Toward Community-Based Learning contends that the ideal school offers the opportunity to understand reality in a way that connects teaching and education with conditions in the surrounding community and the student’s life and concerns. This view holds that problem solving requires an understanding and awareness of the whole, which can be achieved through direct activities. In this manner, learning is linked to its natural context, with ideal instruction being actively problem-oriented, holistic, and life-centered.

This thought-provoking volume offers an essential and comprehensive picture of community-based learning in the field of education. The book deals with the history of community-based learning as well as its present applications, including its global successes and difficulties. The authors provide numerous pedagogical approaches that are designed to meet the challenges of contemporary education. They show how learning is connected with authentic community environments in which students can gain new understandings through solving emerging problems. They also demonstrate how teachers can make learning more functional and holistic so that students have the ability to work in new situations within the complex world around them. School-specific descriptions reveal how teachers and their students have implemented community-based projects in the U.S.A., India, and China at different times.

Contributors are: Thomas L. Alsbury, Mary Ewans, Linda Hargreaves, Susan K. Johnsen, Eija Kimonen, Susan Kobashigawa, Karon N. LeCompte, Suzanne M. Nesmith, Raimo Nevalainen, and Lakia M. Scott.