Service learning is a high-impact educational practice where students use their disciplinary skills or expertise on a project that directly benefits a partner. Community-based service learning is service learning with a community partner, usually a non-profit, whose mission is to improve the social, environmental, or economic situation for community members. In computer science, service learning projects often include a deliverable, such as designing and building an application. Undertaking service learning in general presents significant challenges. Some of these include the identification of an appropriate community partner and project, project skill alignment, managing partner expectations (failure is an option), and the reconciliation of the variable length of meaningful service-learning projects with the fixed length of a single term. However, given how these unique learning opportunities are known to be highly beneficial to students, educators continue to pursue them in spite of their inherent difficulties.

This BoF seeks to build on last year’s similarly themed BoF, by strengthening and enlarging this growing community of practice. In particular, we seek to gather seasoned hands, novices, plus those interested in trying out service learning to • share best practices, • present innovations, and • illuminate pitfalls and other practices to be avoided, and • continue nourishing this growing community of practice.