Learning Through Serving

LEARNING THROUGH

SERVING

LEARNING THROUGH

SERVINGA Student Guidebook for Service-Learning

Across the Disciplines

Christine M. CressPeter J. Collier

Vicki L. Reitenauerand Associates

S T E R L I N G , V I RG I N I A

COPYRIGHT © 2005 BY CHRISTINE M. CRESS, PETER COLLIER AND VICKI REITENAUER

Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC22883 Quicksilver DriveSterling, Virginia 20166-2102

Book design and composition by Susan MarkCoghill Composition CompanyRichmond, Virginia

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, recording and information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data

Cress, Christine M. (Christine Marie), 1962–Learning through serving : a student guidebook for service-learning across

the disciplines / Christine M. Cress, Peter J. Collier, Vicki L. Reitenauer, and associates.—1st ed.

p. cm.ISBN 1-57922-118-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 1-57922-119-X (pbk. : alk. paper)1. Student service—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.

2. Community and college—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.3. Experiential learning—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.I. Collier, Peter J. (Peter John), 1947– II. Reitenauer, Vicki L. (Vicki Lynn), 1964– III. Title.

LC220.5.C72 2005378.1'03'0973—dc22

2004027300

ISBN: 1-57922-118-1 (cloth)ISBN: 1-57922-119-X (paper)

Printed in the United States of America

All first editions printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

First Edition, 2005

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the following for permission to use their copyrighted material:

“The Service Learning Cycle” diagram in chapter 6 (from Toole & Toole, 1991; revised 1993 and 2001)with permission of James C. Toole, Compass Institute.

Pearson Education, Inc., for the use of figure 6.2 (page 8b), from David A. Kolb. Experiential Learning: Expe-rience as the Source of Learning and Development, © 1984. Adapted with the permission of Pearson Education,Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., for permission to reprint the poem “The Low Road”from The Moon Is Always Female by Marge Piercy, © 1980 by Marge Piercy.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION Why a Book about Learning through Serving? 1Christine M. Cress

PART ONEUNDERSTANDING THE LEARNING THROUGH SERVING PROPOSITION

1. WHAT IS SERVICE-LEARNING? 7Christine M. Cress

• What Is Service-Learning?

• How Is Service-Learning Different from Other Courses?

• Why Is Service-Learning Required at Some Colleges?

• What Is a Citizen and Why Must I Learn to Be One?

• The Role of Education in a Democracy

• How Is Civic Capacity Developed in Service-Learning Courses?

• What Else Will I Gain from a Service-Learning Course?

• What We All Gain

2. BUILDING AND MAINTAINING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS 17Vicki L. Reitenauer, Amy Spring, Kevin Kecskes, Seanna M. Kerrigan, Christine M. Cress, and Peter J. Collier

• Orienting the Self toward Serving and Learning

• Community Partnerships

• Community-Based Learning Environments

• Am I Ready for This Challenge? Is My Community Partner Ready for Me?

• What’s This Place? What’s My Place?

• Learning about Your Community Partner

• What Now?—Navigating Breakdowns

• Developing an Action Learning Plan for Serving

• Conclusion

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L E A R N I N G T H R O U G H S E R V I N G

3. BECOMING COMMUNITYMoving from I to We 33

Vicki L. Reitenauer

• Putting “Community” into a Community-Based Learning Course: A Case Study

• Identifying Group Action for the Common Good

• Moving from I to We

• Learning through the Service Project

• Conflict within the Community

• Getting to We

• Reflecting on Individual and Group Change

PART TWOLEARNING THE LANDSCAPE, LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

4. GROUPS ARE FUN, GROUPS ARE NOT FUNTeamwork for the Common Good 45

Peter J. Collier and Janelle D. Voegele

• “Good Groups”/“Bad Groups”

• The Development of a Group: Getting Started . . . and Beyond

• Who’s Doing What? Group Norms and Group Roles

• Group Cohesion

• Communication in Groups

• Free-Riders and Other Equity Issues

• Groups Revisited

5. CREATING CULTURAL CONNECTIONSNavigating Difference, Investigating Power, Unpacking Privilege 67

Vicki L. Reitenauer, Christine M. Cress, and Janet Bennett

• What’s Culture Got to Do with It?

• Building Intercultural Sensitivity

• A Step Further: Investigating Power and Unpacking Privilege

• Conclusion

PART THREEFACILITATING LEARNING AND MEANING-MAKING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

6. REFLECTION IN ACTIONThe Learning–Doing Relationship 83

Peter J. Collier and Dilafruz R. Williams

• Why Reflect?

• Connecting Reflection to Service-Learning

• Models of Reflection

• Deep Reflection

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• Modes of Reflection

• Why Reflect? Revisited

7. FAILURE WITH THE BEST OF INTENTIONSWhen Things Go Wrong 99

Janelle D. Voegele and Devorah Lieberman

• Roadblocks and Flat Tires: A Case Study

• Choosing Directions: The Meaning of “Failure” in Service-Learning

• Checking the Map: Common Roadblocks

• Reading the Signs: Redirecting around Roadblocks

• The View from Yesterday: Making Meaning at the End(?) of the Road

8. EXPANDING HORIZONSNew Views of Course Concepts 113

Christine M. Cress and Judy Patton

• Transformational Learning

• Ways of Knowing

• Critical Inquiry

• Academic Disciplines as Critical Inquiry

• Community Partners as Sources of Expertise

• Conscious Living

• Summary

PART FOURASSESSING THE ENGAGEMENT EFFORT

9. BEYOND A GRADEAre We Making a Difference? The Benefits and Challenges of Evaluating Learning and Serving 125

Sherril B. Gelmon, Susan Agre-Kippenhan, and Christine M. Cress

• Did We Make a Difference?

• What Do We Mean by “Evaluation”?

• Challenges to Evaluation

• A Strategy for Evaluating Service-Learning

• Understanding Your Own Experiences

• Methods for Evaluating Learning Environments

• Measuring Benefits to Community

• Other Important Issues in Evaluation

10. LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARDWhere Do You Go from Here? 139

Peter J. Collier and Vicki L. Reitenauer

INDEX 149

THE AUTHORS 153

C O N T E N T Six

Figures

Figure 1.1 The Learning-through-Serving Model 8

Figure 3.1 Levels of Leadership 39

Figure 3.2 Leadership and the Seven Cs 40

Figure 5.1 Development of Intercultural Sensitivity 72

Figure 6.1 Reflection and the Service-Learning Cycle 85

Figure 6.2 Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model 86

Figure 6.3 Modes of Reflection 92

Figure 7.1 What Is It? 105

Figure 9.1 Evaluation Learning Cycle 127

Figure 9.2 Self-Assessment Matrix (SAM) 131

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Exercises

Exercise 1.1 Comparing Classrooms 9Exercise 1.2 What Is Citizenship? 11Exercise 1.3 Making a Difference 13Exercise 1.4 Reflection Questions 16

Exercise 2.1 Exploring “Service” 18Exercise 2.2 What Can a Community Partner Expect? 21Exercise 2.3 Hopes, Fears, Needs, and Expectations 22Exercise 2.4 Organizational Action Research 23Exercise 2.5 Exploring Breakdowns 25Exercise 2.6 Action Learning Plan for Serving (aLps) 27Exercise 2.7 Which Type of Community-Based Learning Is Right for Me? 28Exercise 2.8 As Time Goes By . . . 29Exercise 2.9 Pre-Service Checklist of Student Responsibilities 30Exercise 2.10 Pre-Service Checklist of Student Rights 31

Exercise 3.1 Defining Community 34Exercise 3.2 My Ideal Learning Environment 35Exercise 3.3 Who Am I and What Do I Bring? 36Exercise 3.4 Situation Analysis 38Exercise 3.5 Identifying the Seven Cs 41

Exercise 4.1 How Am I in Groups? 46Exercise 4.2 Connecting to Your Own Experiences 46Exercise 4.3 Marshmallows and Spaghetti 47Exercise 4.4 Jobs List 51Exercise 4.5 Timeline 53Exercise 4.6 Group Roles 54Exercise 4.7 Revisiting the Seven Cs 56Exercise 4.8 Facilitating the Development of Your Group 63Exercise 4.9 How Am I in This Group? 64Exercise 4.10 Group Member Work Tally 64

Appendix 4.1 Group Roles Checklist 65

Exercise 5.1 Cultural Dimensions of Service 69Exercise 5.2 I and We and You and Us and Them 70Exercise 5.3 Deconstructing Stereotypes 72Exercise 5.4 The Competence Continuum 75

xiii


Exercise 5.5 Investigating Privilege 77Exercise 5.6 Serving Justly 79

Exercise 6.1 Reflecting on Community Partnerships Using Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model 88Exercise 6.2 What Is Your Preferred Learning Style? 90Exercise 6.3 Reflecting on Reflection 91Exercise 6.4 Triple-Entry Journal 95Exercise 6.5 Telling the Tale 95Exercise 6.6 Showtime 96Exercise 6.7 Every Picture Tells a Story 96Exercise 6.8 Newsflash 96Exercise 6.9 Reflecting on Reflection, Revisited 96

Appendix 6.1 Triple-Entry Journal 97

Exercise 7.1 Roadblocks and Flat Tires Reflection 101Exercise 7.2 Exploring Success and Failure 103Exercise 7.3 Assessing Your Journey 106Exercise 7.4 Redirecting around Roadblocks 109Exercise 7.5 Responding to Staff Changes 110Exercise 7.6 Identifying Your Conflict Patterns 111Exercise 7.7 Roadblocks and Flat Tires Reconsidered 111

Exercise 8.1 The Menial and the Meaningful 114Exercise 8.2 Art for Art’s Sake 115Exercise 8.3 Who’s to Blame? 116Exercise 8.4 The Disciplinary Lens 117Exercise 8.5 In Retrospect 120Exercise 8.6 Both Sides of the Table 122

Exercise 9.1 Conquering the aLps 128Exercise 9.2 Utilizing the CIE Model 130Exercise 9.3 Using the Self-Assessment Matrix 132Exercise 9.4 Evaluating the Classroom Learning Environment 134Exercise 9.5 Measuring Success: A Planned Approach 134Exercise 9.6 Community Evaluation of Service-Learning 137

Appendix 9.1 Self-Assessment Matrix Descriptors 138

Exercise 10.1 Reflecting in Thirds 140Exercise 10.2 Walking the Four-Fold Path 141Exercise 10.3 The Other Side of the Mountain 143Exercise 10.4 Being the Change 143

xiv

Learning through Serving: A Student Workbook forService-Learning across the Disciplines is a textbookfor students who, like yourself, are involved in service-learning experiences as part of the college or univer-sity program. We wrote this book because we careabout your serving and learning experience. Whetheryou are performing service work in the communityas a member of a course or engaging in service onyour own, we offer exercises and activities to helpyou have a more effective, interesting, and meaning-ful experience.

The purpose of this book is to guide you throughthe essential elements of learning and serving. In otherwords, we focus on how you can best provide mean-ingful service to a community agency or organizationwhile simultaneously gaining new skills, knowledge,and understanding as an integrated aspect of your ac-ademic program.

As you may know, service-learning courses are com-plex teaching and learning environments that are de-signed to enhance learning through the process ofconnecting academic course content with service op-portunities in the community. This approach will re-quire you and your instructor to participate in new rolesand in different ways of learning than a traditional lec-ture course. What you are about to experience is an en-tirely new context for learning—one based in activepractice in the community—that will challenge you toconnect that learning back to classroom instruction,course readings, and discussion. We have developed this

workbook to assist you in planning, processing, andevaluating your learning-through-serving experience.

The text first guides you over the initial hurdlesfaced in service-learning courses by addressing ques-tions of meaning and values as you face the potentialirony of “required volunteerism” and grapple with theessence of what it means to be a learner, a citizen, anda community member. For the most part, we assumethat you are reading the text and completing the activ-ities as part of a service-learning course. If you are not,however, you can still easily adapt any of the exercisesto be completed on your own. You might also usethese exercises to reflect upon your service experienceeven if your instructor does not assign all the activitiesto be completed as part of your class.

We have intentionally planned the book to be readover an academic term or semester. You will probablyread about one chapter per week. Most important,though, is that you pace your reading of the text andcompletion of the exercises with the progression ofyour community-based experience for maximum ben-efit and insight.

The various inventories and reflective activities inthis book are designed to help you understand yourrelationship to your classmates (viewing the class-room as a community), to the community organiza-tion (or wherever you are providing the service), andto the larger society. Further, the book prepares youto enter multicultural communities by addressing di-versity issues that you may encounter in community-

IntroductionWhy a Book about Learning through Serving?

CHRISTINE M. CRESS

1


based work. We offer information, resources, and ac-tivities to explore issues of race, class, gender, ability,orientation, and other lived differences and like-nesses that you may encounter in your classroom andextended community.

The text also provides academic scholarship and in-quiry questions to help you glean lessons regarding thenature and process of societal change. We encourageyou to think about how your academic program or ma-jor can be used as a framework for understanding andaddressing complex community challenges. Moreover,we help you look for leverage points that you can use inconsidering the dynamics of power, collaboration,change, and transformation in communities. Finally,the text offers further reflective strategies for assessmentso that you can make meaning of the service you haveperformed (the processes and the outcomes) and envi-sion future roles you will play in your community (as acitizen, a volunteer, and an employee).

Thus, this book is designed as a practical guide tohelp you survive and thrive in service-learning experi-ences, whether that service to the community lasts afew weeks or a few months. The book can also be readas a companion text to your course readings in that itoffers creative resources and ideas for bridging the gapbetween learning and serving across a variety of aca-demic fields and a multitude of community-based ex-periences.

As you will see, each section’s chapters include theo-retical information in order to provide a contextual un-derstanding of contemporary community issues. Thebulk of each chapter, however, incorporates methods forself-reflection and assessment, offers questions for yourindividual thought and group discussion, suggests tech-niques for effectively interacting with the community,and details brief case-study examples of service-learningprojects at other institutions.

To assist you, key symbols have been added to theexercises to highlight their relative importance in ex-plaining chapter concepts. If applicable, check withyour instructor in advance to see which exercises he orshe may require you to complete on your own andwhich ones you might complete as part of a group.

Exercises with a star cluster are of utmost im-portance to complete (working either on your own oras part of a group); those with a lightbulb representoptional exercises (strategies for gaining deeper insightsinto the issues); and those with a question mark identify exercises that provide further resources and in-formation in your quest for understanding community

problem solving and change. Please note that, becauseof the range of community-based experiences, we willuse the terms service-learning and community-basedlearning relatively interchangeably, although we will ex-plore the differences between these terms in chapter 1.

For clarity and ease of understanding, the book isdivided into four sections: (1) Understanding theLearning-through-Serving Proposition; (2) Learning theLandscape, Learning the Language; (3) FacilitatingLearning and Meaning-Making Inside and Outside theClassroom; and (4) Assessing the Engagement Effort.

Part One: Understanding the Learningthrough Serving Proposition

The goal of part one is to prepare you for the experi-ence of learning through serving. Some students begintheir service-learning courses already understandingthe foundations for this type of classroom-communityexperience through their own personal histories of vol-unteering and engaged citizenship. For others of you,the experience may be unfamiliar, untested territory.Chapters 1–3 will provide you with the steps for con-necting yourself to the community and offer sugges-tions for how you might begin to experience yourselfas a collaborator in learning through serving.

Chapter 1 What is Service-Learning?In chapter 1, we look at the nature of “service” and“learning” as they are enacted in service-learningcourses and connect this description to a larger con-versation about democracy, citizenship, and civic re-sponsibility. You will be introduced to reflection as akey practical element that distinguishes service fromvolunteerism. We also discuss the role of colleges in fa-cilitating the development of your civic capacity, andthe types of knowledge, skills, and motivation that willallow you to become a fully contributing member ofyour community.

Chapter 2 Building and Maintaining CommunityPartnershipsIn chapter 2, we delve more deeply into the potentiallytransformative power of your partnership with a com-munity organization. We discuss the key elements forsuccessful partnerships by offering a case study exam-ple of entering, engaging with, and exiting a service-learning experience. You will also have an opportunityto develop an “Action Learning Plan for Serving” (aLps)

2

as a strategy for making the most of your serving andlearning.

Chapter 3 Becoming Community: Moving from I to WeIn chapter 3, we discuss “community” as experiencedin a service-learning course: the class as learning com-munity, extended community as wall-less classroom,and the intersection of these learning landscapes. Wediscover that good intentions and communication arenot always enough to ensure a fruitful serving experi-ence, as multiple parties may have differences in valuesand goals. We also introduce you to a new leadershipmodel as a framework for how to make the best use ofcollaboration in creating community change.

Part Two: Learning the Landscape, Learning the Language

As you participate in your learning-through-servingexperience, you will come to understand yourself andothers in new ways. In this section of the book (chap-ters 4 and 5), we provide you with information andexercises for interacting with diverse groups of indi-viduals in order to maximize your effectiveness andempathy as a learner and server.

Chapter 4 Groups Are Fun, Groups Are Not Fun:Teamwork for the Common GoodWhether or not you are part of a formal team to per-form your service, teamwork and collaboration in agroup setting is a standard process in many, if notmost, service-learning experiences. Chapter 4 specifi-cally addresses the development of your knowledgeand skills for creating effective group collaboration tofurther both course learning and service objectives.

Chapter 5 Creating Cultural Connections: NavigatingDifference, Investigating Power, Unpacking PrivilegeChapter 5 builds on the experiential learning inher-ent in navigating differences in group practice tolook more closely at multiculturalism. No doubt youhope to work respectfully, ethically, and effectivelyon behalf of classmates and community constituents,but to realize these goals you must look at underlyingissues (power, privilege, discrimination, stereotypes,intercultural communication, cultural competence,and others) that affect the life of a community. Inthis chapter we examine how to incorporate multiple

voices to offer a chorus of viewpoints on communityand discuss the politics of difference and the implica-tions for community engagement.

Part Three: Facilitating Learning andMeaning-Making Inside and

Outside the Classroom

The goal of part three (Chapters 6–8) is to highlightmultiple venues for understanding the community-based experience—when things are going well andwhen things are not going well. Specifically, how canyou use reflection to construct meaning and knowledgefrom your experience, what can be done if the commu-nity interaction is a disappointment or is failing, andhow can the context and content of the course itselfprovide direction and insight?

Chapter 6 Reflection in Action: The Learning–DoingRelationshipWithout sufficient, multiply focused opportunities toreflect on your actions, you are at risk for leaving theservice-learning class without having articulated howyour learning was amplified through engagement withyour community partner and what that engagementmeant to you. In chapter 6, we suggest strategies forstructuring the ongoing practice of reflection through-out the service-learning experience. Moreover, we helpyou understand how your learning style may be sup-ported thorough multiple modes of reflection.

Chapter 7 Failure with the Best of Intentions: When Things Go WrongIn spite of the best-laid plans of faculty and students, ahost of things can go wrong when working with thecommunity. For example, students can become bitterlyembroiled with one another when working in groups;the community partner may not provide sufficient in-formation or support for the learning experience; andfinancial and logistical requirements may not be metwithin expected time frames. This chapter will help youanticipate and circumvent possible “failures,” strategi-cally problem-solve and confront issues, and perseverein the process irrespective of the odds for “success.”

Chapter 8 Expanding Horizons: New Views of Course ConceptsIdentifying and understanding the relationship be-tween course content and service-learning experiences

I N T R O D U C T I O N3


is often the most challenging aspect of community-based experiences. This chapter will provide you withcritical leverage points and strategies for connectingcognitive theoretical material with your concrete expe-riential realities. The goal is to give you insights intohow conceptual models and the content of various ac-ademic fields can better inform practice in the com-munity. In addition, you will also learn how “real-life”situations and case studies can serve to add to our aca-demic knowledge base about how to address commu-nity challenges and issues.

Part Four: Assessing the Engagement Effort

The goal of part four (chapters 9 and 10) is to assistyou with evaluating the results of your community-based engagement. Did your efforts with the commu-nity actually make a difference to that community andits stakeholders? As for yourself, what skills, knowl-edge, and values did you gain in the process of con-necting with the community? How might youleverage this learning in future efforts to make positivechange in your community?

Chapter 9 Beyond a Grade: Are We Making aDifference? The Benefits and Challenges of Evaluatingthe Impact of Learning through ServingThere are a number of aspects to consider at the endof a service-learning experience. This chapter focuses

on how to determine whether or not your servicemade meaningful differences to you, your class-mates, your instructor, and the community partner.Were community stakeholders positively impactedby your work? What did you learn that is directlyconnected to your academic major? Was positivechange realized? Included in this chapter is a num-ber of rubrics and strategies to assist you in evaluat-ing the multiple impacts of this college–communityrelationship.

Chapter 10 Looking Back, Looking Forward: Where Do You Go from Here?The final chapter asks you to reflect in a holistic man-ner on your learning process. You will re-examinewho you were when you began the service experience,who you have become, and how you leave this expe-rience poised to act again in the service of the com-mon good.

We believe this book will prove to be a valuable re-source to you, your classmates, and your instructor inenriching your insights from learning through serving.What you will read here has been informed by the ex-periences of many persons. We extend sincere thanksto our scholar-colleagues at Portland State Universitywho collaborated in the writing and preparation of themanuscript. We are greatly indebted to them for shar-ing their experiential insights and wisdom. And to ourstudents—the best teachers we have had—we offer ourgratitude and respect.

4

K E Y S Y M B O L S

Exercises of utmost importance to complete (workingeither on your own or in a group)

Optional exercises (strategies for gaining deeper insightsinto the issues)

Exercises that provide further resources and informationin your quest for understanding community problemsolving and change

PART ONE

Understanding the Learning-through-Serving Proposition

The goal of part one is to prepare you for the experience of learningthrough serving. Some students begin their service-learning coursesalready understanding the foundations for this type of classroom-community experience through their own personal histories ofvolunteering and engaged citizenship. For others of you, the experiencemay be unfamiliar, untested territory. Chapters 1–3 will provide youwith the steps for connecting yourself to the community and offersuggestions for how you might begin to experience yourself as acollaborator in learning through serving.

7

What Is Service-Learning?

ACROSS THE COUNTRY, students and their instruc-tors are leaving the classroom and engaging with

their communities in order to make learning comealive and to experience real-life connections betweentheir education and everyday issues in their cities,towns, or states. If you are reading this book, you areprobably one of these students. In some cases, youmight even travel to another country to “serve andlearn.” Depending on the curriculum or program, thelength of your experience can vary from a couple ofhours to a few weeks or months, and occasionally toan entire year.

These experiences are often referred to by multi-ple names: service-learning, community service, or

community-based learning. Throughout this textwe use these terms relatively interchangeably, but wealso explore some important distinctions. The activ-ities named above differ from volunteering or in-ternships because you will intentionally use yourintellectual capacities and skills to address commu-nity problems. While you will have an opportunityto put your knowledge and skills into direct prac-tice, you will also learn how to reflect on those expe-riences in making your community a better place inwhich to live and work.

For example, volunteering to tutor at-risk middle-school students is certainly valuable to the commu-nity. Similarly, working as an intern writing news copyfor a locally owned and operated radio station is greatjob experience. Service-learning, however, is different.

CHAPTER1What Is Service-Learning?

CHRISTINE M. CRESS

• Volunteerism: Students engage in activities where the emphasis is on service for the sake of the beneficiaryor recipient (client, partner).

• Internship: Students engage in activities to enhance their own vocational or career development.• Practicum: Students work in a discipline-based venue in place of an in-class course experience.• Community Service: Students engage in activities to meet actual community needs as an integrated as-

pect of the curriculum.• Community-Based Learning : Students engage in actively addressing mutually defined community needs

(as a collaboration between community partners, faculty, and students) as a vehicle for achieving academicgoals and course objectives.

• Service-Learning : Students engage in community service activities with intentional academic and learninggoals and opportunities for reflection that connect to their academic disciplines.


In service-learning you will work with your classmatesand instructor to use your academic discipline andcourse content in understanding the underlying social,political, and economic issues that contribute to com-munity difficulties. In essence, you will learn how tobecome an educated community member and prob-lem solver through serving the community and reflect-ing on the meaning of that service.

How Is Service-Learning Different from Other Courses?

For clarity, we will most often use the term service-learning to characterize your community-basedlearning experience. Each faculty member may struc-ture the experience slightly differently depending onthe goals and objectives of the course and the needsof the community partner. What is most importantfor you to know is that service-learning is truly a dif-ferent way of learning—thus the hyphen between“service” and “learning.” These two facets are inter-dependent and dynamic and vary from other formsof traditional learning in that the focus is placedupon connecting course content with actual experi-ence (see figure 1.1).

Instead of passively hearing a lecture, students in-volved in service-learning are active participants in cre-ating knowledge. The role of teacher and learner aremore fluid and less rigid. While the instructor guidesthe course, students share control for determining class

outcomes. At first, this new kind of pedagogy (that is,teaching methods) can seem quite strange to students.As you and your classmates get more practice workingwith each other in groups and connecting with yourcommunity, though, you may find it far more interest-ing than “regular” classes.

In many traditional learning environments, theinstructor delivers the content of the course throughlectures, assignments, and tests. In some cases, stu-dents may also complete a practicum or other hands-on experience to further their learning. In contrast,learning through reflecting on experience is at thecenter of service-learning courses, and faculty guidestudents as they integrate intellectual knowledgewith community interactions through the process ofreflection.

One of the aspects of service-learning that mayalso make the experience enjoyable for you is that theexperiential component connects to a wide range oflearning styles. You may find that when you enteryour service site, the needs of the community arequite different from what you expected. Say, for in-stance, that your service-learning involves teachingrésumé writing to women staying at a “safe house”for survivors of domestic violence. In working withthe women, you may discover that they also needprofessional clothing for job interviews. While theymay still need your help in preparing résumés, theirconfidence in an interview may be undermined un-less they feel appropriately dressed. As a service-learner, you might find yourself asking, “Now whatdo I do?”

You have probably succeeded thus far in your edu-cation because you have a certain level of ability tolisten to lectures, take tests, do research, and write pa-pers. However, for some students (including, perhaps,yourself ) this does not come naturally. Instead, yourskills may best emerge when interviewing communitymembers or providing counseling assistance. Alterna-tively, you may excel at organizing tasks and develop-ing project timelines, or you may be visually creative.In the example above, you may be the best person toprovide résumé assistance for the women, or it mightmake more sense for a classmate to assist with résuméwriting while you call local agencies to inquire aboutclothing donations. Ideally, all students will find theopportunity to build from and contribute theirstrengths to the service-learning projects using differ-ent skill sets.

8

Figure 1.1. The Learning-through-Serving Model

Teacher

CommunityExperience

Student

AcademicContent(course) (service)

(reflection)Learning

Along the way, your instructor and the coursereadings will further develop your range and reper-toire of skills, knowledge, and insights, because service-learning courses invariably challenge students toconsider where “truth” and wisdom reside. Movingmore deeply into the scenario above, for example, youmight begin to wonder why domestic violence existsin your community. What role might the media playin portraying healthy and unhealthy domestic rela-tionships? Do economic factors such as unemploy-ment make any difference? What about substanceabuse issues?

Stop for a moment and think about how you wouldanswer the following questions as you ponder yourown education and the relationship you see betweenin-classroom learning and the outside world:

• What is the relative value of solutions drawnfrom scholarly literature compared to ideaspresented by students, faculty, and communitypartners?

• How can we move beyond stereotypes, precon-ceived ideas, misinformation, and biases to un-derstand real people and real issues?

• How can we be solution centered?• How can we examine external norms and soci-

etal structures?• Which community values should we reinforce,

which are open to question, and how should acommunity decide this?

• How can we develop and act from an ethicalbase while engaging as citizens in our com-munities?

As a student in a community-based learning course,you will be asked to be highly reflective about yourlearning experiences. Often, you will keep a journal orwrite reflective papers that emphasize various aspectsof your learning. The goal is to help you cognitivelyand affectively process your thoughts and feelingsabout your experience, while using academic contentto derive broader insights.

