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The importance of reflection activities in service-learning and presents the results of a study on students' perceptions of reflection. The study covers themes such as individual motivation, group dynamics, structured reflection, and factors influencing reflection. It also provides insights from student leaders and explores ways to improve reflection activities.
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by
Lorena Boswell
A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts In Education May, 2010
by
Lorena Boswell
Approved by the Master‘s Project Committee:
Keri Gelenian, Major Professor Date
Ann Diver-Stamnes, Committee Member Date
Cathleen Rafferty, Committee Member Date
Keri Gelenian, Graduate Coordinator Date
Jena Burges, Vice Provost Date
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trap, and analyze a complexity of factors that need to be considered in order to avoid the trap. Ultimately I conclude that the structure trap can be defined as a disconnection between the paradigms of service-learning model and the traditional modernist approach to education.
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It is not easy to critically express oneself to a teacher. Likewise, it is not often that a teacher has the opportunity to reflect openly with students about what did not work well and how to improve things. For these reasons I would like to thank all of the students who participated in this study. This is especially true for the three student leaders on this trip, whose honest feedback and reflection provided the insights I needed to reflect deeply and pull all of these strings together. All three have hearts of gold and dedicated themselves to this trip with passion, enthusiasm, and skill. Through the interview process, we became reflective practitioners together, and I am honored they trusted me with this. I am equally grateful for Keri Gelenian‘s insightful guidance and advice. Never having written something so large and in depth before, I relied on my meetings with Keri to grapple with the data in order to identify and then peel back the layers of the onion until we got to the core. I would also like to thank: Ann Diver-Stamnes for the encouragement when things felt overwhelming and for always taking time out of her busy schedule; Cathleen Rafferty for recognizing the potential of what was to be class assignment and encouraging me to immediately apply for IRB approval; and Carol whose encouragement, flexibility and understanding enabled me to gracefully spend the requisite time and energy on this project.
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TABLE 3.1: Service and Reflection Activities by Day .............................................. 53 TAB LE 4.1: Volunteers‘ Interest in Sustainability and Volunteering ........................ 67 TABLE 4.2: Summary of Students‘ Comments on Activities .................................... 81
Every year at the beginning of Spring Break, a group of 12 to 18 enthusiastic students at a northern California university sign up for a Alternative Spring Break, a week-long service-learning immersion trip. This particular year, 16 of them sleepily clambered into two white 12 passenger vans loaded down with sleeping bags, backpacks, boxes of groceries, and camping and gardening equipment. As I drove, they sat at first in a palpable shyness. After a short time of camping, eating, doing service, and learning together, their energy transformed into the easy camaraderie of common interests and purpose. Similarly, students around the country participate in different forms of Alternative Spring Breaks. Some are curricular, tied to academic classes, while others are co-curricular, offered as an enriching life experience. Some are led by faculty and others by students. The typical student-led model seems to involve hiring and training of students to lead already established trips. The Alternative Spring Break at this particular university is a co-curricular student-led model. It differs from other student led trips in that it emerges completely out of the particular interests of the current student leaders. They pick a theme and investigate potential communities that would provide both rich learning experiences and a variety of service sites. While they are encouraged to make it easy
As a participant observer, I decided to document student learning outcomes on this Alternative Spring Break service-learning trip. In order to do so, I conducted pre and post interviews, analyzed student applications and evaluations, and took field notes. Often with qualitative research, the focus can change with the emergence of certain themes in the data (Glesne, 2006). In this case, my original focus on learning outcomes changed when what emerged from the evaluations was an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the trip‘s structured reflections. As an experienced teacher and service-learning practitioner, I was surprised and curious about these negative reactions. How is it that students could object to what I understood as the established best practices of the field? The training resources we utilized, such as the Reflection Toolkit (Kinsel, 2003) and the Service Learning Toolbox (Geiger, 2001), were pretty straightforward about how to lead reflections. Even though the student leaders were well versed in these resources and in the model of service-learning, I wondered if there a limitation to the quality of student-led reflections. Did the circumstances of this trip demand something different? Before I could begin to contemplate how to do things differently, I wanted to understand exactly what these negative reactions were about. In order to fully explore their reactions, I adjusted the post-interview questions so that I could answer the question: what are a selected group of northern California university students‘
perceptions of their reflection experiences during an alternative spring break co- curricular service-learning trip? Utilizing qualitative, case study research methodology, this thesis is the result of my own reflective process in attempting to answer this question. Definition of Terms For the purpose of ease of reference and clarity of terms, I am providing the following definitions of terms, all of which are discussed and explained in depth in the literature review of this thesis Service-learning. Service-learning holds the central tenant of combining service and learning in order to enhance both (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). Doing so includes intentional integration of a learning component about issues relevant to the service situation (McCarthy, 1996) and an emphasis on the established best practices of reciprocity and reflection (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). Service-learning can take many forms including integration into academic classrooms, one-time or short-term service- learning events, ongoing co-curricular experiences, and intensive/immersion service- learning (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). Co-curricular service-learning. Co-curricular service-learning opportunities meet the above definition and are offered outside of the academic setting. They can be organized by a range of
surprising situation or experience, individuals are asked to actively engage in examining their preconceptions in light of the new situation and integrate the new understanding in what is termed reflection (Rogers, 2001). It is important to note that there is a certain amount of ambiguity about the term reflection in that it is used to signify both a cognitive process and a structured learning activity (Hatcher and Bringle, 1997). During this trip the leadership team unconsciously used the term interchangeably as the process of learning from one‘s experience and the structured activity that facilitates this process. This differentiation becomes evident in the analysis section. Given that the line between the process and structure was blurred during the trip, it is presented as such during the methodology and results sections. Leadership Team. This trip was led by three student leaders with myself as a professional staff advisor. The four of us combined are referred to as the leadership team throughout this thesis. Overview of the Thesis Chapter Two, the literature review, begins with an overview of service- learning history, established best practices and models. It then culminates in an exploration of both the theoretical lenses on reflection and research about the reflection in service-learning.
