The second aspect of a participatory-critical pedagogy is service learning. Service learning projects involve students working with a community partner on a project related to the curriculum's subject matter to meet the partner's needs (qtd. in Eble and Gaillet 351). Such projects allow students to apply critical thinking to practical situations, interact with and get feedback from real audiences, and learn how to manage projects (qtd. in Eble and Gaillet 350-1). It also enhances the academic curriculum and establishes a symbiotic relationship between the college and the community, often called a "town and gown" relationship (Eble and Gaillet 352). James Dubinsky argues that service-learning ultimately connects practical and humanistic concerns and can create "ideal orators and citizens who put their knowledge and skills to work for the common good" (qtd. in Eble and Gaillet 343).

Donna Kienzler discusses her experience teaching a service learning project in her essay "Ethics, Critical Thinking, and Professional Communication Pedagogy." According to her, service learning encourages her students to explore the larger structures in which discourse is embedded (324), make connections among data, reflect upon ethical implications of choices, commit and act on an ethical view, and contribute to the community (336). This behavior moved all students in Kienzler's service learning project to the final stage of Dabrowski's advanced moral development model. At the end of her essay, Kienzler suggests smaller classroom projects to incorporate critical thinking and ethics into the classroom because whole-class projects require significant time and effort (336).

Learn about the challenges of critical pedagogy.