Here’s an example of one way to reflect on your ex-perience. In a senior-level course that provided after-school activities for at-risk students in an urbanenvironment, the learners were asked to examine theirexperiences from a variety of viewpoints in their reflec-tive journals:

• Describe what you did today.• What did you see or observe at the site?• How did you feel about the experience?• What connections do you find between the ex-

perience and course readings?• What new ideas or insights did you gain?• What skills can you use and strengthen?• What will you apply from this experience in

future work with the community?

Reflecting on our experiences lends new signifi-cance to what we are learning. It also allows us tocompare initial goals and objectives with eventualoutcomes—to assess what we have accomplished. Wewill cover more about reflection and assessment ofour community-based learning experiences in laterchapters. For now, let’s turn our thoughts to why col-leges and universities offer service-learning courses.

W H AT I S S E R V I C E - L E A R N I N G ?9

Exercise 1.1: Comparing Classrooms

Think back to traditional classrooms in which you have been a student/learner. What respon-sibilities did you have in this kind of class, and what responsibilities did the instructor have?How do you imagine your role as a student will be different in this community-based experi-ence? What kinds of responsibilities do you imagine that you will have in this class? Howabout your instructor? The others in your classroom learning community? The communityoutside your classroom?

Make a list of the activities you did in a traditional classroom and compare those with any ofyour nontraditional learning experiences. What factors in each environment best facilitatedyour learning? What factors made it more challenging for you to learn?

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Why Is Service-Learning Required at Some Colleges?

Colleges and universities are increasingly including intheir educational mission the preparation of graduatesas future citizens. What, really, does this mean? Arecolleges merely hoping that you will vote and pay yourtaxes as contributing members of society? What aboutjob training and preparing you for the workforce?Aren’t you, in fact, spending a lot of time and moneyon school? If so, why should you be required to per-form volunteer service in the community? Isn’t obliga-tory volunteerism like being an indentured servant? Inother words, Are you being forced to work for free ?

Perhaps the greatest single resistance voiced in service-learning classes is the argument that service is volun-teerism and, by definition, cannot be required. However,in service-learning classes, the good that you will do inyour community necessarily includes the learning youwill gain as a result of your efforts. The whole point ofservice-learning is for you to grow in skills and knowl-edge precisely because you are bringing your capabili-ties to real-world problems. While you do this, yourcommunity benefits as well.

Colleges and universities do not want or intend tobe social-service providers. A myriad of governmentaloffices, nonprofit agencies, and religiously affiliatedorganizations serve community needs. Instead, insti-tutions of higher education want to be good neigh-bors in connecting with their communities. Collegesare most concerned about preparing citizens for thefuture, graduates who are well prepared to enter thejob market and contribute to society. Institutions thatrequire service-learning courses believe that suchcourses offer a fundamental way to develop and grad-uate involved citizens.

What Is a Citizen and Why Must I Learn to Be One?

Being a citizen in the United States implies that youwere either born here or naturalized as one (meaningyou passed the citizenship exam and took the citizen-ship oath). Generally, U.S. citizens do not tend to re-flect on what citizenship means. In the wake ofsignificant national or global events, such as the attackson September 11, 2001, or the war against terrorism,

citizenship may be associated with American patriot-ism. Those in the armed services may frequently con-sider what it means to be a citizen since they arecharged with defending and protecting our countryand its democratic values.

Certainly, citizens of the United States hold a varietyof views about what precisely that means. If you are aninternational student or if you immigrated to this coun-try, your ideas about citizenship may be different fromthose of many Americans. As you engage in your service-learning course, you will have many opportunities toexplore what it means to be a citizen, an active partici-pant in the life of American communities. What arethe duties, as well as the rights, for participation in thisdemocracy?

A college student originally from Bosnia wrote thefollowing during her service-learning course:

I came to the United States five years ago as arefugee because of the war. Before, in my country, Ihoped for freedom. To be free to make my own de-cisions and free to go wherever I wanted withoutany limitations. Back then, I didn’t link it withdemocracy. Now, in the United States, I thinkabout terms like freedom, democracy, and citizen-ship as interdependent. They can’t exist withouteach other. If we live in a democratic society wehave certain freedoms. But we must also be a goodand responsible citizen to protect those freedomsfor everyone.

More than four decades ago, President John F.Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do foryou—ask what you can do for your country.” Thisstatement most succinctly and aptly describes the fun-damental concept behind service-learning and com-munity service. As citizens, it is our obligation tocontribute to the improvement of our nation. More-over, many would argue that as citizens of the wealth-iest nation in the world, it is our responsibility to begood global citizens.

We are all aware of the multiple issues that face ourcommunities: homelessness, poverty, drug addiction,violence, pollution, racism, sexism, homophobia, lackof health care, poorly performing schools, urbanblight—and the list goes on. Other difficulties face us aswell: corporate fraud, dishonest politicians, and biasedjudicial systems. In light of such concerns, it is natural


to feel overwhelmed, hopeless, and helpless. After all,what could you possibly do to change any of it? Andwhile we might care about the issues (and maybe evendonate a few dollars each year to charitable organiza-tions), the guilty conscience that is prodding us to getinvolved may be overtaken by our own apathy. In theend, we feel bad but often go on with our day. We justdo not know how to respond to President Kennedy’schallenge. The problems seem too big.

Yet most of us have done “good” in our communi-ties at one time or another. We might have servedThanksgiving dinner at a shelter; answered calls at acrisis center; helped to raise money for new playgroundequipment in the park; taught religious education tokids in churches, synagogues, or mosques; registeredvoters or gathered signatures for ballot measures; do-nated blood; picked up litter on the beach; or tutoredsomeone to learn to read. All of these efforts are a partof what makes our communities stronger.

Still, the question remains: Why must I be “re-quired” to participate in service-learning? If I want tomake a positive difference in my neighborhood, whyshouldn’t I be left alone to decide for myself when andwhere I want to volunteer? Why should I be “forced”to serve in the community as a part of my education?Isn’t this denying me freedom of choice? And isn’t this

even more problematic if I have to work at an organi-zation or with others with whom I have differing po-litical, religious, or ethical views?

The Role of Education in a Democracy

Some have described American democracy as a greatexperiment. Others have suggested that it is a workof art in progress. But unlike a laboratory experimentor a painting on the wall, democracy is the functionof human interaction. Democracy is the attempt tobalance differences in individual values, beliefs, andexperiences with collective ideals of justice, equity,and security. Being a citizen in a democracy meansthat you possess both the rights of freedom and a re-sponsibility to uphold democratic ideals such as fair-ness. In a way, it is a kind of double consciousness.We are accountable for ourselves and for the welfareof others.

We stand in a turmoil of contradictions withouthaving the faintest idea how to handle them: Law/Freedom; Rich/Poor; Right/Left; Love/Hate—the list seems endless. Paradox lives and moves inthis realm; it is the balancing of opposites in such

Exercise 1.2: What Is Citizenship?

If you are working on your own, list these words at the top of a large sheet of paper: Citizen-ship, Democracy, Freedom, Community, Service, Volunteerism. Below each of these keywords,brainstorm additional words and phrases that come to mind. You might add, across the topof the sheet, words that pertain directly to your community-based project as you currentlyunderstand it: Homeless, Refugee, Elderly, Literacy.

After you’ve completed your brainstorming, look at the lists of words you’ve created. Spend atleast ten minutes responding to these questions in writing: What patterns do you see amongthe lists? What connections? What disconnections? Are the words you chose “positive” or“negative” in meaning, or both, and how does that impact the insights you draw from thelists? What meaning do these lists have for you personally? What might be some implicationsof this word association for your work with your community partner?

If you are working with others, tape big sheets of newsprint or chart paper around the room,placing large pens or markers next to each sheet. In silence, walk around the room, addingwords and phrases to the headers on each sheet.

After everyone has finished, take turns reading what you all have written, and then discuss asa group the questions listed above.


a way that they do not cancel each other but shootsparks of light across their points of polarity. Itlooks at our desperate either/ors and tells us thatthey are really both/ands—that life is larger thanany of our concepts and can, if we let it, embraceour contradictions. (Morrison, 1983)

Institutions of education in U.S. democracy haveattempted to bridge these complementary but com-peting forces—individualism and society, freedomand responsibility. Colleges and universities encourageus to live up to the “American dream” by working hardand increasing our intellectual capacities. The hope isthat we will make use of our new insights to get goodjobs and be good neighbors.

This is not a simple proposition. Our society, andour world for that matter, is plagued by incredibly com-plex problems. Pollution will not be stopped throughcurbside recycling alone, hunger will not be reducedby building larger food banks, and women will not bemade safer merely by adding more streetlights.

Educational leaders have come to realize that thecritical issues facing our nation can be solved onlythrough the creation of educated citizens. Indeed,John Dewey (1916), in Democracy and Education, ar-gued that students must be engaged not just inthought, but in action, and that this mode of educa-tion is crucial to the formation of responsible citizens.Two key elements—knowledge and skill—are the cat-alysts for developing civically engaged students andgraduates.

Being civic-minded is more than just what youknow. It is what you do with what you know. Institu-tions of higher education risk producing graduateswho know without doing—and are increasingly incor-porating service-learning to address this concern.Equally detrimental to our communities are thosewho do without knowing. What our country needs ismore than either abstract visions or “blind” actions.We need mindful individuals who choose to “do good”for their country. In essence, community-based educa-tional experiences increase our capacity for how to ap-ply our knowledge and skills to civic issues. This isknown as enhancing our civic capacity.

I knew that helping an underprivileged kid learnto read would be challenging and fun. But I neverrealized that as a class we could have an impact on

the whole community. Because of the after-schoolprogram we started, parental involvement has in-creased and juvenile crime the last six months hasdecreased. I hope this trend continues.

How Is Civic Capacity Developed in Service-Learning Courses?

The development of civic capacity occurs when weexplore the connection between academic knowledgeand experience-derived insight into the breadth anddepth of societal and political issues. Having a sur-face understanding of deforestation, for instance, isnot enough to address all the associated environmen-tal and economic questions. Knowing that ourschools need additional resources is not enough toensure that children learn mathematics. We can nolonger afford to take a singular or microscopic viewof our world. Instead, through your service-learningcourse readings, discussion, research, lecture, andcommunity experiences, you might come to under-stand how the purchase of your new running shoesor morning coffee makes you an interdependent partof the global community, whether you examine itthrough the disciplinary lens of history, biology, psy-chology, architecture, computer science, English, po-litical science, or urban studies. If we do not see howour individual lives are a part of the whole, we willlack the ability to identify leverage points for creativechange. In other words, being an engaged citizen in-volves more than “thinking globally and acting lo-cally”; it means deliberately applying our academicknowledge and skills to positively transform our-selves, others, and organizations.

Meeting homeless families personally allowed meto get to know the faces behind the statistics. Italso helped me to see how social issues and politi-cal issues are connected. While I was taking myservice-learning course we were electing a mayorin my hometown. One of the candidates wantedto institute a policy to charge parents with a mis-demeanor if they failed to get their kids to school.Many of the homeless families I met struggled toenroll their children in schools when they were

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moving around so much. Never before did I un-derstand how much my vote in local elections mat-ters. How could I vote for something that wouldhurt these people?

Understanding problems and recognizing oppor-tunities for improvement is a great starting point.From there, your service-learning course will help youdevelop the capacity to apply your skills. You willhave frequent occasions to test your talents and abili-ties on real community issues. How, for example, doyou best organize volunteers for a legislative rally tosupport public schools? How might you identify andprovide health care services to people without insur-ance? How do you promote tolerance in a racially seg-regated community? How do you teach a refugee tosurf the Internet?

Each day, our workforce and neighborhoodsbecome more diverse. We need the knowledge andskills of mathematicians, anthropologists, chemists,writers, engineers, musicians, sociologists, and everyother discipline, in order to learn to work and live to-gether. Just as importantly, we must practice patienceand tolerance in understanding each other. In theend, empathy will be the glue that effectively bindsour knowledge and skills into a source for commu-nity growth.

What Else Will I Gain from a Service-Learning Course?

Many studies indicate that students who participatein community-based learning realize greater educa-tional and learning gains than their peers. Their aca-demic and social self-concept is higher, they tend tobe more moral and ethical in their decision making,their tolerance and empathy for others is improved,their understanding of societal and community is-sues is broadened, their cognitive and problem-solving skills are more advanced, and their interest in influencing positive social and political change isincreased.

After participating in service-learning courses, stu-dents stated the following:

The empowerment given to students created a senseof responsibility and commitment.

Reflective journals helped to organize my thoughtsand experiences.

Students also commented on their communicationand critical-thinking skills:


Exercise 1.3: Making a Difference

If you are working on your own, divide a sheet of paper into four columns. At the top of eachcolumn write one of the following words: Location, Action, Skill, and Knowledge.

Next, make a list of the places you have helped out in the community and put them underthe Location column. This does not have to be formal volunteerism. Maybe you planted treesin a park as part of your Girl Scout troop or maybe you walked in a fundraiser for juvenilediabetes. Everything counts.

Beside each Location, briefly describe what you did. What was the Action?

As you consider what you did, note the Skills (the concrete abilities) and Knowledge (the baseof information) you used to accomplish the Action.

Read what you have written. What do you notice about the ways you have worked to makea difference in your community? What does this say to you about your own civic capacity?What might that mean for you as a service-learner in this new experience? What knowledgeand skills, in particular, would you like to expand in this new experience?


The experience benefited me in improving my com-munication skills and leadership abilities. It alsohelped me to further my conflict resolution skills.Most importantly, it gave me the opportunity tohave an experience in a real environment.

I learned how to talk effectively with others andhow to resolve professional differences without anger.

Students further noted how the course brought newinsights and understanding to their own stereotypes,biases, and prejudices while expanding their apprecia-tion for diverse others.

The most important aspect I learned in this experi-ence was dealing with a sector of the community Imight never have worked with otherwise, gaininginsight into the juvenile justice system and the needsof the Southeast Asian immigrant community.

I learned to understand myself and to overcome alot of biases I had toward the poor.

Service-learning courses should not be viewed asan educational utopia. Personality conflicts can arise,students may lack the ability to deal with others whoare different from themselves, community partnersmay not follow through on their commitments, andgroup members may not meet their responsibilities.In addition, many community service projects are inneighborhoods or parts of the community unfamiliarto students. It’s quite likely that you may experience avariety of emotions and reactions while performingyour service, including fear, guilt, or outrage. Becauseservice-learning experiences are grounded in relation-ships—the relationship of student to community, toother students, to the instructor, and to the self—thethoughts and feelings you have about your service ex-perience may be quite intense at times. We addressthese issues of understanding, managing, and process-ing your feelings and reactions in later chapters inthis book.

The fundamental principle underlying service-learning and community-based learning courses isthat you as a student have knowledge and skills thatcan improve society. You just need a chance to practicethem. Working with community partners compels usto assess and reevaluate our abstract ideas about socie-tal and political problems. As a result, we will see thatthe community is more than just a place with “needs.”Through working with the community, we will learnof the knowledge, skills, and expertise of our commu-nity partners. We will also learn from the individualswe are there to “serve.” Ultimately, community-basedexperiences are a reciprocal learning process betweenthe educational community (students, faculty, admin-istration) and the community partners (organizationsand individuals).

What We All Gain

Colleges and universities would be educationally remissif they did not teach students how to connect them-selves to their communities. A central premise of theU.S. Constitution is that, in order to form a more per-fect union (of communities), we must work actively toestablish justice and ensure liberty. Service-learningcourses are an important tool for learning how to take athoughtfully informed and rational approach to livingand working in community that is tempered by activeempathy, respect, and care.

Before I came to the United States from Chengdu,China, I thought that everyone here would betreated equally. Supposedly, everyone is born equalbut that is not the case. Some people are treatedbadly because of their race, age, sexual orientation,physical situation, and gender. I did not expect thisdiscrimination. We must learn about social prob-lems, use the knowledge to solve social issues, helpothers, and strengthen social responsibility.

While individuals may choose to volunteer for avariety of reasons, and learning from that experiencenaturally takes place, service-learning allows fordeeper individual and collaborative reflection on howto create positive societal transformation. We have the


capacity, individually and collectively, to transformour communities to include those who have been dis-enfranchised due to race, ethnicity, gender, age, class,sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, dis-ability, religion, or political view. As such, service-learning courses teach us how to address the issues oftoday and tomorrow.

In the beginning, you may find it a struggle to de-fine the concept of civic responsibility and civic en-gagement in articulating the connections betweenyour service-learning and broader community in-volvement. At times, even faculty are uncertain abouthow to differentiate between service, “doing good,”and the enrichment of their own civic capacitiesthrough encounters with community organizations,community issues, and community members. By be-ing patient and practicing reflection throughout the

process, you will “learn through serving.” As Ben-jamin Barber (1992) states:

[t]he fundamental task of education in ademocracy is the apprenticeship of liberty—learning to be free . . . [T]he literacy required tolive in a civil society, the competence to partic-ipate in democratic communities, the ability toact deliberately in a pluralistic world, the em-pathy that permits us to hear and thus accom-modate others, all involve skills that must beacquired. (p. 4)

The following chapters are designed to help youthrough the apprenticeship of becoming a civicallyengaged individual and community member as youparticipate in your service-learning experience.

Key Issues

• How is community-based learning different from traditional forms of learning?• Why do colleges require community service and service-learning?• What is the role of freedom and responsibility in a democracy?• What knowledge and skills are involved in developing civic capacity?• What does the community gain as a result of student engagement?

Key Concepts

citizencitizenshipcivic capacitycommunity servicecommunity-based

learning

democracyempathyfreedomglobal citizenindividualismpedagogy

reflectionresponsibilityservice-learningsocietyvolunteerism


Exercise 1.4: Reflection Questions

• What should be the role of education in preparing students to become citizens?

• What does an effective citizen do? Can you identify some behaviors and actions associatedwith being a “good” citizen?

• What is a global citizen?

• What, in your view, are the pros and cons of requiring community-based learning courses?

• What specific knowledge or skills have you learned in your courses that you can apply tothis community site?

• How might you be able to use your academic major and its associated knowledge base toaddress community issues?

• Is the “American Dream” possible? If so, how and for whom?

• What connection do you see between societal issues and individual responsibility?

• How do issues of discrimination and prejudice inhibit societal change?

• What community issues concern you the most?

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE

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ON A BEAUTIFUL TUESDAY morning in early July,several student grantwriters and their instructor

from a service-learning course gathered during theirclass time at a huge warehouse in an industrial sectionof their city. The space they were about to tour—theformer administrative and manufacturing headquartersof a local sportswear company—had been donated totheir community partner, whose vision was to create aninclusive space for both emerging and established artiststo come together outside of the competitive world ofcommercial galleries and conservative museums. Thisprospective artistic community center, which was to in-clude spaces for exhibitions and performances and a re-source center for working artists, now sat in front ofthem, behind a massive (and locked) front door. Thoseassembled waited five, ten, fifteen minutes. A few morestudents showed up. They all waited a bit longer. Nowthe community partner was really late. So were abouthalf of the students from the class.

Though perhaps seemingly minor, the apparentbreakdown in communication described above is notrivial matter in a community partnership, but it isquite a common one. In this chapter, we explore theprocess of creating successful partnerships (those thatserve not only the community, but also the studentswho are working on behalf of community change) andthe outcomes that result from such partnerships. Wewill return to the above scenario and examine othersto investigate how these students might actively ap-proach this opportunity to build their own knowledge

and skills through effective collaboration with the worldoutside their college campus.

Orienting the Self toward Serving and Learning

Before we talk about the hallmarks of a successful part-nership, let’s think about “service” itself. In chapter 1,you learned why colleges and universities are increas-ingly focused on engaging with their communities.This commitment allows the expertise of those whomake up the higher education community (students,faculty, and staff ) to impact the surrounding commu-nity positively, in order to address societal and politi-cal challenges and to create positive change both forindividuals and within systems.

That’s not the only reason colleges and universitiespartner with the community, however. In addition tothe social change possible from these partnerships,students may receive extraordinary benefits not ac-cessed through traditional lecture-style courses. Becausecommunity-based learning environments energize, en-hance, and make real the course curricula, studentstypically report significant growth in their abilities tocommunicate with diverse audiences in multiple ways,enhancement of leadership and project managementskills, and development of their capacities for under-standing themselves in relation to others who are bothsimilar to and different from themselves. Participating

CHAPTER2Building and Maintaining Community Partnerships

VICKI L. REITENAUER, AMY SPRING, KEVIN KECSKES,SEANNA M. KERRIGAN, CHRISTINE M. CRESS, AND PETER J. COLLIER


in a service-learning course may also help students clar-ify career goals and provide a network of contacts (andeven, in some cases, job opportunities). Like studentsbefore you, you may also experience a significant shiftin your identification as an informed and involved par-ticipant in your communities and your world.

These outcomes don’t result by accident. Thought-ful preparation for community-based learning on thepart of all involved dramatically increases the chancesof successful results. We all have individual gifts andskills to offer our classmates, the instructor, and thecommunity. By participating in this experience, weimplicitly agree to put these capacities to use to createa rich, meaningful, and vibrant experience in an envi-ronment of mutual respect and commitment.

As noted in chapter 1, you can also expect to buildacademic discipline skills, deepen your knowledge ofthe issues facing your communities, and develop greatercapacities for self-awareness. In fact, it is preciselythrough the reciprocal action of all of the parties in-volved in community-based learning that everyone ben-efits from the endeavor. That is to say, the community isable to achieve its outcomes and objectives throughyour focused actions, and you expand your knowledge

and skills through putting theory into practice. This isthe meaning of “partnership”: All parties gain in the re-lationship, and they gain precisely because the othersare gaining, too.

In chapter 3, you will complete an activity to helpyou identify specific objectives for your service-learningexperience, and you will develop a plan for achievingthese objectives within the context of your particularcommunity site. For now, we are going to explore howbest to initiate and create a community partnership foryour service-learning experience, and we’ll start by ex-ploring “service.”

Community Partnerships

Community partners are members of the communityin businesses, government agencies, and social serviceorganizations that agree to work with students indi-vidually or collectively in order to meet communityneeds. Partnerships are designed to create a service tothe community while addressing educational opportu-nities for students. No two community partnershipsare exactly alike. Each partnership occurs in a different

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Exercise 2.1: Exploring “Service”

Look up the words community, service, partner, and reciprocity in the dictionary and writethe definitions down. How are these words and their definitions related to each other andto this course?

Now, as you write responses to the questions below, try to locate yourself within these termsand their meanings. Please be as concrete as possible, using examples, as you consider thefollowing:

• How have you experienced a sense of community in other settings?• When have you been of service to others? In what ways?• When have you been served by others? In what ways?• What did you give to others when you were providing service? What did you gain from

your service experience?• What images about those being served do you carry?• Have you experienced situations in which benefit has resulted from a collaborative effort?• What have been some of the critical elements of those partnerships that contributed to the

success? What do you think and feel about them as a result of having been involved in them?• What communication skills, critical thinking abilities, or other new skills did you develop

as a result?• How do you think your experience might prepare you for this current community-based

learning opportunity?

community context, with multiple constituents whobring diverse sets of needs and assets to the table. Incommunity-based learning courses, who you are—andhow you and your classmates interact with one an-other—meets the particular nature of your commu-nity partner to create your unique partnership.Because the very character of collaboration is dynamicand relationship based, it is not possible to offer a sin-gle set of standardized steps that will ensure the successof your shared work.

It is possible, however, to look at the key elementsof successful partnerships as a way to guide your cur-rent service-learning opportunity. The next few sec-tions of this chapter are meant to provide you with aset of preparatory tools to help you work effectively inyour unique community environment. For those stu-dents who are able to choose their community settingfrom among several possibilities, we will start by de-scribing different kinds of community-based learningenvironments.

Community-Based Learning Environments

Your service-learning course is an opportunity for youto connect academic knowledge with communitychallenges. Broadly speaking, community-based learn-ing environments can be characterized as two basictypes: direct-service and project-based (or indirectservice). In a direct-service experience, students workdirectly with the persons served by the partneringcommunity organization. For example, studentsmight spend several hours a week tutoring non-native-language speakers who recently arrived in the UnitedStates, or they may interview elderly persons living ina nursing home in order to compile oral histories oftheir life experiences.

In a project-based learning experience, students aremore likely to focus on an end product and developthe necessary processes to lead them to the achieve-ment of that goal. Writing grant proposals to winfunding for a community partner’s programs and de-veloping a public relations campaign for an organiza-tion are two examples of project-based experiences.

The nature of the work you will take on—and themethods you will use to accomplish your tasks—willhelp to frame the ways you will most effectively inter-act with your community partner. If you are part of aclass that will be working one-on-one with homelessand low-income individuals (direct service) to provideresources for housing, for example, you should cer-tainly expect to receive training from the organizationinvolved to understand the policies and protocols towhich you will be subject. You may need to fill out aseries of forms (including, perhaps, a backgroundcheck and confidentiality agreements). It is the re-sponsibility of your instructor and community partnerto prepare you for the work you will be engaged in,and it is your responsibility to take advantage of thepreparation afforded by them.

If you are working in a project-based partnership,you still need to be oriented to your partnering organ-ization, its mission, the methods it uses to fulfill itsmission, the persons it serves, and the particular tasksyou will be undertaking. In some cases, your facultymay be able to provide a comprehensive introductionto your community organization, but usually sometime spent with contact persons from the organiza-tion will be vital, as well.

In some instances—such as a group of studentscreating a photo essay about a changing neighborhoodto supplement their coursework on understandingcommunity cultures—community-based learninghappens without a formal community partner present.

B U I L D I N G A N D M A I N TA I N I N G C O M M U N I T Y PA R T N E R S H I P S19

Often, the decision about whether you will engage in direct service or in a project-basedexperience is made long before you step foot in the classroom. Instructors may determinethis in advance and select the community partner. In other cases, one of the first tasks of yourservice-learning course might be to work collaboratively to decide the type of communityservice and the community partner. If you are embarking on a community-based learningadventure on your own and can make this choice yourself, turn to Exercise 2.7: WhichType of Community-Based Learning Is Right for Me? located on page 28. You may alsowant to contact your college’s service-learning or community service office to inquire aboutpotential community partners and to get a list of service-learning course offerings.


Even without an identifiable community organizationto whom you are accountable, it is still important thatyou, your classmates, and your instructor understandthe goals of the project and that you identify the rolesand responsibilities each person has in a successfulcommunity experience. After all, while you are notproviding direct service to a specific set of clients inthe example above, you are still serving the commu-nity in terms of the accuracy and honesty with whichyou represent it.

Am I Ready for This Challenge? Is MyCommunity Partner Ready for Me?

Students engaged in the community are faced withunique responsibilities as workers and learners. As aservice-learner, you will be a representative of your col-lege or university, requiring you to think about howyour individual actions will portray your institution.As an ambassador to the community, you should con-sider and stay attentive to the ways in which your be-havior may influence how a community partnerapproaches working with students in the future.

Community partners also have a lot at stake. Fre-quently working on “shoestring budgets” subject to thechanging perceptions of social need, many organiza-tions rely on input and expertise from students and fac-ulty to help them fulfill their missions. Not only are thecontributions of students and faculty a cost-effectivemeans of furthering the work of community organiza-tions, but they also bring a diversity of perspectives intothose organizations, creating entities with greater capac-ities to serve their constituents.

The organization Community-Campus Partnershipsfor Health (CCPH) has outlined a number of principlesof good practice for effective partnerships, principlesthat delineate responsibilities shared by colleges anduniversities (and the students who represent them incommunity-based learning projects) and communities.In the view of CCPH, partners in effective community-based learning situations exhibit the following traits:

• Agreed-upon goals and values on how toprogress towards accomplishing those goals

• Mutual trust, respect, authenticity, and com-mitment

• Intentional working out of identified strengths,addressing areas that need improvement

• A balance of power and a sharing of resources• Open and accessible communication• Collaborative processes established through

the interaction of all• Feedback for improvement• Sharing credit for accomplishments• Commitment to spending the time it takes to

develop these elements

As a student you have both responsibilities andrights that attend your participation in a service-learning experience. Let’s consider each of these areasand how they impact the community partnership andyour own learning.