Chapter Three, the methodology chapter, provides a description of this case study approach. It begins with a description of the week-long co-curricular service- learning trip, including participants, leadership team, setting, and daily service and reflection activities. This chapter then explains the qualitative data collection methods and data analysis coding systems I utilized. Chapter Four, the results chapter, details students‘ responses and observations about the reflection activities on this alternative spring break trip. The results are presented around the themes of individual motivation, group and leadership team dynamics, formally structured reflection including the feeling of forced reflection, students‘ idea of the benefit and best type of reflection, factors that are perceived to influence reflection, and the leadership team‘s perspective. Given the qualitative nature of this study I provide a thick description of the data, including many relevant quotes from students. Chapter Five, the analysis chapter, offers my synthesis of the results from a reflective framework. I have organized the analysis chapter around a concept I am dubbing the structure trap. First I identify the trap through an analysis of students‘ negative reactions to reflections that felt forced upon them. I then analyze a complexity of factors that need to be considered in order to avoid the trap. My analysis concludes with a synthesis of issues of student leadership and our leadership team dynamics that contributed to falling into the trap. Ultimately, I conclude that
“There is something uniquely powerful about the combination of service and learning… there is something fundamentally more dynamic in the integration of the two than in either alone.” (Kendall & Associates, 1990, p. 19).
Introduction Over the last forty years, service-learning has been established as an educational philosophy and refined as an educational practice. Although now encompassing a variety of different definitions, the term service-learning holds the central tenant of combining service and learning in order to enhance both (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). The hyphen in the term service-learning represents the role reflection plays in connecting service and learning (Eyler & Giles, 1999). Before looking more closely at the definitions, types, and best practices of service-learning, this literature review will start by describing the beginnings of the service-learning movement. After which I will examine the theory and practice of reflection. I will then relate these back to the service-learning model and its potential learning outcomes. Finally, with consideration of the difficulties and challenges that practitioners have experienced in designing and facilitating reflection, I will examine the literature for factors that may determine high quality reflection both in general
and specifically for week-long co-curricular immersion service learning trips. All of this will culminate in the research question of this thesis: What are the perceptions of a selected group of northern California university students on their reflection experiences during an alternative spring break co-curricular service-learning trip? The Service-Learning Movement ―Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country‖ (Kennedy, 1961). Not only through his famous words but also through actions such as the establishment of the Peace Corps and VISTA, President John F. Kennedy helped foster a spirit of service and motivate a generation of young adults (Ehrlich, 1990). Also during this time research in fields of experiential education, career education, and youth development set the stage for service-learning (Neal, 2003). It is within this context, as well as the larger context of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, that the term service learning was used for the first time in 1966 (Jacoby & Associates, 1996; Titlebaum, Williamson, Daprano, Baer & Brahler, 2004). The increased interest in community service and volunteerism on college and university campuses propelled service-learning into an educational movement (Kendall & Associates, 1990). Early markers of this growth were the 1969 Atlanta Service-Learning Conference and the 1971 White House Conference on Youth
learning were identified: ―those being served control the service(s) provided; those being served become better able to serve and be served by their own actions; those who serve also are learners and have significant control over what is expected to be learned‖ (Sigmon, 1990, p. 57). This effort to move service-learning towards a high-quality experience for both students and service recipients echoed through the latter half of the 1980s (Kendall & Associates, 1990). For example, Campus Compact, an organization which has greatly contributed to the institutionalization of service-learning on college and university campuses (Jacoby & Associates, 1996; Kendall & Associates,
(Kendall & Associates 1990, p. 38), produced the following ten best practices at the Wingspread conference in 1989: engages people in responsible and challenging actions for the common good; provides structured opportunities for people to reflect critically on their service experience; articulates clear service and learning goals for everyone involved; allows for those with needs to define those needs; clarifies the responsibilities of each person and organization involved; matches service providers and service needs through a process that recognizes changing circumstances; expects genuine, active and sustained organizational commitment; includes training, supervision, monitoring, support, recognition, and evaluation to meet service and learning goals; insures that the time commitment for service and learning is flexible, appropriate, and in the best interest of all involved; is committed to program participation by and with diverse populations. (Kendall & Associates, 1990, p. 40) These 10 principles have become a cornerstone of service-learning programming around the country (Kendall & Associates, 1990; McElhaney, 1998; Titlebaum et al, 2004). The second principle, the importance of reflection in creating high-quality service-learning experiences, is the focus of this thesis. Before reviewing the literature on the theory and practice of reflection and how it relates to
