It’s La Salle’s Business After All: A Service Learning Approach in Teaching Technical Writing

Marco Suavillo Saez

ABSTRACT

Responding to the call from Brother William Mann, President of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota (SMUMN), for research endeavors that have “the human person at its core, and society’s poor as its focus” this paper was presented during the 5th International Lasallian Research Symposium held at SMUMN on September 25-27, 2016.

Working on the genuine interest of articulating the direct impact of Lasallian values in the academic performance of students, this ongoing research project would like to find out if there will be a significant improvement in the written outputs of the students if a service-learning approach is used as an approach in the teaching-learning process. It would also like to know if such an approach will lead students towards a deeper understanding of Lasallian values.

It remains to be known whether ultimately the inclusion of service-learning will bring about significant improvements. So far, the experiment has repositioned students in the role of communicating on behalf of service-learning organizations. The situation has made them assume the role of voice or advocate of the organization. In terms of Lasallian causes, the experiment reveals that collaborating with the marginalized might be more effective if done via a collaboration with organizations who will help the marginalized.

KEYWORDS

Technical Writing, Values Education, Writing, Service Learning, Lasallian Values

FULL TEXT

It’s La Salle’s Business After All: A Service Learning Approach in Teaching Technical Writing

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