As a student you have responsibilities, including legalones, to ensure that all persons associated with yourpartnership may achieve maximum benefit without ex-periencing undue risk or potential harm. Your instruc-tor and community partner, for example, will have veryclear ideas about the parameters within which you mayoperate. For example, most (if not all) partnerships willnot permit students to transport clients of a communityorganization in their cars or to visit with clients in a pri-vate home. You are responsible for understanding therole you are fulfilling with regard to your communitypartnership and the expectations for your performancein that role. Also, as a community-based learner, youneed to make good ethical and legal decisions that areconsistent with and further the shared vision of theservice-learning effort.

You are also responsible for negotiating time and timemanagement issues. The majority of community part-ners we have worked with, when asked about the great-est challenges they have encountered, identify students’failure to manage their time well (and the resulting diffi-culty this causes) in their partnerships.

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For an exercise that helps you to consider visually your weekly time commitments to as-sist you in creating space for community commitment, turn to Exercise 2.8: As Time GoesBy . . . on page 29.


Moreover, it is your responsibility to learn in thisnontraditional learning environment (which you mayremember seeing in schematic form in chapter 1),through engaging with the community, dialoguingwith others, and reflecting on how your work connectsto the content of your course, larger societal and polit-ical issues, and your own sense of yourself.

Now let’s examine your rights in the communitysetting. Your community partner is responsible forcreating an environment in which it is possible foryou to learn through serving, an environment inwhich you may use what you know for the benefit ofyourself and others. This environment must be freefrom the kinds of threats that prevent learningthrough serving from taking place, particularly sexualand other forms of harassment based in discrimina-

tion. If possible, review the pertinent sections of yourcommunity partner’s personnel manual that articu-late the rights of staff, volunteers, and clients of theagency. These rights apply to you, as well, when youare working on behalf of the community partner.

So far, we have looked at your rights and responsi-bilities as a community-based learner and your connec-tion to a community partner’s responsibilities to createan environment that supports your work as a learner.Further, we must address the rights of the communitypartner, what a collaborating organization may expectto count on from the students with whom it is work-ing. The following activity—which may be completedin writing, discussed with others, or both—is intendedto further your understanding of the reasonable expec-tations of a community partner.

To review your responsibilities as a community-based learner, turn to Exercise 2.9:Pre-Service Checklist of Student Responsibilities on page 30.

Exercise 2.10: Pre-Service Checklist of Student Rights on page 31 is intended to reaf-firm those rights and identify any areas that need to be addressed before and/or during yourwork with your community partner.

Exercise 2.2: What Can a Community Partner Expect?

Imagine that you are the Program Director for an organization that serves the refugee commu-nity in your city by providing workforce readiness programs and tutoring in English. You arepreparing to welcome a group of students from a local college involved in a service-learningcourse that combines both direct and indirect service: tutoring small groups of refugees inEnglish language skills and revising the outdated tutoring manual that your organizationuses as a guide for volunteer tutors.

Because your organization has worked with student interns, you have a fairly good sense ofyour responsibilities to the students. You’ve prepared job descriptions for the students,scheduled training sessions, and identified a process for them to get feedback and to assesstheir efforts.

In the past, though, some of these relationships have not worked so well for your organization.For example, students often arrived late for their sessions, and occasionally they did not show upat all. As a result, some tutoring sessions had to be doubled up or canceled. To prevent this fromhappening again, your supervisor has asked you to create a list of the organization’s rights in re-lation to this service-learning class to share with the students before their first tutoring session.

Your task is to create that list. What, fundamentally, can your organization expect to getfrom the students who are preparing to engage with you?


This section was designed to draw parametersaround your upcoming experience and make transpar-ent the fundamental rights and responsibilities inher-ent in the community-based learning endeavor. In thenext section, we’ll take a closer look at how you mightflesh out these basic rights and responsibilities in thecontext of your particular community partnership.

What’s This Place? What’s My Place?

Before we discuss specific ways that you can formallylearn more about your community organization andhow your particular academic framework and skillsmight be of support, let’s start with an exercise to iden-tify what you hope to accomplish, what your concernsare, what you need to be successful, and what you ex-pect from others.

Your service experience will be greatly enhanced ifyou can have a discussion with your community part-ner representatives about their hopes, fears, needs, andexpectations and compare them to your own. If youare able to do so, plan a specific time within the nextweek to have a one-on-one or group discussion withyour community partner representatives about goalsfor this partnership to increase the likelihood of suc-cess for all involved.

Learning about Your Community Partner

Effective community engagement requires us to un-derstand the needs, assets, mission, and goals of the or-

ganization with which we are preparing to work.Without this understanding we may be insensitive tothe challenges and capacities of individuals within theorganization; we may provide services that are actuallyof little use to the organization; or we may fail to com-prehend the impact we have had on the organization,the community it represents, and the larger world.

Further, while our community partner and those itserves have needs that we might hope to address, theyare not just “needy.” In fact, it is essential to a truecollaboration that students understand that thosethey serve bring their own capacities, as well as theirself-identified needs, to the table—just as studentsbring their needs as learners, along with their capaci-ties and skills.

Our initial impressions of an organization and theirclients may be based in reality or influenced by our bi-ases and lack of information. We risk an unproductiveservice-learning experience unless we clarify our ownperceptions with the community partner and withothers involved in the community experience. Thenext exercise is intended to bring into alignment ournotions with the reality of the community partner.

By now you have thought about what you bring tothe partnership and what you hope to get out of it.You have considered your rights and responsibilitiesand the rights and responsibilities of your communitypartner. You have begun to develop your partnershipby learning more about the community organization.In effect, things are off to positive start.

Because any collaboration is rooted in human re-lationship, there is the possibility—and, realistically,the probability—that something will arise to challenge

22

Exercise 2.3: Hopes, Fears, Needs, and Expectations

Divide a sheet of paper into four columns: Hopes, Fears, Needs, and Expectations. Fill in what-ever comes to mind under each category as it relates to the service-learning experience youare beginning. Then answer the following questions by completing a seven- to ten-minute“freewrite”:

• What steps can you next take to begin realizing your hopes?• What are the sources of your fears? What can you do to minimize these?• What do you need and how will you get it to accomplish your hopes?• What are the sources of your expectations? Are these your own or someone else’s?• Using this information as a guide, list three action steps you can take in the next week to

create the service-learning experience you desire.

you, your classmates, your instructor, and the commu-nity partner. In the next section, we will explore whatto do when there are breakdowns in even the best-laidplans.

What Now?—Navigating Breakdowns

Remember our half-formed group of students waitingoutside their community partner’s door at the begin-ning of this chapter? Rejoining their story, we find oneof the students using his cell phone to call the Execu-tive Director of the organization, who had visited thestudents’ class the week before and confirmed that to-day’s visit was on the organization’s calendar. Reachingher, the student learned that she was in her car on herway to the organization’s office site but was turningaround to come meet the students at this exhibitionspace. There had apparently been a misunderstanding,she said; she thought that the Artistic Director had of-fered to facilitate today’s visit, but now she wonderedwhether he thought she was scheduled to do it. Sheapologized for the miscommunication and asked thestudents to please wait.

The rest of the students from class arrived just as the

Executive Director pulled in with more apologies and akey to the locked door. The students toured the cav-ernous space filled with art from a huge cross section ofregional artists, taking notes for their grant proposalsand asking questions of the Executive Director. Somestayed past the end of class, interested in interviewingthe artists who were arriving to install even more art forthe exhibition opening that weekend.

When the students were asked to reflect during theirnext class session on their visit to the gallery, manyspoke about the negative impact the Executive Direc-tor’s lateness had made on them. Several wonderedaloud whether their grantwriting project was impor-tant to the community partner, let alone a priority;others maintained that the incident had soured themon the relationship and the project for good. Anotherstudent remarked that it was indicative of the flakinessof artists in general to blow off an important meeting.Many expressed that their time was valuable and thatthey resented having to wait.

Then one student offered an alternate view. He saidthat, from his perspective, the community partner’s in-ternal miscommunication signaled that they were work-ing really hard with very little funding to pull off anenormous task—creating an inclusive exhibit of dozens


Exercise 2.4: Organizational Action Research

This activity is designed for you to learn about the mission, history, staffing, structure, andbudget of the community organization with which you are working through interviewingdifferent persons associated with the organization. You are not limited to gathering informa-tion from the primary contact person at the organization. Instead, try to get a broad andcomprehensive view of the organization by talking to as many people associated with the or-ganization as possible. In addition to answering the questions below, gather one piece of or-ganizational literature that best describes the organization’s mission and services.

• Name of organization• Brief history of the founding of the organization• Mission statement• Summary of vision: What would this organization like to accomplish/become? What is it

trying to make happen?• Describe the population the organization serves.• Outline the public policy areas the organization might influence.• What geographic area does the organization serve?• How many paid staff are employed by the organization? What are their roles?• What roles do volunteers play in the organization?

Adapted from R. Battistoni (2002), Civic Engagement across the Curriculum: A Resource Book for Service-Learning Faculty in All Disciplines.


of artists—and that proved to him how important hisgrantwriting would be to the organization. The smallstaff was so overtaxed with the basic work of the organ-ization, he imagined, that they had failed to remembera meeting that would potentially benefit them. He saidhe was impressed that the Executive Director acted soquickly to correct the mistake the organization hadmade, redirecting her entire day to accommodate theirvisit despite her understanding that someone else wasresponsible for it. Finally, he suggested that just as wewere judging the community partner’s lateness, somight the community partner judge the lateness of halfof the students in the class—assuming that those whowere late didn’t care about and hadn’t prioritized thevisit, or were just “too flaky” to show up on time.

What these students were illustrating in a verypractical way was the difference between intent andimpact in communication. When interacting withothers, all of us hold certain intentions for what wehope to communicate, and we use the various tools ofcommunication (word choice, tone of voice, bodylanguage, behavior, and so on) to get that messageacross. Try as we might, we sometimes fail to have theimpact on others that we intend; we also sometimescreate impacts that inadvertently send a message thatis directly opposed to our intentions. When the otherstudents in the class heard that their lateness could beinterpreted as flakiness or willful disregard of thecommunity partner, they protested this perception:One argued that the bus had been late, several othersthat their bike rides had taken longer than they hadimagined, and another that she had gotten lost on theway to the site. All of these quite legitimate reasonsfor lateness—like our contact person’s—illustrated thefine line we walk as communicators between intentand impact.

Because service-learning courses are collaborationsbetween persons (and groups of persons) with a varietyof needs and resources, inevitably breakdowns in theprocess will occur. Students, faculty, and communitypartners may choose to view these glitches as fatal tothe collaborative process and, as a result, shirk theircommitment to the shared endeavor. On the otherhand, students, faculty, and community partners maychoose to understand that such mistakes are opportu-nities for learning and growth, as these are often exactlythe things that expose areas ripe for improvement (forexample, the need for greater communication betweenstaff people within an organization, or the importance

of getting accurate directions before driving to a newplace for the first time).

You may have noticed that the word “choose” isused in the preceding paragraph to describe how stu-dents, faculty, and community partners assess the suc-cess of their efforts at partnership. At a basic level, theonly things within the control of any single person in-volved in community-based learning are his or herown behavior and responses. The community partner,the instructor, and the on-time students did not con-trol whether the other students were late or not, just asthe instructor and students did not control the com-munity partner’s choices. However, all of these personscontrolled how they reacted to the choices of the oth-ers and whether or not they used those outcomes tofurther their own learning.

Exercise 2.5, Exploring Breakdowns, offers severalsituations of breakdown between community partnersand students. Investigate your reactions to these situ-ations either in writing, in discussion with others, orboth.

As you may have noted, the perceptions and per-spectives of any one person in a situation are im-pacted by many factors, some of which that personmay have in common with others, and some of whichwill differ from person to person. Further, many ofthese differences in experience result from the multi-ple ways that persons do and do not experience privi-lege and access to power in the world. In chapter 5,we explore in depth what it means to investigatepower, understand privilege, and navigate difference.As you begin to work with your community partner,however, you might start to think about how who youare and what you have experienced impact the way yousee the world, including the current world of this part-nership. Don’t stop there, either: Get curious about themultiple realities you will encounter as a community-based learner. Think about how a genuine exchange,which is the promise of true collaboration, can leaveall persons fuller, more whole, and better able to relateeffectively to others than before they entered the part-nership.

Developing an Action Learning Plan for Serving (aLps)

Perhaps the best strategy for circumventing potentialproblems is the development of an “Action Learning

24


Exercise 2.5: Exploring Breakdowns

Situation 1aYou are a student working with a community organizationdedicated to welcoming refugees into your city by offeringworkforce training and tutoring in English. For yourservice-learning course, you have committed yourself tomeeting with a tutee every Tuesday afternoon at the publiclibrary for a two-hour tutoring session. Your tutee showedup for the first scheduled session, missed the second sessionentirely, and came for the third session but indicated thathe could only stay for an hour. While he was there, he toldyou that he might be moving out of town next week.

Situation 2aYou are part of a team of students developing a public re-lations campaign for an organization that provides freehealth care to persons experiencing homelessness in yourcommunity. Your team has been very excited about div-ing into this project after listening to a panel of personswho had received care from this organization talk aboutthe difference it made in their lives. In order to completeyour project, you need concrete information from yourcommunity partner, but in the past week you have sentthree e-mails to your contact person, none of which havebeen answered.

Situation 3aFor your service-learning class, you are interviewing seniorcitizens at a local nursing home for a compilation of oralhistories about the experience of living through the De-pression. After your second day of interviewing, your con-tact person, the director of recreational programming atthe nursing home, compliments your work with the sen-iors and suggests having a beer together over the weekendso you can get to know each other better.

Situation 1bYou are a student working with a community organizationdedicated to welcoming refugees to your city by offeringworkforce training and tutoring in English. For your service-learning course, you have committed yourself to meetingwith a tutee every Tuesday afternoon at the public library fora two-hour tutoring session. Everything went fine for thefirst two sessions, but your car broke down on the way to thelibrary for the third session, and you had a dentist appoint-ment scheduled during the fourth. You aren’t sure wherethings stand with your tutee at this point.

Situation 2bYou are part of a team of students developing a public re-lations campaign for an organization that provides freehealth care to homeless persons in your community. Yourteam has been very excited about diving into this projectafter listening to a panel of persons who had received carefrom this organization talk about the difference it made intheir lives. You are the designated contact person for yourteam, but you just moved into a new apartment andhaven’t hooked up your e-mail yet. You aren’t sure whetheror not you gave your new phone number to your team-mates or your community partner.

Situation 3bFor your service-learning class, you are interviewing sen-iors at a local nursing home for a compilation of oral his-tories about the experience of living through theDepression. Since you’re considering changing your ma-jor, you ask your contact person, the director of recre-ational programming at the nursing home, to have a beerwith you over the weekend so you can get to know eachother better.

Reflect on the above scenarios. How would you describe the breakdown in each of these situations? Who do youimagine is responsible for the breakdown? How does the “you” of each situation perceive the breakdown? How mightthe other person(s) involved perceive the breakdown? How are the perspectives in each of these situations impactedby the context of that situation? How might you choose to act in each of these situations to heal the breakdown andput the partnership back on track, and what choices might you make if the other person chooses to keep the partner-ship off course? If you really were the “you” of these situations, what would you do?

Now return to the list of principles of good practice found on page 20. Read this list and the above scenarios again.Where do you find a breakdown between these principles and the situations above? How could you make choices inthese situations that would line up with these best practices?


Plan for Serving” (ALPS). Creating an ALPS can helpyou achieve your mountainous hopes because youhave anticipated in advance the needs, resources, time-lines, and obtainable objectives for the service-learningexperience. The ALPS also includes the rights andresponsibilities of all parties and offers an initialframework for assessing and evaluating your actions.Moreover, it allows you to track your progress duringthe experience to see if adjustments need to be mademidstream. Exercise 2.6 (p. 27) introduces you to theALPS, which you’ll refer back to throughout your ser-vice-learning experience. Complete it with your classor on your own before continuing.

Conclusion

The writer Angeles Arrien, in the book The Four-FoldWay: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer,and Visionary, explores indigenous wisdom traditionsto articulate four central human tasks. Arrien assertsthat, in order to live authentically with others, we

must show up, pay attention, tell the truth, and be opento the outcome. These words ring true perhaps in nocourses more than community-based ones. Studentsentering a collaborative exchange with the world out-side their institution’s doors find that a dynamicexperience awaits them, an experience that promisestremendous payoffs in personal growth, skill building,and understanding oneself and others in exchange fora commitment of time and follow-through.

As one of these students, you can use the materialpresented in this chapter to prepare you to show upand be fully present in the work that needs you tobring it to fruition; to learn all that you can throughthe experience of doing and reflecting on that doing;to articulate the meaning that the experience holdsfor you; and to deepen your capacity to understandthat, in a true collaboration, no single person con-trols the outcome of the exchange. It is up to each ofus to determine whether that is a frightening or anexciting proposition—and how to make our waythrough it, as individuals connected through thebonds of community.

Key Issues

• How do students benefit through engaging in community-based learning?• What are the different types of community-based learning a student might partic-

ipate in?• What are the characteristics of a successful community-based learning partnership?• What are some of the basic responsibilities and rights of student-learners in community-

based settings? What are some of the basic responsibilities and rights of communitypartners?

• What is the difference between intent and impact in communication, and what aresome examples of the breakdown between these factors?

Key Concepts

community partnercontact person

direct-serviceresponsibilities

impact

intentproject-based rights


Exercise 2.6: Action Learning Plan for Serving (ALPS)

This first ALPS worksheet asks you to consider what the purpose of this community-based learning experience is fromthe perspectives of all who are involved. To continue orienting yourself to your community partnership, answer the fol-lowing questions, and keep your responses to refer to as your service-learning experience progresses. If you don’t haveresponses to some of these questions, return to this worksheet when you have developed them out of your experience.

1. Review your course syllabus and recall the ways that your instructor framed this service-learning experience. Fromyour instructor’s perspective, what is the purpose/what are the purposes of this collaboration?

•••

2. From your community partner’s perspective, what is the purpose/what are the purposes of this collaboration?

•••

3. What are your individual learning goals for this collaboration? At the end of your time in this experience, what doyou expect to have learned?

•••

4. What are your individual service goals for this collaboration? At the end of your time in this experience, what doyou expect from its service component?

•••

5. What is the final product, if any, for this collaboration, and how will the final product be evaluated?

6. What are the main components of the final product for this collaboration?

•••

7. What are the deadlines for the project and its components, as you know them so far?


Exercise 2.7: Which Type of Community-Based Learning Is Right for Me?

Reflect on the following questions to help you clarify which type of community-based learningto choose.

• What is the nature of the direct-service work I might take on? What kinds of projects might Icomplete? If there is not a preselected set of options, is there an office on campus that can helpme identify my choices for community-based learning? Does my college/university offer anorientation to community-based learning, or will I get that in the course itself? Can I do a sitevisit with possible choices?

• As I consider my options, what kind of training, supervision, and feedback is available tome for each? How do these kinds of support fit with the type of support I think I will need?

• As I consider each option, do I understand the range of activities I’ll be expected to com-plete? Am I willing to do these activities? Do I know where to get support for my work?

• What are the logistical considerations for each of my options? Will I be traveling to thepartner’s site or working from another location? Will I be alone or working with other stu-dents or employees of the partnering organization?

• How much time will I need to devote to this project in order to satisfy my community part-ner, my instructor, and myself? Am I prepared to dedicate this amount of time and rearrangemy schedule as necessary?

• Will I be able to feel physically and emotionally safe enough in this environment to serve andto learn? What do I need to feel physically and emotionally safe? Are those factors present inthe environments I am considering?

• What are my past experiences of working in a direct-service capacity? In a project-basedcapacity? What are my greater and lesser strengths working directly with others? What aremy greater and lesser strengths in managing and completing projects?

• What are my personal/academic/professional goals for this experience? When I completethis experience, what do I want to have accomplished?

ADDITIONAL EXERCISES


Exercise 2.8: As Time Goes By . . .

Start by taking a large sheet of paper (at least 11 � 14 inches, if possible) and creating sevencolumns, each of which will be labeled at the top with the days of the week. Across the leftside of the sheet, make twenty-four rows and label them for each hour of the day. Begin toblock off time for the activities that fill your time in a typical week at this specific point in yourlife: sleeping, eating, classes, employment, homework, travel, free time, and so on. Be surethat every hour of every day is accounted for with some activity.

After you have finished labeling all of the hours in your week, use colored pencils to lightlyshade in each block. Use one color for activities that absolutely cannot be moved to anothertime in your week (classes, for example); use a second color for activities that are fairly firmbut that could be moved around if absolutely necessary (perhaps your work schedule); anduse a third color for the activities that are least fixed in your week (maybe free time or meals).Be sure that every block of time in your week has now been shaded in.

Now take a look at your week and use this visual representation of your time to help you makedecisions about how you might commit yourself in this project. As you move more deeplyinto your project this term, you might repeat this exercise to reflect the changed nature of yourschedule.

Note: This activity may also be used to guide teams in their negotiation of time responsibilities or as atemplate for scheduling with the community partner.


Exercise 2.9: Pre-Service Checklist of Student Responsibilities

As a means of facilitating a practical consideration of the roles and responsibilities you havein working with your community partner, complete the following checklist prior to yourfirst actual workday. Read the following statements and initial on the line adjacent to thestatement, indicating that you understand and have received adequate information aboutthat item. If you have not received adequate information, put an asterisk (*) on the adjacentline and inform your instructor or appropriate college administrator.

1. Students should clearly understand the requirements of their community project:

___ I have a clear understanding of both my instructor’s and my community partner’s ex-pectations of me.

___ I understand my parameters (I have thought of the consequences of performing ac-tions beyond my agreed-upon responsibilities).

___ I have identified the skills needed to carry out this project, and I feel comfortablewith those skills.

___ I have identified the skills needed to carry out this project, and I have devised specificplans for strengthening skills with which I am not comfortable or familiar.

___ I know my client population and am making every attempt to understand theirneeds from their perspective.

___ I know what to do in case of an emergency.

2. Students need necessary legal documents:

___ If I will be driving, I have a valid license and liability insurance.

3. Students should take responsibility for their behavior throughout the community-basedproject:

___ I understand that I am responsible for my own personal health and safety.___ I have insurance (if agency requires specific coverage for volunteers).___ I understand the waivers I sign.___ I have thought of risks involved in this community-based project. For example:

• What are clients’ special needs?• In case of accidents, what is unsafe?• What can I do to reduce risks by my own behavior, clothing, and preparation?• What behaviors fall outside my job description? (Example: Is it okay to transport

clients?)

4. Students should understand these legal issues:

___ Negligence involves a mistake, lack of attention, reckless behavior, or indifference tothe duty of care to another person. A reasonable person should have been able toforesee the possibility of injury. (Example: wet spot on the floor, child climbing ontop of a table)

___ Intentional or criminal misconduct involves potential harm caused by a volunteer.A volunteer is responsible for any harm caused to an organization or individual if theharm resulted from intentional or criminal misconduct on the part of the volunteer.

___ Invasion of privacy involves confidentiality. I know and understand what the con-fidentiality policies of my partnering organization are. (Example: Client histories andpersonal records are confidential.)


Exercise 2.10: Pre-Service Checklist of Student Rights

As a means of facilitating a practical consideration of the rights you have in working withyour community partner, complete the following checklist prior to your first actual workday.Read the following statements and initial on the line adjacent to the statement, indicatingthat you understand and have received adequate information about that item. If you havenot received adequate information, put an asterisk (*) on the adjacent line and inform yourinstructor or appropriate college administrator.

___ I have received a description of the work I am expected to perform and have committedto doing that work.

___ I have received or am currently receiving proper training for the work I’ve committed todoing, or I understand that my training is on-the-job and will be supervised as I go.

___ I understand how I will receive supervision and feedback for the work that I do.___ I understand the channels of communication through which I should express my concerns

about the work I am doing, the ways I am being treated, or breaches of my service plan orother agreements.

___ I understand that I may expect to work in an environment that is reasonably safe andfree from sexual and other forms of harassment.

___ I understand that I may not be discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity,gender, age, religion, ability, sexual orientation, and/or other protections offered by mycollege/university and/or community partner.

33

The Low Road

What can they doto you? Whatever they want.They can set you up, they canbust you, they can breakyour fingers, they canburn your brain with electricity,blur you with drugs till youcan’t walk, can’t remember, they cantake your child, wall upyour lover. They can do anythingyou can’t stop themfrom doing. How can you stopthem? Alone, you can fight,you can refuse, you cantake what revenge you canbut they roll over you.

But two people fightingback to back can cut througha mob, a snake-dancing filecan break a cordon, an armycan meet an army.

Two people can keep each othersane, can give support, conviction,love, massage, hope, sex.Three people are a delegation,a committee, a wedge. With fouryou can play bridge and startan organization. With sixyou can rent a whole house,

eat pie for dinner with noseconds, and hold a fund raising party.A dozen make a demonstration.A hundred fill a hall.A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;ten thousand, power and your own paper;a hundred thousand, your own media;ten million, your own country.It goes on one at a time,it starts when you careto act, it starts when you doit again after they said no,it starts when you say Weand know who you mean, and eachday you mean one more.

Marge Piercy, from The Moon Is Always Female

SERVICE-LEARNING invites you to bring who youare, what you know, and what you can do into the

classroom and the world beyond (the wall-less class-room) in applying your whole self to creating commu-nity change. In the process, what you discover in theintersection of “you” and “not-you” will shape andtransform your understanding of yourself and yourplace in the world, if you let it. Putting who you areand what you know into practice will change who youare and what you know and enlarge your understand-ing of yourself and the world of others who are bothdifferent from and similar to you. In forming com-munity with others (other students, the instructor, theindividuals who comprise your community partner),

CHAPTER3Becoming CommunityMoving from I to We

VICKI L. REITENAUER


you increase the possibilities for creating transforma-tion, as you experience deeply the principle of thewhole being more than the sum of parts. You are wel-comed into a learning experience in which a commu-nity addresses real-world challenges in a way that anassortment of individuals cannot, and “it starts whenyou say We / and know who you mean, and each / dayyou mean one more.”

Putting “Community” into a Community-Based Learning Course: A Case Study

One April morning, a group of students found theirway to a large room on an extension campus of Port-land State University (PSU) located in the city’s west-ern suburbs. I was the instructor for the course, and Iarrived early, influenced by stories of the horrendoustraffic jams I would likely encounter and by my owndesire to have plenty of time to get lost in the confus-ing building. There turned out to be very little trafficand I managed to find the classroom pretty easily, andthen there I was, where the students would soon be aswell: in a big room rich in technology but short on thekind of setup that allows for full participation and in-teraction by both students and instructor.

I spent my extra minutes shifting the movable ta-bles into an approximation of a circle that we could allsit around. Then, one by one, the students made theirway in: ten in all, participants in a degree-completionprogram (a program in which students returning tothe university while working full-time can acceleratethe completion of their education). Most of the stu-dents were familiar with each other already. Through-out their time in the program, many had taken thesame classes or, at the very least, had taken classes withsomeone who was now enrolled in this class. Therewere hellos and some hugs, there was catching up todo (What did you end up getting in that soc class?), therewere the attempts at connection where hints of it ex-isted (Weren’t you in that history class that I dropped last

term?), articulations of the threads binding us togetherand the spaces where those threads would be attached.That is to say, some of us knew each other, some of usknew about each other, and all of us would find out awhole lot more about each other in the weeks ahead.

