you have taught _________________________________
7. Name of current International School _________________________________________
8. Number of years at your current international school_______.
9. Current position title and job duties___________________________________________
10. Number of years in your current position_________.

11. Indicate your formal education, professional development or certification (check all that
apply)
_____ Service Education _____ Service Learning _____ Outdoor Education

_____ Environmental Ed. _____ Social Work _____ Counselling

_____ English _____Social Studies _____Mathematics

_____ Modern Languages _____ Physical Science _____ Life Science

_____ Physical Education _____ School Leadership _____ IB Teaching

_____ AP Teaching _____ Education _____Arts Education

_____ Computer Science/Technology Education _____ None of the Above

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 153

12. If your answer was none of the above, or is not listed above, please share your area(s) of
training / professional development

13. Number of years involved in international, curricular, course-based service learning
_______

14. Number of years involved in co-curricular service education/community service _______

15. In what setting have you conducted/guided/sponsored service education (check all
applicable, feel free to add additional settings and descriptions below)

_____ Co-Curricular School Service Sponsorship
_____ Voluntary Overseas Service Trip(s)
_____ School Mandated Overseas Service Trips
_____ Singapore Based Service Actions
_____ School Campus Based Service Actions
_____ Environmental Service Action and/or Advocacy
_____ Humanitarian Service Action and/or Advocacy
Other, please specify. Feel free to describe details of your involvement in any of the
above.

16. With which age group(s) have you worked in a service educator capacity? (check all
applicable below)

_____ 5 and below _____ 6-11 _____12-17 _____ 18 and above

17. Do you hold a service coordinator/director/leadership position at your school? If yes,
please identify your title and explain your job description and duties below.

_____ Yes _____ No

18. What is the approximate percentage of service education/sponsorship work (in terms of
hours) you do with high school students (you man answer in terms of % hours per week
or % hours per month, please specify). _______________________________
19. How much time do you spend planning service activities on average per week? ______________
20. Do you travel outside of Singapore with students to engage in humanitarian or environmental
service, if so describe where and how often

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 154

______ No ______Yes. Describe: _______________________________________
21. Is your participation in service education different than other types of collaboration within your
school? Explain.
______ No ______Yes. Describe: _______________________________________

22. Estimate the percentage of high school students at your school that are willingly involve in some
form of service (research, indirect service, direct service, advocacy) _______________________

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 155

Appendix F: Referenced Documents and Graphics

Appendix F: Figure 1. Learner Profile at United World College of Southeast Asia
(UWCSEA) in Singapore. Integration of service-learning and personal and social
education is illustrated as equal proportions of the five learning principles.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 156

Appendix F: Figure 2. Service in Five Stages banner hung in the Service
Office at United World College of Southeast Asia (UWCSEA) Dover campus
in Singapore. Adapted from Catherine Berger Kaye’s Five Stages of Service
Learning model. UWCSEA uses awareness, systems thinking, action,
reflection and sharing to guide their service-learning programs.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 157

Appendix F: Figure 3. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
Analysis graphic to guide needs analysis at United World College of Southeast Asia
(UWCSEA) in Singapore.

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 158

Appendix F: Figure 4. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The
17 Global Goals are part of a wider 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – built
on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). SDGs guide many Southeast Asia
international schools’ service-learning programs, curriculum standards, assessments
and student learning outcomes. Extracted from The World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/09/what-are-the-sustainable-development-goals/

MASTER SERVICE-LEARNING EDUCATORS 159

Appendix F: Figure 5. Compass Education logo. The Sustainability Compass is easy
to understand. A regular compass helps us map the territory and find our direction.
This Compass does the same thing for sustainability. It takes the English-language
directions — North, East, South, West — and renames them while keeping the same
well-known first letters: Nature, Economy, Society and Wellbeing indicate a primary
focus for sustainability through systems thinking and service-learning participation to
determine and analyze community and environment needs, examine unintended
consequences and reduce inequities. Extracted from
http://www.compasseducation.org/about/.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The intention of this study was to explore how service-learning helps third culture international high school students learn. Through the perspective of eight master service-learning educators’ narratives about their experience guiding service-learning, this study investigated the educator and situation characteristics related to service-learning and the use of pedagogical techniques to help students learn and develop self-authorship. Applying grounded theory methodology this qualitative study analyzed interview data from study participants who had been selected by their high school principals based on a set of criteria designed to identify master service-learning educators. All respondents were teacher-leaders or key leaders in service-learning within their school settings in Singapore or Bangkok, Thailand. A substantive theory or conceptual framework was induced from the empirical data as is common in grounded theory design. The findings gesture towards both particular knowledge, skills, traits, talents and intrinsic motivation teachers may need to develop in order to guide meaningful service-learning action, as well as suggest that movement through personalized service-learning approaches may be externally induced through a written ethos or vision statement, programming, organizational support, creation of service-learning standards and systemic alignment reforms related to common international school experiences.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Crawford, Martha Began (author)

Core Title How service-learning educators help students learn: master teachers’ perspectives

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 08/06/2018

Defense Date 05/24/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag community service,master service-learning educator,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizational support,self-authorship,service-learning,student empowerment,systemic alignment

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Chung, Ruth (committee chair), D’Rozario, Vilma (committee member), Picus, Lawrence (committee member)

Creator Email marthabc@usc.edu,mbegan@sas.edu.sg

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-56724

Unique identifier UC11672503

Identifier etd-CrawfordMa-6673.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-56724 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-CrawfordMa-6673.pdf

Dmrecord 56724

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Crawford, Martha Began

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA