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| Courses | Grants | Conferences | Library | Reflection | Service-Learning Web Sites | Service-Learning Forms |
Reflection
Reflection is the key to connecting service and learning, as action and reflection build on each other, in an ongoing process:
In this continually expanding circle, students move from understanding their experience, to gaining new perspectives, to delving into underlying issues, to planning new courses of action and life goals.
Reflection methods include:
- Journaling - open-ended or guided. Guided journaling provides students with reflective questions, progressing from personal reactions to analysis of issues. Students' journals can be a springboard for discussions.
- Discussion - Reflective discussions can occur in small groups or class-wide, engaging students in sharing their experiences and perspectives. Discussion topics typically move from describing what happened, to the students' reactions and impressions, to the difference their actions made, to the larger context of community issues and leadership. Class discussions are crucial for addressing issues as they come up, benefiting students’ service, as well as their learning.
- Papers - Reflective papers allow students to connect course readings with issues addressed at their service sites and delve more deeply into these issues.
- Presentations - Students can demonstrate their discoveries in the form of spoken, PowerPoint, video, artistic, or dramatic presentations. Presentations can also include project websites, articles or letters to newspapers, as well as reports to the agencies where students serve.
- Planning future service projects - Planning engages students in evaluating their experiences as a basis for generating new service-learning actions.
These and other reflection strategies can utilize students' varied styles of expression and learning, including interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical, artistic, logical, verbal, and visual. There are unlimited possibilities for the kinds of reflection that students, faculty, and community partners can create to enliven the service-learning journey.
For more information about reflection, check the service-learning web sites found under "Service-Learning" on this web site.