Coming into that first class, the only thing thesestudents knew for sure was that they had to be there(or at least in another course similar to this one, asPSU requires most of its undergraduate students tocomplete a service-learning course in the junior orsenior year) and that their being there would involvestepping out of the classroom in some way to work intheir community. They didn’t know what the workwould entail, or what it would look like, and neitherdid I. In a course called Change for the CommonGood, I believed it would be important to figure outfirst what those terms meant to all of us in this con-text. In other words, how would we, students and in-structor, define “common,” articulate “good,” and seeourselves as agents for positive change within thatshared understanding? Essentially, I was teaching thecourse as an exercise in collaborative group process.The syllabus contained objectives and course assign-ments designed to deepen our capacities as a collec-tive decision-making body. Also, rather than beingfrom a single disciplinary major, these students repre-sented academic programs in science, social science,arts, and humanities. The course was truly multidisci-plinary. We would collectively have to determine howbest to apply our individual skills and knowledge toeffect change for the common good.

So we began, with activities and exercises and read-ings and multiple conversations intended to bring ustogether, to attach and tighten the threads that bind,to move all of us from I to We : that is, from experienc-ing ourselves solely as individuals to understandingthat, in community-based learning, the success of anyone student is connected to successful engagementwith others—other students, faculty, community part-ner. How might we experience and act from this placeof shared investment in and responsibility for our

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Exercise 3.1: Defining Community

How do you define “community”? Have you experienced yourself to be a member of a com-munity in any way before? In what ways have you experienced belonging in a community?Are there communities to which you could belong, but choose not to? If so, why?

learning? One early activity helped each of us investi-gate our own preferred learning environments, so thatwe might intentionally cocreate a class that includedall of us (exercise 3.2).

Identifying Group Action for the Common Good

Since the students themselves were charged with iden-tifying and pursuing a community partner with whomto work, we then turned our attention to the commu-nity outside our classroom and our perception of itsneeds. It didn’t take long for a few proposals for ourservice project to surface. Someone had a contact withthe Boys and Girls Club, which needed some paintingand cleanup done at its site. Another student knewsomeone with the Latino Family Services Coalition,which had been approached by the City of Hillsboroand the Hillsboro Police Department to engage youngartists to create a mural celebrating the growing Latinopopulation in the county. Guests from both potentialcommunity partners visited our class and discussedthe ways we could make a difference in the commu-nity it served, ways we might create change for thecommon good.

After the visits, a definite enthusiasm emergedabout the mural project. We imagined how powerfuland satisfying it could be to mentor a group of artistswho would transfer their private visions into the pub-lic view. We thought about all of the persons who ridethe commuter train into Portland every day—fromwhich they would be able to see the mural in its homeon the wall of the police station—and how the resultsof our hard work would live on in the community. Weconsidered how the project would require an extensive

range of skills—from art and design to marketing andpublic relations—and how we believed that thoseskills were represented in our class. While this projectseemed to outshine the others that were under consid-eration, there was by no means immediate consensusthat we should proceed in this direction. Some stu-dents expressed worry that the project was enormousin scope and impossible to complete in the weeks wehad available to us. Others felt reluctant to enter intosuch potentially intense relationships with the youngartists. Still others had concerns that they would notbe able to work effectively with others who were sodifferent in many ways from themselves, especiallywith respect to culture and language.

We talked about the project. We dialogued—pas-sionately yet civilly—remembering our earlier discus-sions about the need for all of us to “practice activelistening,” “agree to disagree, using ‘I think’ and ‘I feel’statements,” “solicit others’ opinions,” and “practice thePlatinum Rule of treating others how they want to betreated.” We dialogued and dialogued. Many studentssaid that they did not want to move forward until every-one was on board with the project. We listed the prosand cons; we mocked up a timeline and a detailed tasklist (led by two of the students well versed in projectmanagement); we did “go-arounds” (during which thestudents took turns speaking with no interruption) ofour thoughts and feelings about the project.

Ultimately, a clear path emerged: Although noteveryone was equally enthusiastic about the muralproject, everyone agreed to work on it. And so theconsensus decision was made: The students would in-deed work with the group of young artists to guideand mentor them through the completion of a muralon the theme “Latino Heroes.” After articulating thisshared goal—the completion of a fifteen- by forty-foot

B E C O M I N G C O M M U N I T Y35

Exercise 3.2: My Ideal Learning Environment

Complete a seven- to ten-minute freewrite on the theme “In my ideal learning environ-ment . . .” What qualities are present in those learning environments in which you thriveand experience a sense of inclusion?

When you think about service-learning in general and your current experience in particular(as you now understand it), in what ways do you see the qualities of your ideal learning en-vironment represented? What about this experience will suit your preferences well, and whatwill be challenges in this kind of course?


mural—we set about figuring out how to use our wis-dom, experience, talents, and gifts to get the job done.We also discussed how students might choose to en-gage with the project so that their academic skills andknowledge would grow and expand during their timein the class. Students created an ALPS (Action LearningPlan for Serving) for themselves, and then we collec-tively developed a class ALPS. While the ALPS wasmodified over the course of the project, this strategyhelped us to define common goals, timelines, and re-sponsibilities.

Moving from I to We

We next deepened our conversation about what itwould mean for a predominantly female, non-Latinoclass to work with a group of predominantly male,Latino artists. In our class two of the ten students wereLatino and spoke Spanish; eight were non-Latino witha range of fluency in Spanish. Eight of the students werefemale, two male, and the instructor was a non-Latinofemale. Eight of the nine artists were Latino and sixwere male, including the non-Latino artist. The artists,who generally were referred to as “at-risk youth” in their

schools and the social service agencies of which theywere clients, were more positively called “at-promise” byour community partner, who described how terminol-ogy and labels can put artificial psychological and soci-ological limits on individuals.

Before taking on the question of how to relate in anencouraging, non-oppressive manner with those wewould serve, we first had to understand what each of uswould bring into our learning community. We neededto more fully explore the I in creating the We. Weneeded to know: How had each of us been influencedto become who we are? How were we similar to eachother, and how were we different? How might that af-fect our work with the Latino Family Services Coali-tion and especially the young artists with whom we hadcommitted to work? How might we understand ourown histories more deeply so that our preferences, ourbiases, our gifts, and our ways of being might be mademore available to us to be used in the service of othersand for our individual and collective learning?

The reflection exercise 3.3 helped us move more in-tentionally into the kinds and ways of knowing thatmost powerfully affect our ideas of ourselves and ourrelationships with others. First, each student wrote areflection journal entry responding to the assignment’s

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Exercise 3.3: Who Am I and What Do I Bring?

First, describe your background or identity on the basis of:

• Race/ethnicity• Gender• Spirituality• Ability (physical/mental/emotional)• Socioeconomic class• Age• Physical appearance• Sexual orientation• Other identifier(s)

What have been some sources of strength for you, growing up as described above?

What have been some difficulties for you, growing up as described above?

How has your background or identity affected your fit in this university, and how do youimagine it will affect your fit in this classroom and in the work we’re doing with those we areserving?

Adapted by Laura C. Engelken from “Who Am I, What Do I Bring?” developed by Dr. Jamie Wash-ington (2001).

prompts, and then we practiced active listening inclass during a “go-around” to hear a part of each stu-dent’s story. Each student was free to share any portionof his or her story in an uninterrupted way; the listen-ers’ job was simply to hear each speaker’s understand-ing of him or herself, without response.

Learning through the Service Project

With the insights gained through these activities and aplan to meet the artists interviewed and selected byour community partner, the students moved forward.Nico headed up the student team that would work di-rectly with the artists to help them translate their vi-sions onto the mural, while David designed and builtthe massive, movable mural structure. Susan and San-dra first helped assemble the structure, primed thewood, and created a studio for the artists in a county-owned warehouse, and then made sure that a steadysupply of drinks and food was available for all. Car-men and Lydia offered their project management skillsin the form of a tracking device for the tasks involvedbefore turning their attention to winning publicityand additional funding for the project. Tracie inspiredthe artists by talking with them and picking up abrush when needed to move the painting along. Mer-cedes, Linda, and Julia interviewed each young artist,wrote biographies, and created a memory book of theexperience for all participants.

We worked long hours through a hot summer. Themural evolved from an idea to a design to a pile ofboards and metal to an enormous expanse of canvasready for the application of paint and sweat. Over theweeks of our course, we all watched the shared vision ofa group of artists emerge in vibrant colors and heroicshapes. Some newspapers and television news reporterscame out to the warehouse to interview artists and stu-dents. As a result, how much this project mattered to usincreased exponentially, a fact expressed in students’weekly reflection papers. Many students reported eager-ness to return to the artists and the project at hand anda desire to impact the artists positively beyond the com-pletion of the mural.

Even though I’m a history major with a focus onLatin American history, Miguel has taught me a lotabout popular folk heroes in Mexican history. I

never expected to have such a great connection withhim. And while we’ve painted together, I’ve beenable to encourage him to think about attending theArt Institute in the future. He’s just contacted anadmissions counselor there to talk about his options.

The artists, too, asked about absent students, checkedin if someone was late, and sought out conversationsabout a range of issues such as painting or family, finish-ing high school, or dreaming about college. It matteredthat this work was being done. And it mattered that thisparticular group of people were doing it together. Inmany ways, the unfinished mural was already creating acommon good by connecting us across gender, age, lan-guage, ethnicity, and culture.

Then one night, just a week before the scheduledpublic unveiling of the mural in a ceremony that Car-men and Lydia had helped to organize and publicize, arepresentative of the Hillsboro Police Department (thenon-Latino male assistant chief of police), which hadoriginally commissioned the mural from the LatinoFamily Services Coalition, visited the warehouse whenseveral students and artists were working together.When he saw that there were various religious figureson the mural—the Virgin of Guadalupe, Jesus, PadreMiguel Hidalgo, Mother Theresa—he demanded thatthe artists paint over them. The assembled groupdidn’t quite understand what he meant; wasn’t theoriginal idea that these artists were free to paint theirvision of their heroes in whatever way they chose, solong as they did not use gang imagery in that depic-tion? Yet here was an official telling them, essentially,that their choices had been wrong. Their vision mustbe changed.

Conflict within the Community

The assembled group thanked the assistant chief forhis input, asked him to allow them to get back to theirwork, and continued. They resisted. No one wanted tostop painting what was becoming a masterwork of cul-ture, history, and the human possibilities of all whowere involved with it.

There were plenty of upset feelings about the inci-dent across the community: the artists felt manipu-lated and misled, the students felt angry, the instructorfelt concerned, the community partner felt betrayed,



the police department personnel felt worried aboutpublic reaction. Through discussions inclusive of allthose working on the project, it was decided that thecommunity partner, the Latino Family Services Coali-tion, would talk with the police department regardingtheir concerns about the mural. The Coalition was thecommunity organization directly connected to boththe police department, on the one hand, and to thegroup completing the mural, on the other.

The students and artists took their collective angerand indignation and put it right back into their work.If the mural was impressive before, it became spectac-ular in the days that followed. The artists created oncanvas what their heroes—the original figures as wellas the Aztec snake and eagle, artists Frida Kahlo andDiego Rivera, the local school counselor and teacherLuz Maciel Villerreal, the actor Cantinflas, EmilianoZapata, Cesar Chavez—had lived their own lives tofoster: the enactment of social justice in the world,the practice of putting who we are and what we knowinto action on behalf of others, and then letting ourknowing be, in turn, enhanced and changed by thatpractice.

The mural was finished without compromisingthe original artistic vision of the painters. The imagesthat the assistant police chief objected to were stillthere to be revealed in the unveiling, during a com-munity celebration that took place on a beautiful dayin mid-August, with all of the artists and all of thestudents present to witness the appreciation of thegathered crowd. The press was there, too, lured by

the way the mural had turned from a feel-good storyinto an “issue.” The assistant police chief also appeared,thanking everyone for their effort while explaining thata final decision about the future home of the mural hadnot yet been made. After speeches and the buildup ofanticipation, the cloth covering came off and there itwas: a testament to the power of individuals to cometogether into more than the sum of their parts, to ren-der what was believed to be impossible not only possi-ble, but necessary and human and real.

Getting to We

The mural example exemplifies the complex dynamicof moving from I to We in the midst of creating changethat can also raise controversy. The service-learningcourse certainly tested students’ knowledge and skillsin new and unanticipated ways. Students learned thatbeing a leader in the community is not as easy as read-ing books and taking exams.

A framework that was helpful to us in reflectingupon our experience and that may be helpful to you isthe Social Change Model of Leadership Development(Astin & Astin, 1996). The authors examine factorsthat, when present, help individuals to develop intotransformational leaders, that is, persons who are ableto create positive change in the world through collab-orative interaction. By this definition, all students incommunity-based learning classes are poised to learnand practice leadership in service-learning classes, as

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Exercise 3.4: Situation Analysis

Consider your responses to the questions below. If possible, discuss them with others inyour class.

• Why, in your view, did the assistant chief of police insist that the religious images in themural be painted over? What factors may have motivated his demand? How should the per-sons affected—the artists, the students, the community partner, the instructor—respond tothis demand, ideally?

• Taking a broader view, how do you perceive the “I” of individuality intersecting and over-lapping with the “We” of community? How are the “I” and the “We” separate and separa-ble? How do you understand the multiple levels and layers of “I” and “We,” using thisincident as an example?

• Considered in the light of this situation, do you think anything might have been missingfrom the course-constructed ALPS? How might the ALPS be modified now, as a result of thissituation?

these classes are, by definition, opportunities to posi-tively impact others.

According to the Astin and Astin (1996), a leader is

one who is able to effect positive change for thebetterment of others, the community, and so-ciety. All people, in other words, are potentialleaders. Moreover, the process of leadershipcannot be simply described in terms of the be-havior of an individual; rather, leadership in-volves collaborative relationships that lead tocollective action grounded in the shared valuesof people who work together to effect positivechange. (p. 16)

A leader is a change agent (one who creates change)working in an active, collaborative process with oth-ers. More than likely, you will find yourself being achange agent as you engage in the community-basedlearning experience on three levels of involvement: theindividual, the group, and the community. If you con-sider the course just described, we all came to the classas individuals. As we began to formulate course goalsand identified our collective talents, we became mem-bers of a group cocreating a shared learning environ-ment with common objectives and strategies. Finally,

we engaged as a class community with the communityoutside the university’s walls, a community in whichwe were all asked to apply our talents, skills, and ca-pacities to the express task of making positive change.

Each level of leadership informs the others: that is,individual students impact the group dynamic andprocess, and that dynamic and process affects each in-dividual; the group works in concert to effect positivechange in the community, which then in turn affectsthe group; and each individual connects with the ser-vice activity in the community and is then shaped bythat direct experience as well (figure 3.1).

Let’s further explore this model as a method for re-flecting on service-learning processes. Within each ofthe spheres, particular values, understood and prac-ticed by participants, enhance the potential for indi-viduals to bring about positive change. These elementsare the “Seven Cs” of leadership development:

• Consciousness of self, in which an individualis aware of his or her own beliefs, values, atti-tudes, and emotions that motivate the indi-vidual to action.

• Congruence, or thinking, feeling, and behav-ing with consistency, authenticity, and honestytowards others.


Figure 3.1. Levels of Leadership

Community

Individual

Group


• Commitment, the psychic energy that moti-vates the individual to serve and that drives thecollective effort.

• Collaboration, to work with others in a com-mon effort.

• Common purpose, which involves perform-ing that collaborative work with shared aimsand values.

• Controversy with Civility, which recognizestwo fundamental realities of any creative groupeffort: that differences in viewpoint are in-evitable, and such differences must be airedopenly but with civility if the group is to ac-complish its task effectively while honoring in-dividual group members.

• Citizenship, or the process whereby the indi-vidual (a citizen-learner, in the case of service-learning) and the collaborative group becomeresponsibly connected to the communitythrough the service activity.

Each of these seven values can be placed in the spherein which it operates (figure 3.2):

Notice how each of these values, practiced withinits sphere of influence, both enhances and is enhancedby the practicing of the values in the other spheres; inother words, the arrows connecting the individual tothe group to the community point in both directions.A service-learning course asks that its participantslearn through serving on multiple reinforcing levels,and it promises that one’s ability to lead will be ex-panded if that work is done in authentic collaborationwith others, producing collective action for change.

Reflecting on Individual and Group Change

It took all the members of the community serviceproject Change for the Common Good—students, in-structor, and the community partner and its individ-ual participants—to envision, create, and complete acompelling physical representation of the strengths ofcommunity. In addition to the literal figures repre-sented in the painting, there is also invisibly presentthe process that the class went through to decide onthe project. There is the particular grouping of artists

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Figure 3.2. Leadership and the seven Cs

Citizenship

CommunityCollaborationCommon purposeControversy with civility

Group

Consciousness of self CongruenceCommitment

Individual

selected to share their visions and the work they didfirst to bring these visions into single focus and then toapply them to massive boards. There is the assistantchief of police and the department he represents, act-ing out of his interpretation of the common good.There is the crowd of family and friends and neigh-bors watching a mural unveiled on a beautiful Sunday.None of us knew that would be where we were headedwhen we began, but we took one step and then an-other, committed to knowing ourselves and eachother, and ended up in new and exciting territory, eachof us changed and each of us having effected change.The end point could not have been reached with anyother configuration of persons making their humanchoices in a collective way. This outcome required thatall those persons be there, in it, watching the changethat resulted from that effort and simultaneously be-ing changed.

In the very beginning of this project there was nodoubt that I really did not see how doing a com-munity service project was going to be the culmi-nation of my college career. So, I entered theproject somewhat angry at the hoop I had to jumpthrough for my degree. Then Carmen and I de-cided to help the group process along by offering todo a presentation on planning projects. This was areal shift for me. I could see the connection be-tween my business major and the course. But evenmore of a shift was when I finally met the youngartists. I felt my heart connect to the project. Ithen understood how I could help to create com-munity change.

When I reread my reflections I could see myselfchanging as the project evolved. I found that at thebeginning I was not sure of myself, the kids, andthe team. In my computer science courses we haveworked as teams on programming problems, buttechnology is a completely different environment.And I chose my major partially because you get towork alone a lot. Now I had to be a mentor, withkids totally different from me. But I found myselfreally wanting to know more about them and theirfamily and culture. I saw myself listening to theirstories, giving them advice, phone numbers of peo-ple they could contact for work and school. I evenspent a Saturday at Raymo’s house getting his com-puter connected to the Internet. He told me I’d in-spired him to consider pursuing a career in graphicdesign.

In hindsight, there are definitely some things wecould have done better. Perhaps most importantly,we should have included the police department oninitial discussions and kept them posted on progress.I assumed the community agency would do this.But I think that this should have been a part of ourrights and responsibilities discussion, and a part ofour ALPS. I really think that if we had formed a di-alogue with them earlier on, they would have beenopen to understanding the cultural importance ofthe figures instead of being reactive. As a communi-cations major, this lesson will stay with me. Being aleader means fully collaborating even as you hold toa community vision.


Exercise 3.5: Identifying the Seven Cs

Reread the case study that opens this chapter. Identify those elements of the narrative thatspeak to each of the Seven Cs: Consciousness of Self, Congruence, Commitment, Collaboration,Common Purpose, Controversy with Civility, Citizenship.

• Outline in writing where you find evidence of these values in action in the case study.What specific activities supported the development of the values, and in what ways?

• Conversely, how did the development of the values inform the continuing work and decisionmaking on the part of the community involved in the project? From this case study and fromyour reading about the Seven Cs, what information seems immediately applicable to yourown work as a citizen-learner?


In the spirit of the above quotation, it seems fitting toend this chapter with another student reflection thataptly captures how a typical university classroom be-came a launching pad for a wall-less classroom whereuniversity meets community, where a blank canvas takeson color and form, where I becomes We. May your ownlearning and serving experience be just as rich.

Remember, this is the greatest project you have everdone.

Remember your passion.Remember the look on the students’ faces every day

we worked together.Remember the handshakes that turned into hugs by

the end of the project.

Remember the stress you felt, and the joy of youraccomplishments.

Remember the love and spirituality the mural rep-resented.

Remember the hurt feelings you had by the wordsthat came from your mouth and the mouths ofothers.

Remember the bonds that grew between so manypeople, so many people from different places intheir lives.

Remember your heart both soaring and breaking asyou walked away from the warehouse for the lasttime.

Remember the pride in our work and the pride inthe community.

Key Issues

• In what specific ways is the service-learning “classroom” different from those in tra-ditional courses?

• Why is it important for students to develop the Seven C’s in a community-basedlearning environment?

• How do service-learning experiences exemplify the phrase “the whole is greater thanthe sum of the parts?”

• What are the possible gains that an individual student might take away from a learn-ing and serving experience?

• What are the possible gains that the community receives?

Key Concepts

change agentcitizen-learnercitizenshipcollaboration

commitmentcommon purposecommunitycongruence

consciousness of selfcontroversy with civilityleadership

K E Y S Y M B O L S




PART TWO

Learning the Landscape, Learning the Language

As you participate in your learning-through-serving experience, you willcome to understand yourself and others in new ways. In this section ofthe book (chapters 4 and 5), we provide you with information andexercises for interacting with diverse groups of individuals in order tomaximize your effectiveness and empathy as a learner and server.

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MOST SERVICE-LEARNING COURSES involve somelevel of group work. In this chapter we will ex-

amine several aspects of group dynamics, particularlyas they relate to “getting the work done” in service-learning experiences. We also include two “Spot-lights on Service,” which highlight the challenges ofbringing your teamwork into collaboration with acommunity partner, and we offer strategies for ad-dressing these challenges in your collaboration. Evenif you are engaged in a service project alone, you willstill benefit from the information in this chapter,since work in almost every volunteer organization oremployment situation requires you to collaboratewith others. The ideas outlined here will assist you tobe as successful and effective as possible.

“Good Groups” / “Bad Groups”

Professor (reviewing the syllabus on the firstday of class): “. . . And 50 percent of your gradein this class will be based on a group project . . .”

Students (collectively): “Urgh! Oh, no, not an-other group project!!”

Professor (with a smile): “It’s great to see thegroup has already reached consensus and it’s onlythe first day of the term.”

You may relate to the reaction of the students above:You just don’t trust group projects. Even though moststudents say that they do not “hate” all group projects,many are still leery of these assignments because theyhave had a wide range of experiences in them—withthe “bad” tending to be much more memorable thanthe “good”!

This chapter explores the value of group work, par-ticularly as it relates to service-learning. Why do profes-sors assign group work? What makes for a productivegroup experience? What causes a group project to “gosour”? To prepare you to engage with these questions,reflect for a moment upon your own previous experi-ences in groups using exercise 4.1.

As part of a service-learning project exploring col-lege student adjustment issues (Collier & Morgan,2003), Portland State University students participatedin a series of focus groups in which they were askedabout their group experiences in college. Here aresome of their responses; see if you recognize any simi-larities to your own.

Personally, I don’t mind group work. In some casesI actually prefer it, but it all depends on the natureof the class.

I don’t like group projects if you have too many groupleaders, because some people are very task-oriented

CHAPTER4Groups Are Fun, Groups Are Not FunTeamwork for the Common Good

PETER J. COLLIER AND JANELLE D. VOEGELE


self-starters, and then you have those that are justlackadaisical.

You want to be able to expect that every other studentin your group is going to contribute and is going todo their part and have respect for each other, but that

does not always happen. A lot of times one or twopeople end up carrying the whole weight of the group.

Sometimes I’ll get stuck in a group for a whole term.And then my grade is dependent on somebody elseand what they do. I hate that.

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Exercise 4.2: Connecting to Your Own Experiences

The student focus group participants, quoted above, identified three issues that sometimesarise in group experiences:

1. Managing roles within the group ( . . . too many group leaders . . . )2. Equity and fairness concerns ( . . . one or two people end up carrying the whole group . . . )3. Individual evaluation based on group product ( . . . my grade is dependent on somebody

else . . . )

Think back to your earlier responses about your own group experiences in exercise 4.1. Doyou see these concerns reflected there? Did you identify any additional group issues? Listthem in the space below.

1. ____________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________

Exercise 4.1: How Am I in Groups?

On one side of a sheet of paper, describe a positive experience that you have had working ina group trying to solve some problem or accomplish a task. Then, on the other side of thesame sheet of paper, describe a negative experience that you have had working in a similargroup. Ideally, these should both be experiences working with school-based groups, but ifthat is not possible, any relevant group experience will do. If you need more room for youranswers, use another sheet of paper. For each experience, answer the following questions:

• What was the nature of the group? • How big was the group and who was in it?• What was the problem or task the group was trying to address?• What was the final outcome?• Were you satisfied with the outcome? Do you think other group members were satisfied?

Finally—and this is the “one-million-dollar question”—What part did YOU play in each ofthese groups with regard to bringing about the final outcome?

After you have finished this exercise, take a minute to read over your answers and thinkabout your responses. Do you tend to act the same way in most of the school-based groupsyou participate in? Why do you think you have acted in the ways that you have?

Despite the difficulties, researchers have also identi-fied several benefits of working in groups, includingincreased productivity (Eby & Dobbins, 1997), accessto a wider range of information (Liang, Moreland, &Argote, 1995), and better decision making (Stasser,1992). An old adage asserts that “two heads are betterthan one.” In your reflection above, were you able toidentify this benefit—the ability to combine multipleperspectives on a topic to solve problems—in yourprevious group experiences?

Recent research suggests that faculty and studentsoften enter learning environments with divergentlearning goals—that is, the outcomes the faculty be-lieves to be important, as compared to those that stu-dents value. There are two different types of goalsrelated to student learning. Content goals have to dowith completing specific assignments (for example, aterm paper or an essay exam) and earning a grade ina course while developing knowledge about the par-ticular course content addressed in that class. Processgoals have to do with acquiring high-order skills (forexample, critical thinking and interpersonal skills)that can be applied by the student in a range of othercontexts beyond the immediate course.

According to Collier and Morgan (2003), studentstypically focus exclusively on content goals; as a re-sult, they may see group projects as barriers to realiz-ing their individual goals, such as getting a goodgrade in a class. Professors, on the other hand, believethat both levels of learning goals can be realized

through group projects. They often view the ability towork successfully in groups as an overarching skillthat students can apply across situations beyond anysingle course (and in a variety of work environments).Professors identify enhanced problem-solving abili-ties, increased appreciation of multiple perspectiveson issues, and a greater likelihood of becoming activelearners as benefits to students from participation ingroup projects.

As you progress through this service-learning ex-perience, think about the ways in which your ownskills are developing precisely because of the collabo-ration you are engaged in with others. How are yourcommunication skills improving? What insightsabout the course content are coming from your peersinstead of your professor? How are you collectivelypooling your talents and knowledge to meet commu-nity needs?

So far, you have identified qualities that distin-guish a good group experience from a poor one(through reflecting on past group experiences) andgained insights into what professors are trying to ac-complish when they assign students group projects.In the next few sections, we explore how groupsdevelop, as well as some of the issues that groupsmust address in order to be successful. To illustratekey issues, we will follow the development of two hy-pothetical groups from the same service-learningcourse, groups we call the Mudslingers and the Vision-ary Skeptics.

G R O U P S A R E F U N , G R O U P S A R E N O T F U N47

Exercise 4.3: Marshmallows and Spaghetti

If you are working in a group as part of a class, request that your instructor allow you to havefun with the following activity. If you are working on your own, consider getting a group offriends together for some friendly competition.

Create teams of students (no more than five per group). Each group receives one package ofspaghetti and one package of marshmallows. (You may also want to cover the floor withnewspaper). The goal is to build the tallest tower possible out of the marshmallows andspaghetti. Allow fifteen to twenty minutes for the exercise.

Afterward, explore the following questions together:

• How well did the team work together?• What helped the group pursue its goal?• What roles did you observe group members playing as you constructed your tower?• What would you do differently if you could begin again?


The Development of a Group: Getting Started . . . and Beyond

The kinds of groups that are formed as part of a service-learning experience are generally task-oriented groupsin which members begin interacting with each other asstrangers and go through a series of identifiable stages toform a working team. Researchers like Tuckman (1965)and Fisher (1970) initially identified these stages anddeveloped what is called the Phase Model of GroupDevelopment.

