Tapping in to the Power of 'The Community Classroom'

All too often, the college educational experience exists exclusively within the confines of traditional classrooms.Consider the possibilities of expanding the college educational experience from the college classroom into the larger community classroom.Faculty members at Kansas State University-Salina accepted the challenge to transform the traditional educational setting to enhance student learning.A new method of enrichment, service-learning, has been incorporated into the educational setting of the KSU's College of Technology and Aviation.The method allows college students to serve others, while broadening individual educational experiences.By removing classroom boundaries, service-learning provides college students with personal and professional insights, as well as a keen perspective regarding individual roles in larger communities.Service-learning also provides educators with opportunities to extol the benefits of a higher education to much larger audiences, causing it to be an innovative college recruitment tool.This particular service-learning component originated from a partnership between Kansas State University faculty in the College of Technology and Aviation with Unified School District 393, Solomon, Kansas.It included a five-year agreement to provide after-school seminars for at-risk 5 th -8 th grade students.The overarching objectives of the after-school seminars were to introduce the middle school students to the technology programs offered by the College of Technology and Aviation, to provide opportunities for college students and middle school students to interact, and to create a desire for middle school-aged students to further their education after leaving the public school system.Faculty from the Department of Engineering Technology; Department of Aviation; and the Department of Arts, Sciences, and Business (within the College of Technology and Aviation) voluntarily created nine-week modules built around their interests and specialties.The College facilitated a total of four seminars, each meeting weekly for nine weeks.The seminars were conducted consecutively, thus covering one complete school year.This partnership was formalized to continue for five years.In each of the seminars, Kansas State University-Salina students actively participate with the middle school students.It was determined that direct involvement of