Educating Reflective Practitioners: Learning to Embrace the Unexpected through Service Learning

Abstract

Service learning projects are characterized by complex processes of knowledge production, which are contingent on narratives that inform the identities of educators, students, and community members. By encouraging students to critically reflect on their positionality and the social processes that inform such coproduction of knowledge, educators can use service learning to educate reflective practitioners capable of working productively with multiple actors. In a service learning course focusing on environmental justice at the University of Texas at Austin, students worked with a variety of community partners to document children’s knowledge of environmental hazards, reflecting critically on unexpected challenges during their fieldwork.

Trends in Higher Education Service-Learning Courses for Pre-Service Teachers: A Systematic Review

“…The selected research predominantly utilized S-L programs designed as components of various core curricula university courses, such as inclusive education and diversity courses (Conner, 2010;Carringtonm & Selva, 2010), introductory or capstone pedagogical courses (Chang, Anagnostopoulos & Omae, 2011;Coffey, 2010;Trauth-Nare, 2015;Sletto, 2010;Power, 2013), methods of teaching courses (Cone, 2012;Iverson & James, 2010;Kim, 2012), pedagogical research courses (Wallace, 2013), art education courses (Whiteland, 2013), thus corroborating the flexibility of S-L as a powerful curricular tool. Out of the total 15 approaches, 2 scholars designed the S-L experience as a summer program: a summer arts-based S-L with Australian Aboriginal people as beneficiaries (Power & Bennet, 2015) and a summer enrichment mentoring S-L program for developing pedagogical skills (Green, 2011).…”

“…Nevertheless, all studies included in the current qualitative synthesis are student-centred, focusing mainly on enhancing the preservice teachers' authentic learning experience (Green, 2011;Power & Bennet, 2015;Wallace, 2013) and their level of positive attitudes (Chang, Anagnostopoulos, & Omae, 2011;Carringtonm & Selva, 2010;Cone, 2012;Kim, 2012), as well as to ease the transition into practice per se (Coffey, 2011). Table 1 summarizes the subordinate enhancement aims which ranged from positively influencing students' assumptions or negative stereotypes (Conner, 2010) to increasing retention and learning success (Naidoo, 2012), enhancing critical thinking (Carringtonm & Selva, 2010), self-efficacy (Trauth-Nare, 2015), civic efficacy (Iverson & James, 2010;Naidoo, 2012), encourage introspection (Carringtonm & Selva, 2010;Whiteland, 2013) or addressing and maintaining a sustainable partnership with the community (Sletto, 2010;Whiteland, 2013).…”

“…The majority of S-L activities (9) were structured, based on activity or lesson plans, with trained participants, assisted by guides and operational objectives. 5 studies chose to give more freedom to the pre-service teachers and semi-structured the program while one study approached the S-L in a non-structured, fluid, informal manner (Sletto, 2010). Regarding the S-L activity categories, there is a tendency among recent research to involve pre-service teachers in teaching or literacy activities (7) or partnering and tutoring activities (4) whereas some chose to extend the service through art -music teaching (Power, 2013) and collage-making (Whiteland, 2013) or designing and conducting pedagogical activities (2), mostly found in structured instances.…”

“…The hosting environments varied from common schools (Coffey, 2010;Green, 2011;Trauth-Nare, 2015 Sletto, 2010) to schools placed in distressed neighbourhoods (Conner, 2010), community organizations that serve youth from marginalized groups (Chang, Anagnostopoulos & Omae, 2011),…”

Remodelling urban planning education for sustainable development: the case of Serbia

“…On the other hand, universities have been endeavouring to position themselves by offering unique educational experiences and actively contributing to resolving complex urban issues through joint professional platforms and working outside the boundaries of individual disciplines (Rooij and Frank, 2016). The aim of this teaching concept is to develop critical reflection among students and help them develop a comfortable relationship toward the unknown (Sletto, 2010).…”