Let’s explore this model by beginning with ourtwo groups on the first day of their service-learningclass.

Phase 1: FormingThe first stage of group development, forming,describes the beginning of a group’s process, in whichthe primary goals are to get to know the other groupmembers and to clarify the group’s task. Members of a“forming” group have to make several major decisions:

• What is this group about? What is the task tobe accomplished?

• Does each person want to be a member of thisgroup?

• Who are the other people who make up thegroup?

• What is each person’s place in this group?

At this stage, each person is checking out the othergroup members, trying to determine if he or she cancount on the others and how it will be to work witheach of them. Conversation among group members inthe forming stage tends to be polite and not too reveal-ing, because members of the newly formed group donot have a great deal of shared history to build upon.One way that forming groups can start to develop thecloseness and interpersonal trust that will be needed tosuccessfully realize the group’s goal is by doing somekind of activity together—like getting together afterclass for a cup of coffee, going to a movie, or even justtalking with each other about personal interests.

48

Mudslingers

On the first day of class, when the instructor as-signed students to work together on a team proj-ect, two of the students in this group—Mandyand Julian—tried to get permission to work indi-vidually. When the instructor denied their re-quests, Julian picked up his books and walked outof class. Mandy sat with the group, but she spenther time working on her homework from her pre-vious class. None of the other group members—Natasha, Angelo, or Jorge—had any ideas aboutwhat the group was supposed to do next. Whenthe class was over, everyone left, without making aplan for when the group would meet again.

Visionary Skeptics

On the first day of class, when the instructor assignedstudents to work together on a team project, two ofthe students in this group—Bill and Anita—initiallycomplained that they hated group projects. Whenthe other students in the group—DeWayne, Maria,and Tiffany—started kidding them that “we’re all inthis together,” both Bill and Anita laughed andagreed that, since the instructor was not “caving in”to requests for individual projects, maybe it was bet-ter to get busy on this team project.

Maria suggested that the group get to know oneanother by having each member share one “un-usual” thing that he or she liked to do for fun.Everyone cracked up when DeWayne talked abouthis pet boa constrictor that he liked to take to themall. After the initial sharing, Bill suggested thateveryone come to the next group meeting with ideasfor how best to organize their project. The groupagreed to meet the hour before the next class. Whenthe class was over, they all went out for coffee, andto talk some more about DeWayne’s snake.


Phase 2: StormingIn many ways, the storming phase is the most compli-cated stage in the development of a group. Conflictssurface in this stage that were not apparent during theintroductory, forming stage. Issues of power arisewithin the group, and personality clashes can occur asthe members focus their attention on the details of in-teraction within the group as well as the task at hand.One of the reasons that conflicts start to emerge visi-bly during this phase is that group members are be-coming more comfortable with each other. With thisincreased comfort comes a greater willingness for indi-viduals to express their true feelings and views com-pared to the polite, relatively nonconfrontationalcommunication of the forming stage. Members of agroup in the storming phase must address a new set ofquestions:

• What is the best approach for completing thegroup’s assigned task?

• What are the different jobs that need to bedone to accomplish the group’s task?

• Who is doing what in the group?• How can we make sure the workload is divided

equitably?

A group’s ability to successfully resolve the initialconflicts that arise during the storming phase hasbeen identified as essential to developing subsequentgroup feelings of cohesion and cooperation (Whelan& McKeage, 1993). In some group situations, mem-bers may feel they are helping the group develop byavoiding the conflict that seems inevitably to occurduring this phase. This is actually a serious mistake.Successful groups—that is, groups that work togetherto realize their shared goals—are those that are able toweather the “storm” and emerge intact on the otherside of this stage.

Phase 3: NormingThe norming phase represents a shift from the earlieremphasis on competition and the presentation of di-verse perspectives in the storming phase to an em-phasis on trying to reach consensus on rules togovern how the group operates. Much more atten-tion is paid to group processes (as opposed to groupproducts). The norming phase reflects the group’swillingness to regulate itself and to establish specific

guidelines for how discussions will proceed and howdecisions will be made. When a group progresses tothe norming stage, it does not mean that all conflictsand issues that arose during the storming phase havebeen resolved. One of the defining characteristics of agroup in the norming stage, however, is a noticeableincrease in the levels of cooperation and willingness tocompromise in order to help the group accomplish itsgoals.

Phase 4: PerformingThe performing stage is when the real work of thegroup starts getting done. A set of working guidelinesfor how the group will operate is in place, and atten-tion now shifts to accomplishing the assigned task. Ofcourse, as a group moves more deeply into completingtasks, challenges to accomplishing the group’s work of-ten present themselves. Harris and Sherblum (1999,pp. 60–61) identify a four-stage problem-solvingprocess that they suggest helps a developing group ac-complish its goals effectively.

1. Defining the problemDo• make sure pertinent information is shared

among group members.• make sure that everyone is clear about the

nature of the task to be completed.

Don’t• assign blame or try to determine who is at

fault regarding problems that arise.• discuss solutions at this point.

2. Generating possible solutionsDo• brainstorm solutions, no matter how “off

the wall.”• encourage participation by all members of

the group.• set a time limit and stick to it.• generate as many possible solutions as the

time allows.

Don’t• edit, evaluate, or criticize any of the so-

lutions.• settle on the first good idea that surfaces.


• spend too much time on any one person orgood idea.

3. Evaluating solutionsDo• review a list of potential solutions and elim-

inate any that now have no support withinthe group.

• anticipate the consequences of each poten-tial solution.

• encourage members to combine solutions.

Don’t• let the discussion get sidetracked into de-

bates about the pros and cons of a singlesolution.

• assess value too quickly.• quit until you have clear consensus.

4. Creating an action planDo• generate some alternative “how-to-do-it”

scripts before choosing an action plan.• make sure specific tasks are assigned within

the group.• make sure that time frames are set up.

Don’t• state roles and tasks in general, unmeasur-

able terms.• forget to include some method of follow-

up so that the task actually gets completed.

One way to increase the likelihood of this hap-pening in your group experience is by continuing todevelop your individual “Action Learning Plan forServing” (ALPS) that you began in chapter 2. If you

haven’t already done so, compare your personal ALPS

(exercise 2.6, from page 27) with those of the othermembers of your group. Make sure you all agree onyour understanding of the community partner’sgoals for this project, even though you each may ex-pect to have different individual learning and servinggoals.

After the group is clear about what the task is andwhat the group hopes to get out of the project, useExercise 4.4: Jobs List to help divide the work equi-tably, and Exercise 4.5: Timeline to ensure that theproject is completed within the allotted time frame.In chapter 9, you will revisit and build upon theseworksheets to help you evaluate the impact of yourservice project.

You might also use these exercises directly with yourcommunity partner and/or its clients. For instance,you could use the same set of worksheets that youhave employed in this service-learning course to as-sist high-school students to create a new communityrecycling program. Remember, you may be forminggroups on multiple levels in multiple locations dur-ing your service-learning experience. Check withyour instructor, and/or decide as a group what actionplan strategy works best for you. Just make sure tocreate a plan!

In addition, exercise 4.8 on page 63 will provideyou with a tool to facilitate your group’s evolutionthrough the four stages of the Phase Model. Startingwith your initial meeting, use the checklist often toidentify the steps your group takes in this class as youprepare to engage in your service project.

Let’s revisit our two groups from earlier in thischapter in order to see how their group formation isprogressing.

Who’s Doing What?: Group Norms and Group Roles

At this point, you have completed several group exer-cises. You may have noticed that your group has devel-oped some basic guidelines for working together, suchas not interrupting each other, making decisions bymajority vote, and encouraging everyone in the group

to participate. These are examples of norms, or guide-lines for interaction in a group, that let group mem-bers know how they are expected to behave. Groupnorms don’t come about because one person wantsthings a certain way. Group norms are developedbased on agreement within the group and are main-tained and enforced by the group as a whole.

While norms delineate expected behavior within a


Mudslingers

When the next class began, it didn’t take long forthis group to figure out they were already behindschedule. All the groups had met once since the lastclass except their own. When the instructor gave thegroups the last half of the class period to work ontheir projects, Julian immediately began by blamingJorge, Natasha, and Angelo for not having startedon the project. Natasha reminded him that he wasthe one who had walked out of class without partic-ipating last time. Mandy said that if the two of themwould stop arguing, she would tell the group thebest way to complete their class project, an oral his-tory of the neighborhood around the university.

Jorge wanted to know why Mandy appointedherself leader of the group; he had his own ideasabout how to complete the project. Mandylaughed and asked the group why they would lis-ten to Jorge, because he was just a sophomore andhad only recently transferred to the university,while she was a senior who had been here for fiveyears. Julian said he thought they were both lame,and he wished he didn’t have to be part of thegroup. Angelo told Julian that if he didn’t stop hiswhining he’d take him outside and bring somesense to him. By that time the class period wasover. As everyone grabbed their books, Mandytold them to come ready to work next class. Jorgetried to get the rest of the group to stick aroundlong enough to schedule a meeting before the nextclass, but they all left, saying, “send me an e-mailand maybe we can set something up.” Jorge pickedup his backpack and left the classroom, mutteringunder his breath.

Visionary Skeptics

When the group got together before class, eachmember came prepared with some ideas about howto organize the group’s project, an oral history of aneighborhood in their city, which was about to bedramatically changed by the construction of a mas-sive housing project. When DeWayne reached to gethis notebook out of his backpack, Tiffany and Billstarted joking with him, asking if he’d brought hissnake to school along with his books. Everyone, es-pecially DeWayne, cracked up. Anita asked what thegroup thought about designating one person to startthe meetings. Maria remembered reading that everygroup needed people to do three jobs—someone torun the meetings, someone to take notes, and some-one to make sure that things got done on time. De-Wayne suggested that Anita be the one to run themeetings, since she had raised the point that thegroup needed someone to do the job. Everyone elseagreed.

Bill volunteered to take notes since he alwayshad his laptop computer with him. Tiffany re-minded the group that Maria had done a great jobgetting the Math Club’s fundraising project fin-ished on time. Everybody looked at Maria andwaited. After a minute, she agreed to take on thatjob for this group too. DeWayne started jokingwith Tiffany that they had managed to avoid takingany of the jobs. That’s when Anita asked him tokeep track of the time to make sure that the groupdidn’t spend more time on a topic at a meeting thenthey had planned. He agreed, and Tiffany said she’dhelp him. When the instructor gave groups the lasthalf of the class period to work on their projects,Anita had them get out their ideas for organizingtheir project, and they spent the rest of the time lis-tening to each other share ideas.


Exercise 4.4: Jobs List

What are the key components of this project? List all the jobs that need to be done to complete the project. Be as specificas possible. Divide big jobs into smaller components. Link each specific job to the partner, learning, and serving goalsfrom Exercise 2.6: Action and Learning Plan for Serving (ALPS), from page 27. Plan on returning to and revising thislist as your project progresses.

Don’t forget that you will also need to assess your achievements. Decide now on some ideas and processes for deter-mining the success of your service efforts.

Goal What needs to be done? How long will it take? Completion date Who will do it?

Evaluation process What needs to be done? How long will it take? Completion date Who will do it?

group, a role refers to the part a specific group memberplays within the group. Robert Bales (1950) was one ofthe first to systematically examine the different rolesthat people play in groups, and how certain combina-tions of roles were essential to successful group func-tioning. He divided group roles into two generalcategories: roles that help the group accomplish a taskand roles that contribute to the social and emotionalwell-being of the group. Task roles have to do exclu-sively with getting the group’s work done. Mainte-nance roles promote solidarity and help maintain goodworking relationships within the group. (See appendix4.1 on page 65 for a description of specific task andmaintenance roles.)

In addition to both task and maintenance roles,there are also organizational roles within any group.In order for you to successfully complete your service-learning project, there are a certain number of criticalfunctions that must be performed. You may noticethat when individuals successfully fulfill these differ-ent organizational roles, they tend to utilize several ofthe task and maintenance roles. Among these organi-zational roles are the following:

• Leader: In order to get started, a task group(like the ones in this service-learning experi-ence) needs a leader to get the process going,

someone who will take responsibility forchairing the meetings. The leader’s job is tomake sure everyone in the group is clearabout the aim of the current meeting, to in-troduce each topic the group is to work on,and to summarize discussion or decisions.This can be a difficult job. It is not the leader’sjob to try to get the group to do what she orhe wants done.

• Notetaker: The group needs someone tokeep a record of what goes on and is dis-cussed in meetings, who is supposed to dowhat tasks, and the time and place of thenext meeting. This person should also pro-duce an outline of the meeting notes and dis-tribute them to the rest of the group. It isessential to have written documentation ofyour group’s activities; if the notetaker is ab-sent, someone else must step up and takenotes for that meeting.

• Progress Tracker: Your group will need some-one to keep track of how different parts of yourgroup project are progressing. This personmakes sure that each group member is keepingto the agreed-upon timeline for her or his partof the project. This person also keeps track ofthe overall progress of the project.


Exercise 4.5: Timeline

Every project has deadlines. It is critical to the success of your service-learning project thatyou finish each step of the project in a timely manner. One way to ensure that things getdone on time is to construct a project timeline.

Note: Whether you are working alone or in a group, feel free to customize this activity to fityour particular project.

Step 1: Take a large sheet of paper and draw a horizontal line across the page, dividing it intothe days or weeks that correspond to the time you have to complete your project. On the ex-treme left side of your sheet of paper, list all of the subtasks that make up the project in theorder they will have to be addressed.

Step 2: Next, for each of the subtasks, draw a horizontal line representing when the subtaskwill start, how long it will last, and when it will end.

Tip: It is a good idea to start with the total project deadline and work backwards. You willprobably have to modify your timeline several times before you have a project schedule thatworks. Not all subtasks are the same. You will find that it is sometimes possible to work onmore than one subtask at the same time. Other subtasks can be started only after precedingones have been completed.


• Timekeeper: In class-related group projects,there are almost always time limitations. It iscritical for the success of the group that some-one keep track of the time. Before the group be-gins a new task or starts a new discussion, thetimekeeper asks “How long should we allow forthis?” The leader or the whole group decideshow much time is appropriate. The timekeeperthen tells the group when that amount of timehas passed. It is also useful for the timekeeper topoint out when the allocated time is almost fin-ished (“We’ve used ten of the fifteen minuteswe said we’d use to talk about this, so we’ve onlygot five minutes left to wrap things up”).

• Process Observer: This person pays atten-tion to what is going on (the process) as op-posed to what is being talked about (thecontent). If the group starts drifting awayfrom agreed-upon norms of respect and civil-ity, the process observer’s job is to bring thisto the attention of the group so that they canchange they way they are working. It is veryimportant that this person avoids seeming

critical or judgmental and concentrates ondescribing what he or she observed as well asoffering positive, constructive suggestions forchange. (Gibbs, 1994, pp. 21–22)

These organizational roles do not necessarily haveto stay the same for the duration of your group proj-ect. In the beginning, one possibility is to allocate thedifferent roles to the individuals who want them. Asecond approach would be to assign the roles to spe-cific group members based on who seems best quali-fied from past experience. You may also feel more orless affinity with some of these roles based on person-ality and learning style differences.

Remember, if you do not assume one of the organi-zational roles, there are still task and maintenance rolesfor you to play within the group. It is essential to thegroup’s success that each member take on one or moreof those roles in contributing to the group process andproject.

To further explore your own part in exercise 4.6,see Exercise 4.9: How Am I in This Group? onpage 64.

54

Exercise 4.6: Group Roles

Your group should discuss how best to approach the service-learning project connected withyour class. To do so, follow these four steps:

1. Make sure each person has read the descriptions of the different organizational, task, andmaintenance roles. Decide who is going to play each organizational role in your group.

2. Go ahead with the discussion of your service-learning project. The people who havetaken on organizational roles should try to perform their roles well without disruptingthe meeting.

3. Each member of the group should take notes about how well each of the roles was per-formed. Jot down instances when you recognize yourself and other group membersdemonstrating different task and maintenance roles.

4. Have a post-meeting discussion where you talk about how the meeting went with groupmembers performing the needed organizational roles. As a group, come up with at leastthree suggestions for how you will make sure these functions are performed even moreefficiently at the next meeting.

•_____________________________________________________________________

•_____________________________________________________________________

•_____________________________________________________________________


We have seen how groups require their members toplay a wide range of roles in order for the group to func-tion effectively. One positive consequence of a smoothlyfunctioning group is that members start to appreciateand feel closer to each other. That closeness is calledgroup cohesion, and it is the focus of the next section ofthis chapter.

Group Cohesion

In most of my group projects I usually take the role ofsmoothing things over when something goes wrong.Actually, though, we were pretty lucky in this classbecause I think most of the people in our group knewwhat they were doing when it came to getting thingsaccomplished in groups. We had the attitude that,how can we go out in the community and work withkids on things like following through, when we can’teven work on it in our own little group?

For group cohesiveness to develop, individuals mustfirst experience a sense of belonging to the group. Groupcohesion refers to a variety of factors that encourage

members to remain united and committed to groupgoals. Luft (1984) suggests the following characteris-tics as differentiating a collection of individuals from agroup:

• Group members share a common goal orgoals.

• Regular interaction takes place among groupmembers.

• Individuals perceive value in their group mem-bership.

• Differentiation of tasks emerges with time.

One of the most important ingredients for develop-ing solid group cohesion is trust. During the normalups and downs of group work and problem solving,members must be able to trust that their colleagueswill work in the best interest of the group, even during(and, some would argue, especially during) times ofconflict and disagreement. The following actions in-crease trust in groups:

• Openness to others’ views, even when thoseviews are not initially understood

• Flexibility in the face of rapidly changing con-ditions and different working styles

Spotlight on Service

When community members begin working with your group, additional issues may ariseconcerning who performs which roles.

Situation 1: Community members may be unclear about the group norms and expectationsfor group member contributions.

Tip: Offer community members an overview of your group’s development and working style,using the worksheets and activities you have completed as a guide. In addition, get feedbackfrom all group members (students and community partners) at the end of every meeting regard-ing each member’s perceptions of group effectiveness. Ask for suggestions for future meetings.

Situation 2: Established roles and working dynamics may be temporarily interrupted; forexample, task leaders may find themselves sharing their role with a task-oriented communitymember.

Tip: Review and summarize the results of Exercise 4.6: Group Roles, on page 54. Ask commu-nity members if they would like to add their perspectives on the usual roles they take in groups.See if the group needs to build in some flexibility (for example, multiple task leaders who needto play other roles occasionally). If appropriate, alternate roles at each meeting (by taking turnsbeing task leader, timekeeper, note taker, process observer, and so forth).


• Willingness to take responsibility for groupgoals and tasks

• Ability to endure times of ambiguity and frus-tration with the group

• Capacity to disagree while maintaining loyaltyto the group

If this suggests to you that work is involved in build-ing and maintaining group cohesion, you are correct;cohesive groups don’t happen by accident. Research ongroup cohesion demonstrates that this kind of work iswell worth the effort. For example, some positive out-comes associated with group cohesion include groupmember satisfaction, increased motivation, heightenedperseverance toward accomplishment of group goals,cooperation, open communication, and more effectivelistening (Donelson, 1999). Additionally, the moreyou learn about yourself and others and the more youare able to increase appreciation for diverse workingstyles, learning styles, and experiential and culturalperspectives, the more prepared you are to engage inthe community.

Group cohesion can also result in less positive out-comes, however. Irving Janis (1983) developed theterm groupthink, which he defined as “a deteriora-tion of mental efficiency, reality, and moral judgmentthat results from in-group pressures” (p. 322). Janisoriginally used the term to explain major fiascoes ingroup decision-making processes. As he analyzed sev-eral cases of major policy decision making in U.S. his-tory, he found that concurrence-seeking behavior incohesive groups can become so dominant that mem-

bers fail to adequately consider alternative courses ofaction. Group interactions become increasingly char-acterized by muddy thinking, poor decision making,and carelessness. Symptoms of groupthink include thefollowing:

• Collective rationalization: Warnings and neg-ative feedback are discounted.

• Perception of group morality: There is an un-questioned assumption that what the groupdoes is right, good, and moral.

• Stereotyping other groups: An inaccurate andnegative view of “the adversary” is created.

• Pressure to conform: Group members are pres-sured to conform to group opinion, and dissi-dent views are discouraged.

• Mind-guarding: Group members actively pro-tect the group from outside ideas that maycontradict the group opinion or ideas.

• Surface agreement: There is an illusion ofagreement, but individual doubt is not voicedto other group members.

Building a cohesive group pays big dividends whenit comes to group performance. Even more important,cohesive groups are better able to deal with the prob-lems that can tear other groups apart. When a groupis experiencing difficulties, these issues can often betraced to some form of communication problem. Let’scheck in on our two groups of service-learning stu-dents and see how they are dealing with some of theseissues.

Exercise 4.7: Revisiting the Seven Cs

Chapter 3 introduced the Seven Cs of Leadership Development: Consciousness of Self,Congruence, Commitment, Collaboration, Common Purpose, Controversy with Civility, andCitizenship (pages 39–40). You’ve already reflected on opportunities in which you havebeen supported to develop the Seven Cs. Now focus on one or more of the actions that in-crease trust, as outlined above. Recall a previous group situation in which those actions didnot manifest themselves within the group. What about the group process prevented theirdevelopment? How might the actions and behaviors that increase trust be supported bythe values of the Seven Cs? How, specifically, might you as an individual implement theSeven Cs in this group experience? What are the implications for trust and group cohesionwhen each of the Seven Cs is consistently practiced within the group?


Spotlight on Service

Situation: In service-learning courses, groups might experience pressure to engage in group-think behaviors when community perspectives and student perspectives on issues clash, whenthe pressure to meet community project deadlines becomes overwhelming, or when the stu-dents feel unclear about or removed from community partners’ expectations.

Tip: Include assumption chaser as one of your group member roles. This group member shouldroutinely ask questions such as “What are we assuming?” and “Have we considered enough al-ternatives to this before we make our final decision?” Consult experienced outsiders (on andoff campus) who are impartial and have a background in the subject area of your service expe-rience. Finally, set time aside routinely during meetings to briefly reconsider your workingnotes from previous group meetings, with special attention to decisions that have been made.

Mudslingers

The deadline for presenting a final project draft isswiftly approaching, and all five members of thegroup are able to attend the group meeting for thefirst time in three weeks. “Okay, so last timeNatasha said that we should just divide up thework into pieces and so we did,” begins Angelo.

“That isn’t what I said,” interrupts Natasha.“Yes, you said that whoever wasn’t here would

just have to take what they got,” said Angelo.Natasha, red-faced, replied, “No, I meant that

we would all have to just get going on it whether wecould talk about it or not.”

“Look, you’ve been trying to take over this proj-ect all term, so why don’t you just admit it?” shotback Angelo.

Mandy, Julian, and Jorge sat silently. Mandy wasstaring out the window and appeared uninterestedin the conversation.

Finally, Julian broke the uncomfortable silence.“Did everyone else read that e-mail that you, I guessit was Angelo, sent out? Because I didn’t get it. It wastotally unclear what we are supposed to be doing.”

Natasha flashed back, “It wasn’t unclear to me,but then I’ve been committed to making someprogress during group meetings.”

“Hold on,” Julian broke in. “Let’s not rehash thepast, let’s just figure out what we’re supposed to doand just do it. Get it over with.”

Mandy continued to stare out the window.

Visionary Skeptics

The deadline for presenting a final project draft isswiftly approaching, and the group is feeling somestress. Lately, disagreement has surfaced over someof the project content, and two group membershad been out with the flu for a week. When the fivemembers finally met, Tiffany began by askingDeWayne and Maria whether they were feeling anybetter.

“Not completely,” replied Maria, “but we needto get this back on track.”

DeWayne agreed. “Why don’t we go back overwhere we left off,” he suggested. “The e-mail up-date was helpful, but we can’t decide just based onthat. Maybe someone could read the notes aboutthe different ideas we had when we last met as agroup, and then the other three of you can let usknow what you did while we were gone.”

“So DeWayne,” said Anita, “Are you saying youwant to make sure we understand the different ideasand people’s reasons? Then Tiffany, Maria, and I canshow you the Web material we got last week. Afterthat, I think we’ll need to make some decisions oneway or another.”

Everyone laughed when Maria suggested thatDeWayne’s snake could decide which direction totake. Finally, though, the group decided to com-pare the content areas to the original projectgoals to see whether some ideas made better sensethan others.


Communication in Groups

At the beginning of this chapter (exercise 4.1, on page46), you reflected on positive and negative experiencesthat you have had in task or problem-solving groups.Take a look at your responses to that activity: Howmany are related to communication in groups? For ex-ample, did any of the issues involve negotiation ofconflicting perspectives, approaching another groupmember about his or her group behavior, assumptionsabout others’ intentions, or working across differentcommunication styles?

More than likely, communication was central tomany of the issues that you identified in that exercise.When group process breaks down, it is often blamedon a “lack of communication.” We often assume that,if communication was happening as it should havebeen, then problems with group process could havebeen avoided. Yet it is more often the case that a greatdeal of communication was occurring, but perhaps notin a manner that contributed to group cohesion. Somecommunication habits that have served well in othercontexts may need to be reconsidered in the context ofproblem-solving groups. In service-learning courses,we may need to expand our group communicationskills to include ongoing contributions from othergroups in the class, as well as perspectives of multipleconstituencies on and off campus. In the context ofservice-learning, it is important to consider that aware-ness of communication dynamics (and the resultingimpact on group process) has implications not only forthe group itself, but for potential community partnerswho are depending upon the commitments you have

made to the project. Therefore, adopt the notion thatmistakes in communication will be made by all; this isto be expected as skills are expanded and tested. Re-mind the group that “competence is what you do whenyou make a mistake” (Smith, 1995).

Although we often picture speaking skills when wehear the word “effective communication,” one of themost important group communication skills can bepracticed with the mouth shut. Listening actively andrespectfully to others is itself an important contribu-tion to effective group functioning, yet it is very diffi-cult to do consistently. One reason is that activelistening is hard work. To illustrate why, consider thedifference between active listening and other kinds oflistening in the box below.

In any given situation, we move from active lis-tening to minimal and inefficient listening and backagain without awareness that we are doing so. Suc-cessful group process often depends upon groupmembers’ commitment (remember the Seven Cs!) tothe focused efforts of maintaining open and activelistening. This requires a heightened awareness ofthe kind of listening going on throughout groupmeetings.

Timmons (1991) suggests some additional ideas forimproved listening:

• Reduce distractions. We often have morecontrol over distractions than we know. Bringyourself back to the group discussion whenyou begin to drift away. Commit yourself tobeing fully present for the next five minutes(and when five minutes is up, recommit your-

Active Listening Minimal Listening Inefficient Listening

Listening for main andsupporting ideas; givingappropriate feedback; check-ing the accuracy of yourinferences and assumptions;listening for content as wellas intent and feelings;attempting to understandfrom the other’s point of view.

Listening to words andsounds but not activelytrying to understand beyondsurface meanings; “tuningout” after hearing justenough to grasp main ideas;attempting to understand inthe context of your ownpoint of view, or in order toget your needs met.

Listening now and then;mentally composing aresponse while others arespeaking; waiting to takecontrol of the conversation;thinking of other thingsbesides the current conversa-tion; offering little or no feed-back; attempting to confirm apreconceived idea of others’messages, feelings, or intent.


self for the next five, and so forth). Tell yourselfthat what the speaker is saying is absolutelynecessary for the group’s success. (This maynot always happen, but you never know untilyou hear the whole message.)

• Write down questions you have as you lis-ten. Rather than interrupting before thespeaker has finished, jot down notes aboutanything you don’t understand. For exam-ple, “What did she mean by communityawareness?”

• Set aside time in the group where listen-ing, by itself, is the end goal. This is a spe-cial time when group members can speakwithout censure or interruption. At thistime, the purpose is not to discuss agreementor disagreement over ideas, nor is the pur-pose to debate or convince others of the mer-its of particular ideas or issues. Rather, theprimary purpose is to listen appreciatively foran understanding of another’s experience,ideas, or points of view (regardless ofwhether you agree or disagree). The in-creased understanding and group awarenessoften results in improved decision makingwhen the group turns its attention to otherforms of listening, such as listening for thepurpose of evaluating various proposals foraction.

• Regularly discuss what you have heard andlearned during group meetings. We retainmore when we confirm what we have heardwith others. We also organize and process in-formation more effectively by collaborativelysummarizing with others.

• Keep track of your own contributions tothe group. When you have commented twoor three times, decide to listen for a while evenif you have a pertinent comment (write itdown if you are afraid you will forget).Chances are, someone else has a pertinentcomment as well and may need the “space” tostep in. If you must comment, phrase yourcomment as a question to invite contributionsfrom others: “I’d like to know what others inthe group think about . . .”

How well are our two groups practicing these tech-niques? (See page 60.)

Free-Riders and Other Equity Issues

Earlier in this chapter, students commented about pos-sible issues that can arise in group projects, often em-phasizing task equity and other concerns related tofairness. One student directly expressed this in thestatement, “One or two people end up carrying thewhole group.” Perhaps you have experienced this chal-lenge in previous group work. One consequence ofhaving one or two persons feel like they are carrying theentire group is the deterioration of relationships withinthe group, which causes a marked decrease in group co-hesion. Another consequence is that the project mightnot get finished with the level of quality originally an-ticipated due to a loss of buy-in from the overworkedmembers—not to mention the loss of the perspectivesof the absent group members. Overworked studentsmay reach the point where they will no longer compen-sate for the lack of work (or the inferior quality ofwork) they perceive coming from other group mem-bers who are not “pulling their weight.” Absent groupmembers may pull away from the project even more asthey feel ostracized and undervalued by overfunction-ing members. In order to successfully complete yourservice-learning project, you’ll need strategies to dealwith free riding—the dynamic in which some groupmembers are not doing (or are not perceived to be do-ing) their fair share of the work.

One tool that will help you identify individualcontributions within your team is Exercise 4.10:Group Member Work Tally, located on page 64. Youmight use Exercise 4.4: Jobs List from page 51 to fillout the work tally. You may note that the reason thetally sheet distinguishes between “Who initiallyagreed to be responsible for the subtask?” and “Whoactually did the task?” is that, as we know, plans oftenchange over the duration of a long-term project.While there is generally no problem with groupmembers swapping one task for another, using a tallysheet helps give all members of the group an accuratepicture of who actually completed which projecttasks. Not only will using tools such as the “Jobs List”and the “Group Member Work Tally” make clear thespecific steps necessary for successful subtask comple-tion, but it will also provide the group with more ac-curate information about individual members’contributions to the total project. To ensure that allmembers invest in the idea that the group must workequitably together to accomplish its goals, it is essen-


tial to address the issue of work equity. In order to dis-courage “free-riders,” incorporate discussion and ac-knowledgement of group members’ individualcontributions, and develop a shared understanding ofthe project performance standard, as an ongoing partof your group’s process.

Groups Revisited

Before concluding, let’s take one more look at our twogroups of service-learning students.

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Mudslingers

Angelo sent out an emergency e-mail to everyonein the group to meet on Monday for a work ses-sion, as the instructor would not approve thegroup’s final project draft until it was rewritten.Only Natasha showed up to help, so the two ofthem rewrote it. On Wednesday during class, theinstructor approved the final project draft. Natashareminded everyone in the group (except Julian,who skipped class that day) that this weekendwould be their last real chance to collect the neigh-borhood residents’ stories for the oral history. Theyagreed to meet at the neighborhood communitycenter on Saturday morning. Angelo said he wouldmake sure that Julian got a message as to when andwhere the group was going to meet.

On Saturday morning, Angelo, Natasha, andJorge showed up at the community center, but therewere no signs of Mandy or Julian. Angelo andNatasha started arguing over whether Julian evergot the message that Angelo left for him Wednesdaynight. Finally, because the residents were waiting forthem, the three students started the interviews. Nei-ther Mandy nor Julian ever showed up. After theyfinished the interviews, Jorge, Natasha, and Angelohad a meeting of their own.

“What are we going to do about the final report?”asked Jorge.

“I think we should make Mandy and Julian writethe entire report. They haven’t helped us with any ofthe other steps in the project,” Angelo grumbled.

“No way I’m counting on them,” said Natasha.“My grade in this class depends on finishing theproject. I think we have to just suck it up and fin-ish it ourselves.”

The others agreed, but no one seemed very happyabout being “dumped on” by Julian and Mandy.

Visionary Skeptics

Once the final project draft was approved, every-one got busy compiling the different parts of theneighborhood oral history. It was agreed that allthe members of the group would meet at theneighborhood community center to talk withlongtime residents and collect their stories about“the old days” in this neighborhood. When Anita,Bill, and Maria arrived at the community center,neither Tiffany nor DeWayne were there. Since allthe residents were waiting, the three students gotready to start doing the interviews. Anita’s cell phonerang. It was DeWayne; his cold had worsened, andhe was “sick as a dog.”

He told Anita, “I don’t think I should come outthere today; all that would happen is that I would geta bunch of other people sick. Tell the rest of thegroup that I’ll be responsible for the graphics anddrawings to illustrate the final report, since I couldn’thelp today.”

When Anita told the rest of the group DeWayne’sidea, they thought he was smart to have stayed awayinstead of spreading his cold to everyone else. Theywere actually happy with the plan; DeWayne’s illus-trations were always well done. Just then Tiffanyshowed up, about fifteen minutes late. She startedright into doing an interview. No one said anythingabout her being late, but Tiffany volunteered to stayafter the rest of the group had finished to completethe last couple of interviews. Later that evening,Anita sent everyone in the group an e-mail reminderthat each person had agreed to have his or her sec-tion of the final report ready for the next meeting.


Mudslingers

Neither Mandy nor Julian was in class on Monday. An-gelo, Jorge, and Natasha worked late to get the final reportready for the class project presentation on Friday. OnWednesday, both Julian and Mandy were in class. After theinstructor reminded all the groups that it was required thateach member of the group present some part of the finalreport, Mandy and Julian immediately asked Natasha,“Which part of the report do you want me to present?”

She assigned Mandy the introduction and Julian theneighborhood history sections to present, while Angelofumed. The final in-class presentation was a disaster.Mandy read the introduction from the folded page ofnotes that Natasha had given her on Wednesday. Juliankept mispronouncing the street names in the neighbor-hood. The community partner looked very unhappy, andthe instructor seemed to be embarrassed. As class endedand everyone was leaving, Natasha said to Jorge, “I praythat I will never again have to do another group projectwith any of these losers.”

Angelo turned in one copy of the final report to theinstructor—without any graphics or illustrations—onthe following Monday.

Visionary Skeptics

The group was working smoothly as they wrapped up thegroup project assigned in their service-learning class.Maria made sure the group stayed on the timeline. Theyfinished the oral history of their neighborhood and putall the stories together in a final report, complete withDeWayne’s drawings. At the final in-class project presen-tation, Tiffany introduced the project, and then each ofthe other group members told one of the neighborhoodstories.

At the end of the presentation, Bill and Anita madesure that the community partner got a copy of the finalreport. The following Saturday, all of the VisionarySkeptics—DeWayne, Maria, Tiffany, Bill, and Anita—met again in the neighborhood in which they’d donetheir oral histories and distributed copies of the reportto the residents who were part of the project.

Study: “The Role of Evaluation in Eliminating Social Loafing,” Harkins & Jackson (1986)

The researchers Harkins and Jackson identified social loafing as the tendency for persons to putout less effort when working with others than they do when working alone. Social loafing occurswithin group efforts when people feel that their individual contributions cannot be identifiedand that they cannot be singled out for blame or praise for their efforts.

To eliminate social loafing, two conditions are required:

1. Each individual’s output must be identifiable. It must be clear who has done what on theproject.

2. Ongoing reflection and evaluation must be present. Group members must believe that theirindividual outputs can be evaluated against the work done by other group members.

Evaluation requires a standard for comparison, also known as a performance standard. Clari-fying the performance standard and accompanying evaluation for each of three differentsources—the authority (in our situation, the course instructor and/or the community partner),the individual, and other group members—can reduce the likelihood of social loafing. Further,if individual efforts are compared against the efforts of others in the group as part of a team en-vironment, there is less likelihood that social loafing will occur.

Take a moment to consider how you have found yourself in certain situations to be a socialloafer. What factors present in the group environment allowed you to put less effort into thework? Conversely, how have you handled others who are social loafers? What sorts of safeguardscan you implement in your current group to prevent this dynamic from developing?


Throughout this chapter, we have examined multi-ple aspects of working in groups in community-basedlearning settings. We hope you have gained insightsabout why instructors assign group projects; the poten-tially positive and negative outcomes of group projects;how groups develop; the importance of group roles,group cohesion, group communication, and group eq-uity of tasks; and means of evaluating group work.

Completing service-learning experiences, however,

does not just mean forming connections with otherstudents. You will be (or already are) interacting withcommunity members. To complete a project success-fully, it is necessary for all students to understand theirrelationship with the community from both their ownand the community’s perspective. The next chapterexplores multiculturalism, intercultural communica-tion, the politics of difference, and the implicationsfor community engagement.

Key Concepts

active listeningcontent goalsformingfree ridinggroup cohesiongroupthinkmaintenance roles

normingorganizational rolesperformance standardperformingPhase Model of Group

Developmentprocess goals

rolesocial loafingsocial thinkingstormingtask roles

Key Issues

• Why do instructors assign group projects? What is the value of group work?• How do groups develop?• How does work get done in groups?• What must be done to keep a group together?• How can we make sure each member does a fair share of group work?


Exercise 4.8: Facilitating the Development of Your Group

Refer to this checklist often to keep track of your group’s progress.

FORMING: Getting off to a good start.

____ We have taken some time to get to know each other as individuals.____ We have clearly communicated our expectations of how the group should operate.____ We have a clear idea of each group member’s expectation for commitment to the group

and have developed guidelines for dealing with any barriers to getting work done.____ We know something about each member’s preferred method of working in a group.

STORMING: Using strategies to promote productive (not destructive) conflict.

____ We have done at least some of the above activities to facilitate forming.____ We acknowledge that we do not all share the same perspective on issues, but, even

when we disagree, we are able to articulate our disagreement while treating other groupmembers with civility and respect.

____ Whenever possible, we try to resolve disagreements face-to-face, rather than by e-mail.

NORMING: Reaching consensus as to how we will operate as a group.

____ We have devised mutually acceptable, effective guidelines for running group meetingsand decision making.

____ We have established a “Jobs List” detailing what needs to be done and who will do it.____ Each group member has clarified with the instructor, the community partner, and

other group members answers to the following questions:

What are the steps in my part of this project?What are the deadlines?What should my piece of the project look like in the end?What resources are needed to complete my part of the project in a timely way?How will I know if I have met the community partner’s expectations?

PERFORMING: Getting the actual work done.

____ We have gone through the problem-solving process and developed an action plan toaccomplish our group’s assigned task.

____ We have clarified with our instructor the expectations for the format and content of ourgroup product.

____ We are clear as to how the grade for this project will be determined, as well as who willassign the grade for the group product (instructor, community partner, or both).



Exercise 4.9: How Am I in This Group?

Whether you played one of the five organizational roles (leader, note taker, progress tracker,process observer) or not, reflect on your own actions in the group discussion. Answer the fol-lowing questions, referring to the Group Roles Checklist on page 65 as needed.

• What task roles did you play in the group discussion?• What maintenance roles did you play in the group discussion?• Were there any times during the discussion when you thought “someone should do some-

thing” (a specific task or maintenance role), but you hesitated to do what was needed?Describe those moments. Why do you think you hesitated?

• If this group was having another discussion on a related topic, which task and/or mainte-nance roles do think you would play? Why?

Exercise 4.10: Group Member Work Tally

List all the jobs that need to be done to complete this project based on your group’s earlier“Jobs List” (exercise 4.4 on page 51).

Who initially Who actually How longTask/Subtask agreed to do it? did it? did it take?


Appendix 4.1: Group Roles Checklist

Task Roles Examples of behaviors

Creating Initiates plans, proposes new ideas or goals, defines group’s position

Elaborating Expands on ideas of others, provides examples, clarifies and develops earlier points in the discussion

Integrating Organizes and coordinates the group’s work, puts together parts of different members’ ideas into something new

Reviewing Summarizes the group’s work or discussion to the current point, reminds group of previously mentioned items

Evaluating Critiques ideas, suggestions, or action plans; proposes standards by which to evaluate information

Documenting Keeps records of the group’s work, prepares reports, serves as secretary or group historian

Consensus testing Seeks verification that a group decision has been reached, makes sure an apparent group decision is acceptable to all

Information sharing Presents data, facts, and other evidence relevant to the group’s task; seeks additional information as necessary

Opinion giving Expresses personal beliefs, provides an interpretation of the facts from a personal perspective

Maintenance Roles Examples of behaviors

Encouraging Expresses appreciation for others’ contributions, shares positive feelings about other group members

Reinforcing Expresses support for another group member’s idea or suggestion, agrees to follow another’s lead

Mediating Promotes harmony within the group, reduces tensions, suggests a compromise

Gatekeeping Suggests taking turns in a discussion, gets the floor and makes sure less outspoken members are heard

Process observing Points out the ways in which the group is or is not working together

Tension relieving Breaks tension within the group through the use of humor, encourages informality, helps new members feel at ease

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To be honest, I didn’t think I had a lot to learnabout diversity from taking a service-learningcourse. I’m a business major, and we work in teamsall the time. I’ve had lots of experience workingwith people who are different from me.

Truly, though, I am amazed at what I learned. Be-fore, we’d get some random assignment to complete asa team, and we’d finish it, one way or another. Inthis class, though, we were doing something real forthe community. It was a much bigger propositionthan just doing something for a grade. I had to figureout how to work well with people whose experiencesand perspectives were totally different than mine. Ihad to figure out the differences between what itmeans for me work collaboratively and what itmeans to others. And I was surprised to find that Ihad a lot to learn from the practice of joining withothers to address a community problem.

The biggest surprise was the basic realization thatrecognizing and respecting our differences actuallyhelps collaboration. We were all far more creativein this course. What I mean is, before in groups weusually competed with each other, but it doesn’tmake very much sense to compete with each otherin a situation like this, because competition gets in

the way of using all our skills and different ways oflooking at things to get the job done.

—Michael, community-based learner, working on amarketing plan for a Meals on Wheels program

PERHAPS YOU ARE like the student quoted above,engaging in this service-learning environment

with a lot of prior experience working with other stu-dents in team settings. Even if your only team experi-ence has come through the work you are currentlyundertaking in this class, after reading the last chapteryou have begun to think about the diverse roles andresponsibilities that exist within a group, and you havepracticed some strategies for working effectively withothers. At the very least, you have probably started tothink about the many factors that affect group dynam-ics; clearly, any collection of people yields lots of dif-ferences in personal preferences, styles, and ways ofbeing and doing in the world.

Where do these differences originate? Is there adeeper, more meaningful way to think about both thedifferences and similarities that exist among people thatcan offer clues to greater understanding of yourself asan individual student? Might these insights further yourown knowledge base and skills for operating in a di-verse world, for connecting with team members andclassmates in your course, and for positively impactingthe larger community you are serving?

CHAPTER5Creating Cultural ConnectionsNavigating Difference, Investigating Power, Unpacking Privilege

VICKI L. REITENAUER, CHRISTINE M. CRESS, ANDJANET BENNETT


Service-learning experiences are opportunities forbridging a variety of cultural ways of being and doing.This chapter offers resources to frame your experiencein order to expand your capacities for working effec-tively with those who are different from you, and torecognize how to act on commonly held desires forcreating positive change in the world. Further, we ex-plore how our different perspectives are actually keysto maximizing the innovative problem-solving capaci-ties that exist in any community setting. We look atthe ways that our notions of “service” are culturallybased and seek a common language for serving andlearning with respect and integrity.

What’s Culture Got to Do with It?

Culture is the creation of learned and sharedvalues, beliefs, and behaviors in a community ofinteracting people. Each of us constructs a mul-ticultural identity from the many cultural in-fluences that impact us, including nationality,ethnicity, race, age, gender, physical character-istics, sexual orientation, economic status, edu-cation, profession, religion, and organizationalaffiliation.

In your service-learning experience, you may beworking shoulder-to-shoulder with people who areculturally different from you. When we talk about cul-tural differences, we don’t simply mean varieties of artand music, but rather different ways of thinking, ofcommunicating, and of applying our distinct values toour actions. In our multicultural world, it is virtuallyimpossible to work side by side with classmates and acommunity partner and not encounter differences re-lated to culture. In other words, community-basedlearning is an intercultural context.

Sometimes this means collaborating with an inter-cultural team, a group whose members are quite di-verse. Other times you may be working alone butengaging with persons from backgrounds so differentfrom your own that you may not be able to compre-hend their perspectives. You may find that you are theonly person from your own culture present in a givensituation, and you might experience a sense of isola-tion as you immerse yourself in this new environment.

Each of these scenarios requires intercultural com-petence, the ability to communicate effectively and ap-

propriately in a variety of cultural contexts. To be inter-culturally competent, you need to cultivate a mindset(analytical frameworks for understanding culture), askillset (interpersonal and group skills for bridging dif-ferences) and a heartset (motivation and curiosity toexplore cultural variables). These three essential com-ponents of competence support your learning withothers in the community (Bennett & Bennett, 2004).

The mindset gives you knowledge and academic un-derstanding of other cultures through informationabout attitudes and behaviors. The skillset builds onthat knowledge base by enhancing your interculturalabilities, including your capacity to listen, to solveproblems, and to empathize. And the heartset, the in-terest and concern for others, provides the motivationto continue the effort even when things get compli-cated and challenging.

As you ponder your own cultural background andthat of others, the main characteristic needed to guideyour learning is cultural humility, that is, respect forthe validity of other peoples’ cultures (Guskin, 1991).We are frequently tempted to see the perfectly obvioussuperiority of our own way of looking at the world, ofconceptualizing a task, or of resolving a conflict. Cul-tural humility instead requires us to recognize that di-verse worldviews are equally legitimate. It suggests thatwe suspend our value judgments, question the primacyof our own orientation, and realize that we may noteven know what is really going on in an interculturalcontext. While this can be a major challenge, it is a pre-requisite for getting along with other cultural groups.

A second step in becoming interculturally compe-tent is to develop cultural self-awareness, the recogni-tion of the attributes and patterns of your own culture.Each of us processes many layers of cultural patterning.At one level, you belong to a national culture, or whatsome call a “passport culture,” referring to the countryof your citizenship. For some individuals, this is easy toidentify. However, if you grew up in Mexico, moved toCanada, and now live in the United States, this becomesa more complicated aspect of your cultural identity.

As part of your developing cultural self-awareness,you may become more conscious of your ethnic her-itage, including your relationship to the geographyand history of the place your family originated, andhow much of that culture they (and you) continue toidentify with. Ethnic heritage is often more impor-tant than national culture, since so many countriesconsist of powerful groups with unique identities,

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groups that may resist assimilation into the dominantculture. Some of these groups are pan-national, suchas Arabs, Kurds, and Roma, whose communitiesstretch across borders; some of them are within a na-tional border, such as groups within the UnitedStates, including African Americans, Latino Ameri-cans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Euro-pean Americans. Each of these designations suggeststhe ethnic background of the individual, as well as thenational culture. Particularly notable in the UnitedStates is the designation of European American, agroup that frequently forgets that it has an ethnicidentity.

Stop and think for a moment: What is your ethnicidentity? It may seem—particularly to those of Euro-pean American heritage—that European Americanpatterns are, well, just the way things are done. Only bybringing ethnicity into consciousness can we becomeaware of that bias.

There are other levels to cultural identity. Regionalcultures influence our communication interactions.For example, those from the southern United Statesmay use speech patterns and behaviors dissimilar tothose who grew up in New England. Socioeconomicclass and education impact our values and beliefs aswell. Gender culture, the many ways we are accultur-ated to our roles as men and women (and even the bi-

nary description of that designation), affects our cul-tural beliefs and individual choices. Other cultural in-fluences include religion and spirituality; sexualorientation; physical, psychological, and learning abil-ities; organizational culture; and, on college campuses,even departmental cultures.

Some aspects of your own cultural identity areprobably more important to you than others, for ex-ample, your gender culture or your ethnic heritage.However, you create your multilayered, multiculturalself through the choices you make about how thesecultural influences affect who you are. Culture is nota “thing,” but a dynamic process in which you inter-act with family and community influences to reflectthe cultural being you choose to be in the context inwhich you live, study, and work.

Let’s take a look at your concept and experience of“service” through the lens of culture with exercise 5.1.

What does all of this mean to you, as you work ina community to serve and to learn? It suggests thatyou have to understand who you are culturally beforeyou interact across cultures. If your sense is that otherindividuals are doing things that are weird, indeci-pherable, or unacceptable, this feeling might be tem-pered when you realize that you are viewing thesituation from your own cultural worldview and thatthe other persons’ perspectives are entirely different

C R E AT I N G C U LT U R A L C O N N E C T I O N S69

Exercise 5.1: Cultural Dimensions of Service

In this activity, you will explore how you have come to define and understand what “service”means to you by examining your own cultural definitions. Begin by drawing (or otherwiseindicating) yourself in the middle of a large sheet of paper. Around this figure, make notesabout what service means to you and what kinds of service to others you have been engagedin, inside or outside a school setting.

Next, draw figures around you and connected to you, representing important persons inyour life from whom you have learned about service. These could be parents and grand-parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, mentors, schoolmates, teachers, professional col-leagues, and others. What kinds of service have these persons been engaged in? What doyou believe “service” means or meant to them?

Now, consider these persons and relationships through the lens of culture. Who among themshares one or more aspect of your cultural identity? How do those cultural groups to whichyou experience belonging understand “service”? How is that reflected in your drawing?

Conversely, who among these persons has had a distinctly different cultural experience fromyours? How did these cultural differences affect your relationships with those persons andhow they understand “service”?


from yours. Recognizing this, you can make a choiceto practice cultural humility in order to learn moreabout the cultural worldview of those who are differ-ent from you.

Recall Exercise 3.3: Who Am I and What Do IBring? on page 36. In this activity, you explored yourcurrent understanding of your identity in relation to avariety of racial and cultural factors (race and ethnic-

ity; nationality; gender; language; spirituality and reli-gion; physical, mental and/or emotional ability; socio-economic class; age; physical appearance; and sexualorientation). These identifiers are lenses throughwhich you perceive the world around you, which inthis course includes your teammates and classmatesand your community partner. Let’s deepen your reflec-tion on this theme with exercise 5.2.

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Exercise 5.2: I and We and You and Us and Them

Step 1: Reflect

Reread your earlier reflection on “Who Am I and What Do I Bring?” (exercise 3.3). Thinkagain about the ways that your current understanding of your identity positions you to expe-rience this community partnership. Use the following prompts to focus your thinking aboutwho you are in relation to the others with whom you are working.

• How do the multiple expressions of your identity impact the way that you perceive yourcommunity partner as an organization and the work that it does?

• How does your identity impact the way that you perceive other people, including yourteammates and classmates, your community partner contacts, and the people served byyour partner?

• How does your identity orient you toward effective interactions with others, and how doesit challenge effective interaction?

• How might you use your perspective to further your investigations into creating effectiveworking relationships with your team, your classmates, and your community partner?

• How might you learn from the perspectives of others? What particular perspectives wouldbe most valuable for you to encounter?

In preparing your reflection, consider breaking out of the confines of the traditional narra-tive reflective form. Write a story or a poem or a dialogue. Paint, draw, or collage a picture.Compose and record some music. Choose to be as honest as possible in this reflection, whichmight mean that you record “negative” or contradictory thoughts and feelings as well asthose that seem “positive” and clear.

Step 2: Step Back

After creating your reflection, take some time to review it and consider what it communi-cates to you. Then answer the following questions in writing:

• What is it like for you, this process of considering identity and its effect on your percep-tions of others?

• What thoughts and feelings emerge as you consider these questions?

Step 3: Reflect Again

After your next service experience in the field or class session, reread your responses to thequestions in both step 1 and 2 above. What does your reflection reveal about you as a person,a student, a community-based learner? How does this connect to your cultural background?How does it connect you to your team, your classmates, and your community partner?

With an ever-evolving understanding of yourself asa cultural being, it is important to be aware of the pit-falls of stereotyping others. A stereotype is a “harden-ing of the categories,” a process of developing rigidways of thinking about individuals from other cul-tures, as if those individuals represent some statistical“norm” of their culture group. We frequently basesuch unjustified ways of thinking on having met a sin-gle person from a culture or having been exposed tomedia representations of a culture’s patterns.

A generalization, on the other hand, is a lightlyheld hypothesis based on research about patterns ofbehavior in the other culture, a hypothesis that wenever act on until we have confirmed that it is appro-priate for the individual we have met. Thus, if we de-fault to the notion that all men like sports or all Asiansare quiet, we are simply stereotyping. However, in in-teractions across cultures, it is often useful to have hy-potheses in mind that we hold tentatively until theyare confirmed. In your community-based learning ex-perience, it may have already proven useful to you tobe exposed to some generalizations about the groupsof persons and the cultural realities they embody tohelp guide your interactions. In another of his jour-nals, Michael, our community-based learner from theopening of this chapter, described an experience hehad of using generalizations to help him relate respect-fully to the community he served:

I was riding with one of the Meals on Wheels vol-unteers on her rounds delivering lunch to personswho are elderly and disabled. I figured it was goodto get hands-on experience of what they do before Istarted working on the marketing plan. I wasn’t toonervous about dropping off food with the olderfolks, because I hang out a lot with my grandfatherand his friends, but I don’t know any people withdisabilities. The last thing I wanted to do was hurtsomebody’s feelings.

I guess the volunteer must have sensed my nervous-ness. She said that generally the disabled people withdisabilities she serves on this route seem to really ap-preciate it when she makes eye contact and connectswith them. She said it can be helpful to be on thesame level with people who are in wheelchairs, forexample. Like everybody else on the route, they like it

when you can spend a few minutes talking, since wemight be their only visitor for the day.

When we showed up, the lady there was very happyto see us. She was in a wheelchair, so I sat on a sofafacing her as I told her how I was a student from theuniversity working on this project for the Meals-on-Wheels program. I have to admit I was surprisedwhen she told me a little bit about the career she hadhad in advertising. On a whim, I asked her if shemight be willing to give me some feedback on theplan before we turned it in, and she said she’d behappy to.

At our group session, I told my teammates aboutmeeting this woman who is not only a client of ourcommunity partner but also has done the same kindof work we’re doing. Now they want to meet her too.I think getting to know her is going to have a definiteimpact on our final product in a number of ways.

Conversely, you may have also experienced the neg-ative impact of stereotyping, in which the unexaminedviews you have held about different cultures haveworked against your successful interaction with others.Exercise 5.3 asks you to consider both generalizationsand stereotyping in the context of your particularservice-learning experience.

Building Intercultural Sensitivity

As each of us experiences cultural differences, wetend to react to those differences in fairly predictableways. These reactions are based on our worldviewand reflect how we think, feel, and behave in thepresence of unfamiliar cultures. We can look at thetypical stages individuals move through as they ac-quire cultural self-awareness, learn to identify andappreciate cultural differences, and, eventually, adaptto others as a process of building intercultural com-petence.

This process has been described in the Develop-mental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, a frameworkthat explains the development of increasing sophisti-cation in our experience and navigation of differences



(J. M. Bennett, 1993; M. J. Bennett, 1993; J. M.Bennett & M. J. Bennett, 2004). The model beginswith three ethnocentric stages, in which our own cul-ture is experienced as central to reality in some partic-ular way. The latter three stages of the model are termedethnorelative, in which one’s own culture is viewed inthe context of other cultures.

Stage One: Denial of DifferenceIndividuals who view others through the denial filtereither neglect to notice differences at all or think in ex-tremely simple categories. Those who are just begin-ning to explore cultural differences are often unawarethat they have a culture or that certain privileges existin their world that don’t exist elsewhere. They are per-

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Exercise 5.3: Deconstructing Stereotypes

You may choose to complete this activity in a variety of ways: You might create a collage, usingvisual and/or word images clipped from magazines and newspapers to create a representationof those persons you are serving in your community partnership. Or you might pay particularattention to the ways that those you are serving are shown in the broadcast media, includingfilm, television, and the radio, by watching and listening to several shows and making notesabout what you see and hear. After you have spent some time intentionally engaging with theimages in popular media that connect with the group of persons you are serving, respond to thefollowing questions:

• How do these images represent stereotypes about the community you are serving?• How are the stereotypes about this group reinforced in the media? How do the media

negatively portray this group?• How are the stereotypes about this group challenged in the media? How do the media

positively portray this group?• How do these images connect with your own experience of this group, and how are they dif-

ferent? When you look at these images, do they help you to see the faces of the individualsyou are serving, or do they obscure the faces of those individuals? How?

Figure 5.1. Development of Intercultural Sensitivity

From Bennett & Bennett (2004)

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY

ETHNOCENTRIC STAGES ETHNORELATIVE STAGES

EXPERIENCE OF DIFFERENCE

Denial

Defens

e

Minimiza

tion

Acce

ptan

ce

Adap

tation

Integ

ration

plexed when asked about their own cultural filters andare unconcerned about the impact of cultural differ-ences on their lives. The following journal entry wascompleted by a student named Jennifer, whose service-learning experience involves working at a large familyplanning clinic in a multicultural community:

After learning about cultural patterns in the read-ings, I expected these patients to be really differentfrom me, and so I’m quite surprised at how smoothlythings are going. I’ve really not met anyone yet whoseems that different from me. After all, healthcare ishealthcare, no matter what culture you’re from. Andwe all speak the same language, so I figure if I’m justmyself things here will continue to be fine.

Stage Two: Defense against DifferenceWhen individuals become aware of cultural differ-ences in more powerful and penetrating ways, theymay slip into the defense posture, where their world-view is polarized into us/them distinctions (“Now thatI’ve noticed they’re different, I recognize they’re bad!”).Individuals thinking in this way may criticize others orassert the superiority of their own culture. One in-triguing variation on the defense perspective is what iscalled “reversal,” which involves denigrating one’s ownculture and exalting some other culture’s ways of beingand doing. (“The Native Americans live in harmonywith nature, not like us dominant Anglos,” says theAnglo student.) While this may superficially seem tobe more culturally sensitive, in fact it is neverthelessstill dualistic and a defensive reaction to exposure todifference. The object of the defense has simplyshifted.

The following journal excerpt is from Todd, a jour-nalism major, completing his community-based proj-ect writing for an small alternative press that focuseson the needs of the Latino community. Although he isnot a member of this community, he is deeply inter-ested in the impact of addiction and is conducting aresearch project about heroin treatment in the com-munity he is serving.

My visit to the treatment clinic went really badly. Iran into some super-defensive, antagonistic peoplewho clearly didn’t grasp why I was there. They were

even hostile. I can’t understand why they didn’t see Iwas there to help. Man, when these people are angry,they really let you know it. If they had taken moretime to get to know me, they would have realized Iwas on their side. I’m beginning to wonder if weought to be helping them at all, if they’re going to beso rude.

Stage Three: Minimization of DifferenceThose who have achieved the minimization world-view typically feel they have arrived at interculturalsensitivity, since, in most contexts, suggesting thatwe are all the same despite surface differences is a vastimprovement over the cultural biases that normallyexist. However, this is perhaps the most complexstrategy for avoiding cultural differences. Indeed, ifwe believe that deep down, we are all alike, then wedon’t have to do the difficult work of recognizing ourown cultural patterns, understanding others, andeventually making the necessary adaptations. Thisstage is thus characterized by the assumption that weare similar in some universal context, whether physi-cal or philosophical. “It’s a small world, after all.”

Maria and her team from the business administra-tion program are working to develop a database andWeb site for a new minority-owned small business fortheir community-based learning project. In her journal,Maria writes the following:

It’s so great to realize that the people here care aboutthe same things we do in my culture. They wanttheir businesses to make money, too! So values reallyARE universal! They seem to eat different foods,and dress a little differently than I do, but deepdown, we obviously share a common worldview.Partly this is technology that is bringing us all to-gether, and partly it’s basic human motivation. Itsure makes the work easier this way.

Stage Four: Acceptance of DifferenceAs we become increasingly aware of our own culture,we begin to recognize how truly distinct other culturesare from our own, and we understand this distinctionas difference without judging it to be “bad” or “less de-veloped.” This movement into the stages of ethnorela-tivism reflects our capacity to acknowledge our own



cultural filters and suspend our judgments temporarilyin order to understand others. In a sense, for the firsttime, we may see the complexity and validity of theother culture’s worldview.

Individuals who are operating at the acceptancestage are initially interested in behavioral differences(“They use chopsticks and we don’t”), and move intomore complicated observations (“I’ve noticed thatMariko observes our group conversation for a longtime and thinks carefully before offering her com-ments”). Ultimately, those at acceptance are able to de-cipher—and accept—profound value differences.However, it is essential to note that this does not meanagreement or preference for those values, but ratheracceptance of the reality of the other culture’s world-view. In addition, people at the acceptance stage willnot expect that people in other culture groups willshare their worldviews.

In the community, therefore, those in acceptancedo not assume they are bringing “answers” or “help,”but are more likely to understand that they are operat-ing as “colearners” in the community environment.For instance, as part of her service-learning require-ment for her degree, Natacha is volunteering at her lo-cal AIDS hospice.

When I arrive at the hospice, I now know I am en-tering a different world. I realize, for the first time,that while I thought I was doing this work to helpthem, I’m the one who is learning, changing, grow-ing. Sometimes it is really difficult for me, sincesome of the patients are gay, and I’m not really sureI understand everything I should about their cul-ture. Still I try to be respectful of their strength,their humor, and, especially, their patience inteaching me how to be more useful. Sometimes itseems as if we are building a bridge between ourways of viewing the world.

Stage Five: Adaptation to DifferenceThe necessary motivation to move to adaptation oc-curs when we need to be effective in our interactionswith others in order to get something done. It is nolonger enough merely to have the mindset (to knowabout a culture). Adaptation requires the alignment ofa mindset with a heartset (motivation to continue en-gaging with difference) and skillset (skills for engaging

with difference), as well. Bringing all of these elementstogether helps one develop empathy, the premier ca-pacity of an interculturalist. Empathy is the capacity totake the perspective of the other culture, to shift framesof reference, and to act in the context of the other’s per-spective. Based on our appropriate frame shifts, we canadapt how we interact, a process called “code-shifting.”We may adapt our greeting rituals, our problem-solvingstrategies, or our apology patterns as part of a recipro-cal learning experience.

Those at the stage of adaptation may wonder: “DoI have to abandon who I am to be interculturally sen-sitive?” For instance, “Do I have to give up being afeminist while I work in a church-based soupkitchen?” It may help us to understand that intercul-tural sensitivity is an addition to your personal reper-toire of behavior, not a subtraction. You are who youare, but with adaptive intercultural expertise. Youmaintain a commitment to your own values and striveto make personal decisions in accordance with them,while understanding that others do the same fromwithin their own cultural perspective. And you take onthe challenge of creating an intercultural context largeenough for all of these perspectives to coexist.

Kichiro is part of a class team designing a community-based learning project. Not only is the project locatedin a multicultural area of town with which he is notfamiliar, but his team also includes members from sixdifferent ethnic groups:

This term I have been trying very hard to partici-pate in class discussions. Although this is my thirdyear in the United States, I never imagined howdifficult it would be to get a turn in an Americanclass discussion. The students always seem to be in-terrupting each other, so I have resolved to adaptand try to be more direct with them. It’s quitechallenging to do this. However, I think some ofmy classmates also realize how useful my morequiet style is when we go into the community,where it fits very effectively. So perhaps the adapta-tion is mutual.

Stage Six: Integration of DifferenceThe natural outcome of sustained, in-depth intercul-tural adaptation is multiculturality, the internaliza-tion of multiple cultural identities. This may result

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when individuals intentionally make a significant,sustained effort to become fully competent in newcultures. This adaptation may occur for nondomi-nant group members to a dominant or colonial cul-ture, or persons who grew up in multiple countries,or long-term sojourners who have lived for extendedperiods of time in other cultures. It may also occurfor individuals who consciously live in ways thatbring them into full participation in two or more cul-tures simultaneously.

This multicultural identity allows for lively partic-ipation in a variety of cultures but may result in anoccasional sense of never really being “at home.”Home has become everywhere: Your sense of whoyou are as a cultural being becomes quite complex.The multicultural person brings many perspectivesto every task, numerous ways to solve problems, andmultiple possibilities for shifting codes. While multi-culturality is certainly not a prerequisite for deeplyeffective and respectful collaboration across cultures(which becomes increasingly possible as one developsone’s mindset, skillset and heartset), engagement insuch collaborations may ultimately inspire a personto desire and strive for this degree of interculturalcompetence.

Soraya is a chemical engineer who has lived inother cultures most of her life. For her senior seminarcommunity-based project, she is working on an envi-ronmental task force dedicated to saving the local riverbasin. In her journal, Soraya wrote the following:

I enjoy this task force because I can use the manycultural frames I have to try to solve problems. Ineach culture where I have lived, people resolve chal-lenges differently. While I can shift from one frameto another, I still know who I am. I feel most com-fortable bridging differences and acknowledging allthe parts of the multicultural me.

A Step Further: Investigating Power and Unpacking Privilege

Becoming both interculturally sensitive and intercul-turally competent is fundamental to working success-fully with others who embody different cultural waysof being and doing. These differences may be clear andovert, or they may be quite subtle. Adopting a stanceof cultural humility, as a preliminary step, allows us toremain open to the many expressions of human waysof being and doing that have their foundation in therich diversity of cultural forces.

To go a step further, we may choose to investigatethe ways in which some groups have historically beenand continue to be disadvantaged both socially andpolitically. This is referred to as marginalization—the exclusion or separation of individuals and groupsof people from access to power, opportunities, andresources afforded to others. As you consider yourcommunity partnership, think about ways that mar-


Exercise 5.4: The Competence Continuum

Reread all of your own writings completed so far for this course. (These could be pieces thatcame from the reflection activities suggested in this book or other assignments you havecompleted.) Highlight passages in these writings that reveal one or more of the stages of thedevelopment of intercultural sensitivity. What do you notice about these statements? How isyour awareness of your own ability to practice intercultural sensitivity impacted by your re-reading of your written work for this course? How has your capacity for working across cul-tures changed over the duration of this service experience? What specifically has facilitatedthat change? How have you been encouraged to practice cultural humility and interculturalcompetence, as revealed in your own written work?

What do these statements suggest about the effectiveness of your work in the communityso far? What information is present here that suggests areas for additional attention as youcontinue to work collaboratively with each other and with the community and developyour intercultural competence?


ginalization currently manifests within the commu-nity you are serving. In other words, how is the socialand political reality you are engaged with in yourcommunity partnership informed by racism (exclu-sion based on race and ethnicity), sexism (exclusionbased on gender), classism (exclusion based on so-cioeconomic status), heterosexism (exclusion basedon sexual orientation), and other forms of discrimi-nation? Further, what can each of us do about thesesocial injustices, while we are members of this classcommunity and after we leave this particular com-munity setting?

Giroux (1983) and Solorzano (1997) claim that“marginalized” persons can become empowered agentsfor change beyond the boundaries of socially and po-litically imposed separation. This insight is especiallyimportant with regard to students’ experiences inservice-learning courses. In fact, marginalized persons—those who find themselves outside the centers ofpower—may be more likely to instigate change sincethese persons may have less to lose and more to gain bydoing so. While systems and organizations may havehistorically disenfranchised and isolated some groupsof people, true hope for improving social conditionsresides (at least in part) in collaborating with thosewho best understand that isolation and exclusionthrough their own lived experience. For many of us ascommunity-based learners, understanding how wemay have experienced marginalization in some aspectsof our lives as well as access to power in other aspectswill help us understand more precisely how we maycollaborate with others to bring about the change weall, as collaborators, desire.

In a well-known and widely available article, authorPeggy McIntosh writes about her awakening to the factthat she experiences privilege, or unearned benefits, onthe basis of her white skin (McIntosh, 1988). McIn-tosh writes that, although she did not ask for these ben-efits, she receives them simply because she is a memberof a dominant group. Further, she was not taught to in-vestigate these privileges or even to recognize that theyexist, because, while we may understand that racism issomething that puts others at a disadvantage, we aregenerally taught not to see that the privilege that stemsfrom having white skin puts white people at a distinctadvantage:

My schooling gave me no training in seeing my-self as . . . an unfairly advantaged person. I was

taught to see myself as an individual whose moralstate depended on her individual moral will. Myschooling followed the pattern my colleague Eliz-abeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taughtto think of their lives as morally neutral, norma-tive, and average, and also ideal, so that when wework to benefit others, this is seen as work whichwill allow “them” to be more like “us.” (McIntosh,1988, p. 1)

In her article, McIntosh gives many examples of theways she benefits by her membership in the dominantracial group in the United States. Among other things,she includes everyday benefits related to being and do-ing in the world, such as “I can go shopping alone mostof the time, pretty well assured that I will not be fol-lowed or harassed,” as well as deeper social issues, in that“I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to ‘the person incharge,’ I will be facing a person of my race,” along withbroader political issues like “I can remain oblivious ofthe language and customs of persons of color who con-stitute the world’s majority without feeling in my cul-ture any penalty for such oblivion” (1988, p. 1).

Because the way that privilege works is often sotricky to understand, so slippery, and generally so invis-ible and complex, it can be difficult for those of us whoexperience privilege to fully understand that we hold itand how it may act as a barrier to our successful workacross cultures. Because of the complex nature of iden-tity—the fact that most of us experience some degree ofprivilege stemming from some aspect of our identitythat aligns with a dominant culture—we are all chargedwith investigating the ways that we do and do not haveaccess to power, and how that power is connected tocertain social and political benefits.

Take, for instance, a student of working-class back-ground who is of the first generation in his family to goto college. Perhaps this student is you or sits beside youin your community-based learning course. Because heis the first among his family to attend an institution ofhigher education, in his first days on campus he mayfind it an enormous challenge to navigate the compli-cated systems in this new environment: how to registerfor courses, how to sign up for a library card or a mealplan, or how to approach a professor with a request tobe added to a class. Given the lack of experience hisfamily has had in this regard, he may have to do muchmore work to understand these systems than someonefrom a middle- or upper-class background who has

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been informed by her parents or siblings about what toexpect and how to negotiate it. Not only is the first-generation college student disadvantaged in this sce-nario, but the student with a family history of collegeattendance holds privilege relative to that status. Thisstudent didn’t ask for the benefit, most likely doesn’teven know it exists, and certainly is not a bad personfor holding this privilege, but the privilege exists andbenefits her regardless of her awareness of it.

Another way to think about privilege comes fromthe work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977), whodescribes cultural capital as specialized or insiderknowledge not available equitably to all. If we under-stand “capital” in the way economists do, as a synonymfor “wealth,” we begin to see how particular cultural ex-periences may become more highly valued than others,because these experiences transfer the kinds of attitudesand knowledge that give their owners greater access topower and resources. The first-generation college stu-dent described above did not have the same culturalcapital as his classmate to “spend” in his first days atschool, and so had to extend additional amounts of histime and energy to figure things out. Similarly, we maythink about cultural capital as it applies to the personswe are serving in our community partnerships, andhow limited access to particular kinds of highly prized

and useful information may keep entire groups on themargins.

As learners who are serving, we are charged with ex-ploring the ways in which privilege attaches to mem-bership in certain groups in order to better understandthe cultural dynamics at play in our community part-nerships and to continue to develop our interculturalcompetence. Helpfully, McIntosh (1988) offers a listof ways in which she has identified her white-skinprivilege, which we will use in exercise 5.5 as a way toinvestigate privilege.

Conclusion

Let us return to our starting point: with Michael, ourcommunity-based learner, reflecting on how his col-laborative partnership brought out more creativitythan he had ever experienced in a group setting.Asked to speak about the learning he gained aroundintercultural sensitivity, power, and privilege, Michaelhad this to say:

At first, I have to admit, I was defensive about allthis privilege stuff. As a white male who grew up


Exercise 5.5: Investigating Privilege

Begin by reading Peggy McIntosh’s article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knap-sack” (available free in abridged form through several Internet sites). After your reading,respond in writing to the following questions:

• What feelings emerged after reading this piece? Describe as precisely as you can the bodysensations and emotions that you experienced. What information does this mix of feel-ings give you about your own experience of privilege or lack of privilege relative to raceand ethnicity?

• How is your reading of this piece informed by your complex cultural identity? For exam-ple, are there particular ways you read this piece because of your socioeconomic class, na-tionality, native language, gender, sexual orientation, physical/mental/emotional ability,spirituality/religion, political views, or other identifiers?

• How does this piece connect for you to your experience of your community partnership?Adapting McIntosh’s list to your own experience, are there points of intersection betweenyour position relative to power and privilege and the positions of others served by yourcommunity partner? Are there dislocations between you and your community partner thatyou can identify through your adapting this article to your situation?

• What does your developing consciousness about power and privilege mean for your workwith the others in your class and with your community partner an for your developingintercultural competence.


in a middle-class household, it seemed that thiswas about bashing me and people like me for hav-ing had a good upbringing. It seemed at first thatI was supposed to pretend to be someone I wasn’t,or apologize for who I am and be ashamed of it.After being in this course, though, I am gainingsome new perspectives. It’s not that I’m supposed todeny that I have access to privileges because of myposition in the world, but that I should becomeaware of them so that I’m more effective at com-municating with people from different back-grounds. I realize now that I can make a choice touse my privileges for the benefit of both myself andothers. I realize that I’m privileged to be in college,and I have the opportunity because of it to connectthis community organization up to new marketingstrategies for their Meals on Wheels program forthe elderly.

One thing in particular my professor said has reallystuck with me. You know how we’ve all learned theGolden Rule, to treat others the way we want to betreated? She said that, in intercultural relationships,

we should use the Platinum Rule [M. Bennett,1979] instead: “treating others the way that theythemselves want to be treated.” To do that, we have toreally get to know each other. And to really get toknow people, we had better get pretty good at com-municating despite our differences.

Like everything else, “service” as a concept andpractice is informed by our complex cultural identitiesand the privileges we hold (and do not hold) relativeto those identities. We end this chapter by asking youto go deeper still, into the heart of your motivation fordoing service and the impact that motivation mayhave on others. Remembering McIntosh, who saidthat unexamined privilege may lead us to see our ownpositions as “neutral, normative, and average, and alsoideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this isseen as work which will allow ‘them’ to be more like‘us’” (McIntosh, 1988, p. 1), be cognizant about howwe may frame our culturally informed positions onservice so that they may orient us to serve from a placeof being agents for social justice and social change, forthe benefit of us all.

Key Concepts

cultural capitalcultural humilitycultural self-awarenessculturediscriminationempathy

ethnocentricethnorelativegeneralizationheartsetinterculturalintercultural competence

marginalizationmindsetprivilegeskillsetstereotype

Key Issues

• What is an “intercultural” context? How is it especially relevant in community-basedlearning?

• How do your mindset, skillset, and heartset orient you toward effective interculturalcommunication?

• How might generalizations help us familiarize ourselves with cultures that are new tous? How do stereotypes hinder our understanding?

• How do power, marginalization, discrimination, and privilege affect individuals, rela-tionships among classmates, and community partnerships?


Exercise 5.6: Serving Justly

Reflect on all of the information, reflections, and activities you have engaged with in this chapter. How has this chapter informed your ideas about yourself as a cultural being?How has it encouraged you to develop your intercultural sensitivity and competence as acommunity-based learner? How do you understand your ideas about service as issuingfrom your cultural being? What stance can you adopt as a community-based learner andworker that respects the cultural differences you encounter while also creating positive changefor the common good?

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE

K E Y S Y M B O L S




PART THREE

Facilitating Learning andMeaning-Making Inside andOutside the Classroom

The goal of part 3 (chapters 6–8) is to highlight multiple venues forunderstanding the community-based experience—when things aregoing well and when things are not going well. Specifically, how canyou use reflection to construct meaning and knowledge from yourexperience, what can be done if the community interaction is adisappointment or is failing, and how can the context and content ofthe course itself provide direction and insight?

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I have realized that it is often difficult for people toexplain why they believe a certain way. What Ihave been forced to do in the writing assignments isjust that. This process of writing down my viewsand patterns of thinking took nearly every drop ofenergy I had.

IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS, we have encouragedyou to complete a variety of reflection exercises on a

range of topics from “What Is Citizenship?” to “HowAm I in Groups? What, exactly, is the process of reflec-tion? How can you as a student train yourself to reflectat deeper and deeper levels in order to maximize yourlearning and the ways that your learning can informand impact your life?

Several service-learning researchers (www.compact.org/disciplines/reflection/index.html; Eyler, Giles &Schmiede, 1996) have identified the characteristics ofsuccessful reflection:

• Continuous: Reflection must take place be-fore, during, and after the completion of theservice project to be fully useful.

• Challenging: Effective reflection involvespushing ourselves out of our comfort zones tomake new connections between concepts andto think in new ways.

• Connected: Successful reflection can serve asa bridge between the service experience andour discipline-based academic knowledge.

• Contextualized: Effective reflection is framedin a manner that is appropriate for the contextin which the service experience takes place.

We’ve designed the activities in this book to engageyou in reflection that is continuous, challenging, con-nected, and contextualized. In this chapter, we’ll take acloser look at the process of reflection and the neces-sary components of deep reflection.

Why Reflect?

Why is there so much emphasis on reflection in service-learning classes? Reflection serves as a bridge for theback-and-forth connecting between what you as a stu-dent learn in class and what you are experiencing inthe community. Reflection, within the context of aservice-learning class, helps you integrate what youhave been absorbing through the course content withthe community external to the college campus.

Engaging in reflective practices has been linked toother benefits for students. Mabry (1998) found that,for students in twenty-three different service-learningcourses, those who participated in reflection exercisesattributed more learning to the service experience than

CHAPTER6Reflection in ActionThe Learning–Doing Relationship

PETER J. COLLIER AND DILAFRUZ R. WILLIAMS


students who participated in the service project but notin reflection exercises. Eyler and Giles (1999) also notedthe positive impact that reflection had on academic out-comes for college students. Furthermore, researchershave found that written reflection about emotionalevents can serve to reduce anxiety and depression (Pen-nebaker, 1990; Bringle & Hatcher, 1999). In an exper-imental study in which students wrote for fourconsecutive days on either traumatic events or superfi-cial topics, Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, and Glaser(1988) found that students who engaged in reflectionon traumatic life events had more favorable immunesystem responses, less frequent health center visits, andhigher reports of subjective well-being. These re-searchers found that the most important factor that dis-tinguished persons showing health improvement fromthose who did not was a greater ability to include causalthinking, insights, and self-reflection in their stories.Taken together, research studies suggest that activitiesthat promote personally and academically meaningfulreflection on service-learning experiences may result inboth intellectual and health-related benefits.

Connecting Reflection to Service-Learning

Psychologist Irwin Altman (1996) identified three dis-tinct kinds of knowledge: content knowledge, whichinvolves the rote learning of facts (for example, that thecapital of the state of Oregon is Salem); process knowl-edge, or skills that involve learning how to do some-thing (like how to search a library database); andsocially relevant knowledge, which connects one’s per-sonal perspective with content within particular socialcontexts (for example, how to effect social changethrough activism). Traditional teaching methods typi-cally produce content and, sometimes, process knowl-edge. Service-learning, however, involves a kind ofteaching and learning that promote both content andprocess knowledge, as well as developing socially rele-vant knowledge in students. The key to making thishappen is reflection.

I was extremely myopic prior to this class. I had noconcept of any of the issues facing today’s educator.Now I feel informed and knowledgeable and I be-lieve that there ARE some contributions I can make

to society. I know that my work as a teacher is notonly to educate the particular class that I am work-ing with at any given time, but to model excite-ment about learning and a real passion to be of usein the world.

Building upon ideas originally developed by thepragmatist philosopher John Dewey (1933), withinthe context of service-learning classes we define “re-flection” as “a person’s intentional and systematic con-sideration of an experience, along with how thatperson and others are connected to that experience,framed in terms of particular course content andlearning objectives.” Successful service-learning in-volves reflection—again, an “intentional and system-atic consideration of an experience”—before, during,and after the actual service experience. Toole andToole (2001) posited reflection as being a central fea-ture of the Service-Learning Cycle. As you read aboutthe stages of this cycle, think about how your service-learning experience and the reflection you have donethroughout the experience fits into these stages. Youmight thumb through the previous chapters of thisbook to match the exercises you’ve already completedto the stages. Figure 6.1 illustrates the stages.

Pre-Service Reflection: Reflection plays a criticalrole in the initial steps of a service-learning project.Already, you have engaged in reflection on your own(and possibly as part of a group) as you identifiedyour service-learning experience and planned for itsaccomplishment.

1. Identifying a project: You completed reflec-tion exercises to increase awareness of impor-tant community issues in order to provide auseful frame for determining which commu-nity concern you would focus on and whichspecific project you would undertake.

2. Planning and preparation: You completedreflection exercises to try to imagine all thepotential problems that could arise with theproject as well as possible solutions to eachproblem that could serve as contingencyplans for dealing with unexpected issues re-lated to the project, thus aiding you in theplanning and preparation processes.

Reflection during Service: Reflection will continueto be crucial for the success of your service-learningexperience.

3. Meaningful Service Experiences: You willhave opportunities for reflecting on how toconnect course concepts and academic disci-pline knowledge with the service experience,along with your own personal reactions andinsights.

4. Observation: During and immediately afterthe service experience, you will be guided todescribe the project in its social context, aswell as your personal reaction to being part ofthe service experience.

5. Analysis: Additional reflection assignmentswill help you go beyond description and reac-

tion, to applying academic knowledge andcourse concepts as a means of better under-standing the service experience.

Post-Service Reflection: Reflection will help you fur-ther your analysis of the current situation and makelarger assessments of what you have accomplished.

6. New Understanding: You will complete re-flection exercises that promote an increasedsense of self-awareness about how your under-standing of community issues has broadenedand deepened as a result of the service-learningclass.

7. New Application: Reflection exercises willencourage you to assess and evaluate the ac-complishment of your learning and serving

R E F L E C T I O N I N A C T I O N85

Figure 6.1. Reflection and the Service-Learning Cycle

From Toole & Toole (2001)

7. Newapplication

6. New understanding

Post-ServiceReflection

ReflectionduringService

Pre-ServiceReflection

1.Identitfyingproject

2. Planning &preparation

3. Meaningfulservice experience

5. Analysis

4. Observation


goals and to review the lessons of your ser-vice experience with a “bird’s-eye view” per-spective. These then will lead you to theidentification of issues and/or social contextswhere the lessons of your current service-learning experience can be applied to othercommunity engagements to produce positiveresults.

Models of Reflection

As we noted earlier, reflection is the means by whichyour service experience is linked to learning and learn-ing is manifested as meaning. John Dewey was one ofthe first thinkers to recognize the important role thatreflection plays in learning. Dewey argued that reflec-tion, or reflective thinking, is the key to whether anyexperience is “educative,” meaning that it involveslearning (1933). Reflection connects the world of ob-servations and facts with the world of ideas. ForDewey, reflective thinking is what moves a personfrom mindlessly drifting through life to connectingthe current situation with past experiences and knowl-

edge as a means of achieving a desired goal. That goalmay be as fundamental as trying to make a more in-formed decision about whether and how to best offeryour services to communities in the future.

Reflection, for Dewey, goes beyond experience. Hebelieved that to really understand an experience, it isimperative to understand how you were connected toor affected by it. As you reflect upon your service-learning experiences, it is important that you placeyourself in the middle of the process of connecting thecurrent situation with past experiences and knowledgeas a means of achieving a desired goal.

Kolb (1984) built upon the foundation of Dewey’swork on reflective thought in developing the Experien-tial Learning Model (figure 6.2). Experience is the cor-nerstone of this model, and learning is viewed as aprocess by which knowledge is created through thetransformation of experience. Kolb developed a cycli-cal model of experiential learning that involves a re-peated pattern of “grasping” or comprehending anexperience followed by “transforming” that experienceinto knowledge. This model provides us with a concep-tual framework for understanding the organic processof learning through serving.

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Figure 6.2. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model

Adapted from Kolb (1984)

Reflective

Obs ervation

ConcreteExperience

Abstract

AbstractConceptualiz

ation

Conceptualization

Acti

veExp

erim

enta

tion

ExperientialLearning

ExperientialLearning

Accommodator Diverger

Converger Assimilator

Conc

rete

Expe

rience

The stages of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Modelcan be explained using the example of Tina, a studentengaging in a hunger awareness publicity campaign ather local food bank. As Tina first begins to spend timeat the food bank, she realizes that this service experi-ence is different and distinct from other school oreveryday occurrences. In what Kolb calls the concreteexperience stage of the model, Tina comprehends thatthis is something fundamentally different from any-thing she has ever experienced before. If we were toread Tina’s journal, she might write an entry like thefollowing:

I never imagined I could have an experience likethis as part of a class. My time working at thefood bank is drastically different from writing aterm paper in another class or even just watchingpeople shop at the food bank on the weekend.

Next, Tina enters the reflective observation stageof the model, as she begins to reflect upon her personalreactions to the concrete service experience.

I’m getting more used to it now, but sometimesworking at the food bank and seeing so manypeople come in day after day after day—many ofwhom look a whole lot like me and my friendsand family—is pretty overwhelming. I alwaysassumed that people who didn’t have enough to eat simply weren’t working hard enough toearn a living or were spending their money stu-pidly. That just doesn’t seem to fit the people I’mmeeting.

The initial observation and description of the serviceexperience has now been transformed into somethingthat is personally relevant through the intentionalprocess of reflection.

In the third stage of the model, abstract conceptu-alization, Tina ties in course-related and other previ-ously acquired knowledge and theories to redescribethe service experience from a conceptual rather than adescriptive perspective. Tina might write,

Based on the materials we studied in class on socialinequalities and political issues within our state,my service experience at the food bank is morethan just a field trip; it is an opportunity to exam-ine firsthand how what appears to be an individ-

ual social issue—for example, hunger—is reallythe result of societal-level structural inequalities.To think that individual people going hungry inmy state is connected to political decisions thathave adversely affected independent farmers in ourregion—frankly, I never understood or really caredabout that before.

Finally, during the active experimentation stage,Tina uses her new understanding of the service experi-ence developed during the abstract conceptualizationstage to stimulate an application of her new under-standing of this situation within the context of a set ofoptions for her personal choices in the world.

If hunger in our state is better understood as beingcaused by societal, rather than individual-levelfactors, can this same perspective provide me withinsights into understanding other problems, suchas homelessness and illiteracy? What are the con-nections between these issues? How might I makesense of these things too?

This experimentation in new settings leads the studentback to the beginning of the model—a new concreteexperience—and the cycle begins again.

The different aspects of the learning process thatmake up the four stages of Kolb’s model have also beenlinked to four different learning styles. Each learningstyle is defined by the stages of the learning process thatimmediately precede and follow it, and each representsa different set of skills that a student may acquire.

Before we go on, let’s take a minute and revisit the“Marshmallows and Spaghetti” exercise from chapter4 (exercise 4.3, on page 47). As you recall, in this exer-cise each group received a package of spaghetti and abag of marshmallows. The goal of the exercise was forthe group to build the tallest tower possible out of themarshmallows and spaghetti. Now we will illustratethe different learning styles associated with Kolb’smodel by linking them to the different roles teammembers may have played in the exercise. (If youdidn’t complete this exercise, try to imagine what typeof learning style most resembles yours.)

Diverger: Kolb describes this learning style as em-phasizing concrete experience and reflective observation.A diverger’s strengths include imaginative ability andawareness of the meaning of a situation. A diverger iscapable of viewing a problem from a variety of per-



sonal perspectives and then organizing these multipleviews into a meaningful description of what’s goingon. In the exercise, a student who favors a divergerlearning style might be very active early in the process,coming up with multiple ways that the team could ap-proach the problem—for example, the team couldstack marshmallows on top of each other like a tower,or it could connect pairs of marshmallows like tinkertoys using a piece of spaghetti, or it could build a pyra-mid by constructing a wide base of marshmallows sup-porting vertical pieces of spaghetti that would thesupport a smaller second story platform of marshmal-

lows with more vertical pieces of spaghetti that finallyreach a point. Divergers tend to excel in situations thatcall for brainstorming and the development of alterna-tive ideas and strategies. Divergers possess good data-gathering skills, tend to be sensitive, and are interestedin people.

Assimilator: The emphasis in this learning style is onreflective observation and abstract conceptualization. Anassimilator is very comfortable using inductive logic, inwhich one works from observations to make theory. Inthe exercise, a student who favors an assimilator learn-ing style might take a more active role in determining

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Exercise 6.1: Reflecting on Community Partnerships Using Kolb’sExperiential Learning Model

The following reflection exercise uses the stages of Kolb’s Model to frame your service-learningexperience and help you better understand your interactions with your community partner.

Concrete Experience: Typically, in service-learning classes, the kinds of community partner-ships that you experience will involve multiple constituencies—your university, local govern-ment and nonprofit agencies, citizen groups, and students. First, think about a situationfrom your current service-learning class involving other “players” from your communitypartnership. Next, describe an interaction between yourself and at least one other playerfrom that partnership. As you describe the interaction, make sure to include what you ob-served, what you and others said, and any nonverbal behaviors that you noted. Try to reservejudgment and be as neutral in your description as possible.

Reflective Observation: How do you feel when you reflect upon the interaction you de-scribed? Did the interaction turn out the way you expected it to? If not, what was differ-ent? What do you think the community partner expected from the interaction? Reflectupon the assumptions you brought with you about the other people in this relationshipbefore this interaction occurred. What assumptions do you think the community partnerhad about you?

Abstract Conceptualization: Using materials from this service-learning course and knowl-edge gained from your academic major, how would you explain the nature of this communitypartnership? What concepts or theoretical models might help explain both the outcomes ofthis interaction, as well as the underlying processes? Specifically consider the following:

• What influence does culture have on this interaction?• What influence does power have on this interaction?• How does your understanding of service impact this interaction?

Active Experimentation: How have your plans for relating to future community partnerschanged as the result of your current service-learning experience? Has the experience changedyour personal understanding of “service?” If so, how? How will your current understanding of“culture” and “power” impact your interactions with community partners in the future? Whatwould you do differently next time?

which of the various alternatives makes the most sensefor the group to pursue. For example, after comparingthe different possibilities from a theoretical design per-spective, the assimilator might declare that the pyramidstructure is the most architecturally sound and thereforeshould provide the team with the best chance of creat-ing the tallest structure. Assimilators are particularlyvaluable in situations that call for the development andcreation of theoretical models. Assimilators tend to bemore interested in ideas for their own sake than the ap-plication of those ideas to practical situations.

Converger: The emphasis in this learning style ison abstract conceptualization and active experimenta-tion. A converger’s strengths include the abilities toproblem-solve and make decisions and the willing-ness to search for the practical uses of ideas and theo-ries. In the exercise, a student who favors a convergerlearning style might focus on the question, “What isthe best way to put a pyramid together?” and wouldbe actively involved in construction decisions withthe project. The converger will wonder if it will pro-vide more support to use two pieces of spaghetti ratherthan one to connect the marshmallows on the largerbase level to the marshmallows on the smaller secondstory. A student favoring this learning style tends toperform well in situations where there is a single correctanswer and the group task is to identify the “best” solu-tion for a particular problem. Convergers are comfort-able using deductive logic, in which they use theory toexplain real-life occurrences; they prefer dealing withtechnical tasks and problems rather than social or inter-personal issues.

Accommodator: The emphasis in this learning styleis on active experimentation and concrete experience. Anaccommodator’s strengths lie in doing things, carryingout plans, and getting involved in new experiences. Astudent favoring this learning style will do well in sit-uations that require a willingness to adapt to circum-stances in order to successfully complete a task. In theexercise, a student who favors an accommodator learn-ing style might become active only at a late stage of theactual building process as the exercise time limit is ap-proaching and the team is struggling to make the pyra-mid design stay together. The accommodator mighthelp modify the pyramid by putting in additional sta-bility supports to prop up the structure so that, whileit no longer looks like a pyramid, it is fairly tall andstays together until the assignment is “judged” by theinstructor. Accommodators learn best from hands-on

experiences. These individuals are pragmatists—con-cerned with what works—and are willing to throwaway a theory if it means a better way can be found toaddress a problem. Accommodators tend to rely onpeople much more than on analysis, but are sometimesperceived by others as pushy because of their focus ongetting things done.

We should note that, while Kolb recognizes that in-dividuals typically prefer one learning style over others,he also proposes that, to achieve real learning, studentsshould develop some competence with all four styles. Inmost traditional learning experiences (such as lecture-format classes), students with assimilator and convergerlearning styles—styles that emphasize “thinking” activi-ties—seem to be most comfortable. Interestingly, one ofthe strengths of service-learning classes is that they pro-vide students preferring accommodator and divergerstyles—styles that emphasize “doing” activities—with amore compatible learning environment. Kolb main-tains that experiential learning involves both “thinking”and “doing,” and, regardless of where you “start” (interms of your preferred learning style) and which teach-ing approach is used (such as experiential activities incommunity collaboration), it is imperative that youvisit all the stages in the cycle in order to fully integratethe learning experience.

Deep Reflection

You may already have had many course experiences inwhich you have been asked to reflect. Many instruc-tors assign journals, for example, as a tool for studentsto record their thoughts and feelings about what theyare learning or to write less formally about varioussubjects. Effective reflection in service-learning classes,however, needs to go deeper than most traditionalnotions of reflection, beyond a surface description to what anthropologists call a “thick” description(Geertz, 1973). Thick descriptions capture the rich-ness of detail in what is observed, as well as the per-sonal connection between the individual and theexperience. We propose that deep reflection in service-learning experiences is composed of three compo-nents: observation, personal relevance, and connection.To practice deep reflection, you will need to pay atten-tion to all three elements; no one component alone orpair of components is sufficient to connect “thinking”with “doing” in the service experience.



In eighteen years of schooling, I have never reallyquestioned events around me, how I fit in, and howthose events affect the way I fit in, until now. Nowit seems like that is the major work of this course: tomake connections, to understand how one thing isrelated to another, and how I am related to all of it.

The following descriptions offer ideas for how topractice reflection that is deep and thick. The studentsrepresented here were part of a service project to weath-erize the homes of low-income and elderly residents. Inthe quotes that follow the descriptions, listen to howthe students have articulated their own deep reflection:

Observation: Describe what you experienced: thesetting, the community agencies, and the individualswith whom you interacted:

First off, I found it weird to winterize at the begin-ning of summer. Our class is meeting during thehottest time of the day, so it can be pretty brutal tobe stuck in some attic feeding insulation into thewall. And it takes a good long while, too. But Iguess with 200 homes to weatherize a year, theCommunity Energy Project must spread out theprojects throughout the year in order to finish them.Yesterday we helped an elderly woman in a trailerpark in Northeast. She and a friend of hers went on

and on about how fortunate she was to have theseservices for free and how we were a wonderful gift.

Personal relevance: Connect the service experiencesto your own reactions and responses. How did youfeel? Use “I” statements when talking about yourfeelings:

It was great for me to see the elderly woman’s ap-preciation for our team and to have her say suchnice things to us. I think she appreciated havingyoung people around for a while. I realized thatuntil I volunteered my time with the CommunityEnergy Project, I didn’t really have an understand-ing of what it feels like to make a difference insomebody’s life, so that’s good. But to be completelyhonest, as good as it was to have somebody appre-ciate our work, I just wanted to get out of there, tocool off and take a shower, and get back to my fa-miliar life. I know I’ll be ready to do some morehouses next week, but for now I need some time tothink about things.

Connection: Frame your observations and personalreactions in a context provided by relevant coursereadings, research, or other materials. How does thecontent of this service-learning class provide an inter-

Exercise 6.2: What Is Your Preferred Learning Style?

Think about the different experiences you have already had in this service-learning course,such as class exercises, working with community partners, group projects, and the contri-butions that YOU personally made to each of these elements. Which of Kolb’s four learn-ing styles—diverger, assimilator, converger, accommodator—best describes your preferredstyle?

To investigate your preferred style, choose a specific example of an element that you haveused in this course. Briefly describe the activity or event, and then itemize the ways you par-ticipated in it. Looking back on this experience and the learning styles described above,which learning style did you most fully work from? How has your preferred learning styleimpacted the collaboration you are part of in this class? What can you learn from others’ pre-ferred learning styles to more fully develop your capacities as a learner and a doer?

pretive lens through which you can better understandother persons’ experiences and feelings and the socialand political context in which your work was accom-plished?

In this class we’ve been reading about the qualitiesof effective leadership. I never knew that many, ifnot most, of the most skilled leaders have made adedicated commitment to volunteering at somepoint in their lives. I never thought that theremight be particular things I can learn through sac-rificing my own time to benefit others, and that thiscould benefit me in the future. I have been forced todo volunteer work for other leadership classes, but Inever truly understood why. Now I know it’s be-cause it brings out our true leadership skills. Itmakes us learn to work with others to accomplishthe same goals, and it helps us to be learn how to beless selfish, which is a very important characteristicof leadership.

This class has exposed me to concepts that were not pre-viously evident in my educational experience. Theymay have been present, but through ignorance, notcaring, or whatever, I was not aware of them. Al-though my awareness of the issues presented in this classhas developed over the years, never have I personally

grown and become more aware of these issues than inthe last eleven weeks. At times that growth has beenexciting, at times frustrating and agonizing. This classhas inserted so many questions into my mind.

As in the case of the student quoted above, deepen-ing our reflective capacities tends to leave us witheven more questions than we had when we began re-flecting. If we remember back to the whole purposebehind reflection—to offer us a tool for makingmeaning of our experiences so that we may recognizeand use the learning those experiences promise—andto the work of Dewey and Kolb, this is as it should be.In other words, the whole point of reflection is to leadus into an informed understanding of ourselves, oth-ers, and the world in which we are all called to partic-ipate as lifelong learners and doers.

We encourage you to discover your own best settingand environment for reflection and to develop yourown best practices of reflection. Here is a list of tips,offered by student service-learners, to help guide yourreflective engagement:

Tips for Successful Reflection Experiences

• Seek out quiet moments. Talking—and beingtalked to—can be distracting.

• Be attentive to and mindful of the presentmoment.


Exercise 6.3: Reflecting on Reflection

Take a moment and return to Exercise 4.9: “How Am I in This Group?” on page 64. Lookat both the reflection questions and your responses. This exercise walked you through all theelements of what we call “deep reflection.” The first two questions asked you to describe thesituation that you participated in: “What task roles did you play? What maintenance rolesdid you play?” The third question asked you to go beyond a description of the group activ-ity and connect yourself to the experiences: “Think about why you did not act in a certainsituation.” Finally, the last question asked you to connect this experience with what you hadalready learned about group roles: “In a future group experience, which roles would you playand why?”

Reread your responses. Based on your experience since you first completed this activity, isthere anything you might now add? What new insights have you gained in the past fewweeks of this course? How did completing this reflection help you to achieve a deeper under-standing of your relationship to teamwork than you might have experienced without it?


• Practice acute observation. Work to decipherthe clues in the world around you.

• Figure out what matters most for the task beingconsidered.

• Make a conscious effort to focus on the expe-rience you’re reflecting on.

• Permit yourself to feel emotional.• Go beyond your “self ” and your personal per-

spective.• Use the lens of your past experiences to make

links to the present.• Recognize—and think about—the tension

between being attached and involved and thenstepping back to gain a detached perspectiveof the situation.

Modes of Reflection

Now that you have read more about the reasons youare asked to reflect in service-learning courses and theways that you may direct yourself as a reflectivethinker, we offer ideas for different modes of reflec-tion. Your professor may have already selected the typeof reflection activities you will complete. If not, dis-cuss with him or her the various options. The activitiesmay also be used alone as you process your learning-

through-serving experience. Figure 6.3 identifies fourprimary modes of reflection—telling, activities, multi-media, and writing—along with a few representativeexamples of each type.

Because each type of reflection exercise has differentstrengths, the decision about which mode of reflectionto use should be based on two major factors:

• What is the context of your current class?Perhaps your instructor has very deliberatelystructured and assigned reflective activitiesfor you and your classmates based on her ex-pertise and experience with service-learningcourses. Even if the benefits of completing thereflective assignment in the way she has indi-cated are not apparent to you, follow herguidelines. In fact, you might deepen yourown reflection on the assignment by investi-gating your ideas about why the instructorchose to frame the assignment in the way shedid. What impact does this framing have onyou? What did you learn as a result of com-pleting this reflection in this way? How mightyou use this particular reflective assignment tounderstand your experience more fully? Whatquestions do you now have as a result of hav-ing completed this reflection?

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Figure 6.3. Modes of Reflection

Examples:

Examples:

Examples:

Examples:

•journals

•photo / video essay •collage

•role playing

•interviewing

•directed

•oral classpresentation

•classdiscussion

writing

Writing

Multimedia

TellingA

ctiv

itie

s

classmatesModes of reflection

• What is the best means for telling the storyof your service experience? Whether or notyour instructor has assigned reflective activitiesfor you and your classmates, you may choose topractice reflection both formally and infor-mally beyond the scope of those assignments.In creating your own reflective opportunities,you may experience greater freedom in usingnew and different modes of reflection than youhave in past courses. Sometimes photos, draw-ings, collages, or videos may capture the essenceof a service experience with much greater clar-ity than written words. Remember, whateverform your service-learning reflection takes, theunderlying elements of deep reflection—obser-vation, personal relevance, and connection—need to be present.

TellingReporting our insights orally to others is a great wayto deepen our understanding of those insights. Story-telling remains one of the most important ways thathumans transmit information to each other. Thebenefits of storytelling, however, don’t only apply tothose listening to the story; the teller, too, has his orher understanding enhanced through the act of com-municating it to others.

In a formal way, oral presentations can offer sev-eral advantages in service-learning courses: providingstudents with opportunities to practice their publicspeaking skills, allowing the use of nonverbal behav-iors to reinforce an emotional message, and provid-ing the starting point for dialogue between differentstakeholders in the service project. Other less formalexamples of “telling” reflection activities can includetalking casually about the service experience withclassmates or with others outside the service-learningexperience.

ActivitiesActivities, projects, and other forms of “reflectionthrough action” can also offer some specific advan-tages in meaning-making. Often, these sorts of exer-

cises speak to a variety of learning styles, help to de-velop groups, and allow forward momentum to bebuilt into the project.

If you are interested in exploring these experientialways of reflecting, you might choose to spend time, onyour own, in the environments experienced by the per-sons you are serving. For example, if you are tutoringrefugees in basic English-language skills, you mightspend a day attempting to read a newspaper or followdirections in a language you do not know. If you arewriting grant proposals for a camp for stroke survivorsand their families, you might spend time living as if youhad limited use of language or movement. If you chooseto reflect in this very experiential way on your role as aservice-learner, remember chapter 5 and the importanceof behaving and interacting with integrity around thedifferences between you and those your service impacts.

MultimediaCollages, drawings, photo or video essays, and otherforms of multimedia reflection offer additional advan-tages for the reflector through incorporating multiplelearning styles, serving as excellent tools for capturingsubtle emotional truths, and providing great opportu-nities for creative expression. If you choose to exploremultimedia reflection, you might collect objects fromyour service site to create a visual representation ofyour community-based experience. (Be careful aboutthe use of confidential materials, making sure to getpermission before collecting any items.) Considerwriting a piece of music to capture the essence of yourservice to the community. You might also paint a pic-ture that captures the community-based experience orthat expresses your vision of how the community willbe changed for the better by your collaborative efforts.


For an example of “telling” as reflection,see Exercise 6.5: Telling the Tale, on page 95.

For an example of using activities asreflection, see Exercise 6.6: Showtime, onpage 96.

For an example of using multimediatools as reflection, see Exercise 6.7: EveryPicture Tells a Story, on page 96.


WritingFor many students in service-learning projects, thepredominant form that their reflection takes is writ-ten. Written reflection techniques offer several uniqueadvantages compared to other modes: They provide anopportunity to practice and refine writing skills, chal-lenge us to organize our thoughts in order to make co-herent arguments, and generate a permanent record ofthe service experiences that can be used as part of fu-ture learning activities.

Written reflection can take a variety of forms, in-cluding directed assignments, in which a writer re-sponds to topics framed by an instructor; portfolios, inwhich a student compiles multiple pieces of evidenceto demonstrate what he or she has learned; and jour-nals, which might track the evolution of thoughtthroughout a period of time. In this service-learningcourse, your instructor very likely has assigned youwritten reflections. In addition to these assignments,you might choose to engage in self-directed writing ac-tivities to fully mine the depth of your community-based experience.

While journals can take a variety of forms, certaintypes have distinctive characteristics and focus. For ex-ample, the “Newsflash” exercise above is a directedwriting assignment and may be thought of as a struc-tured journal, a format that most closely resembles aseries of directed writing assignments. In assigning astructured journal, your course instructor or campusservice-learning coordinator will provide you withtopics or key questions to focus each specific assign-ment and may leave room on each journal page for herfeedback.

A critical incident journal takes a completely dif-ferent approach. Instead of the instructor telling youwhat the important topics are to reflect upon, you, thestudent, are asked to identify a “pivot” or “turningpoint” in your own service-learning experience. Reflec-tion is focused on this key situation or event in which adecision was made, a conflict occurred, or a problemwas resolved. This can help to focus your attention

on the idea that not all events have equal significancein realizing the goals of a service-learning project andencourage you to identify those particularly meaning-ful events.

A role-taking, or shift-in-perspective, journal dif-fers from either of the previous types because, eventhough you are writing in the journal, you are asked totake on the perspective of some other participant in theservice experience. Instead of asking you to reflect onthe meaning of the class service experience to you, thisformat encourages you to reflect upon key questionsand aspects of the community issue being addressedfrom a different perspective—for example, communitymembers or the director of the community agency youare partnering with—rather than as students. Such per-spective taking can enhance compassion and accept-ance of others.

Finally, a triple-entry journal is a format thatworks very well for promoting “deep reflection.” Init, you will reflect upon three distinct issues in eachjournal entry by (a) describing what happened dur-ing your service experience, including what was ac-complished as well as things that puzzled you(observation); (b) analyzing how aspects of coursecontent apply to the service experience and howthese theories and concepts help you understandwhat occurred (connection); and (c) applying thecourse materials and the service experience to yourown life, particularly with regard to how you willapproach similar experiences in the future (personalrelevance).

Why Reflect? Revisited

We reflect to understand where we have been, whatwe have experienced, and where we go from here. Inthis chapter, we went beyond a mere definition of“reflection” to investigate its theoretical underpin-nings and underlying processes. You have learned whyreflection may be especially important for commu-nity-based learners and have investigated multiplemodes for practicing reflection. You have expanded(and will continue to expand) your reflective capaci-ties by starting with the activities assigned by your in-structor and developing a more fully self-directed andcontinuous commitment to practice reflection onyour own.

While most reflection techniques focus on the

94

For an example of writing as reflection,see Exercise 6.8: Newsflash, on page 96.


positive outcomes of service experiences, others, suchas the critical incident journal, draw attention to thefact that learning through reflection can occur even“when things go wrong” in a service-learning class.

Chapter 7, “Failure with the Best of Intentions:When Things Go Wrong,” explores the issue of deal-ing with unexpected challenges in the communitysetting in greater detail.

Exercise 6.4: Triple-Entry Journal

Use the format from the sample triple entry journal (appendix 6.1, p. 97) to reflect uponyour next several experiences at your service project site. Make at least two complete entriesduring the course of the week, preferably directly after a meaningful interaction or event. Atthe end of the week, go back and reread your entries. Do they accurately capture what youexperienced? How do these entries compare with your previous journaling efforts?

Key Concepts

abstract conceptualizationaccommodatoractive experimentationassimilatorconcrete experiencecontent knowledgeconverger

critical incident journaldeep reflectiondivergerprocess knowledgereflectionreflective observationrole-taking journal

Service-Learning Cyclesocially relevant

knowledgestructured journalthick descriptiontriple-entry journal

Key Issues

• How does reflection promote learning?• How do differences in learning styles affect learning?• What is necessary to turn simple description into deep reflection?• What are the strengths of different modes of reflection?

Exercise 6.5: Telling the Tale

Pair up with another classmate who was not part of your team in “Marshmallows andSpaghetti.” In two minutes, tell your classmate the story of your experiences building themarshmallow and spaghetti structure. In the next two minutes, answer any questions yourclassmate has about the story you just told.

Reverse roles. Repeat the process, with your classmate now telling you about her experiences.

For a final two minutes, discuss together how having to respond to questions about yourstory affected your own understanding of the experience.



Exercise 6.8: Newsflash

Imagine that you are a newspaper reporter assigned to write a “human interest” article onyour team’s experiences completing the “Marshmallows and Spaghetti” exercise. First, comeup with a headline for your story. Next, follow the steps of basic journalism as you answerthe following questions: Who? What? When? Where? With what results? Finally, pretendthat you, the reporter, are interviewing you, the student, and answer two final questions:“What did you learn from this experience?” and “How does this relate to the other materialyou’ve learned in this course?”

After asking yourself these questions, write that newspaper article. What new insights haveyou gained about your participation in this activity after interviewing yourself and crafting anews piece from that interview?

Exercise 6.6: Showtime

Have each team from “Marshmallows and Spaghetti” sit down together for fifteen minutesto develop a five-minute skit about the group’s experiences building the tower. Everyone onthe team must have a role in the skit, and everyone must play another person.

When it is your team’s turn, present your skit to the rest of the class. How is your own under-standing of your experience affected by taking on another student’s role? How is your under-standing affected by observing other teams’ skits? What insights have you gained by watchingthis reenactment of the activity?

Exercise 6.7: Every Picture Tells a Story

Along with the other members of your team from the Marshmallows and Spaghetti exercise,gather magazine and newspaper photos, cartoons, advertisements, pieces of text, and evenyour own drawings that relate to your group’s experience completing this building exercise.Put together a group collage on a large piece of poster board. When presenting the collage toyour class, have each member of the team explain how at least one section of collage relatesto his or her personal experience with this group project. How does the group’s reflection onbuilding the marshmallow and spaghetti structure, as shown in the collage, relate to yourown understanding of your experience? Did the experience of making the collage itself rein-force any of the group’s dynamics from “Marshmallows and Spaghetti”? If so, how?

Exercise 6.9: Reflecting on Reflection, Revisited

Take a moment and reflect on the process of reflection. From your own personal experi-ences as a reflective thinker, what, if any, are the benefits of reflection? How do you feelwhen you reflect upon your service-learning experience? How do you feel when you are ableto connect course concepts with what has occurred at your service-learning project site?Which do you think is more important—“doing” the service project or being able to makethe connection among course concepts, your personal values, and the service experience?Explain your position.


Appendix 6.1: Triple-Entry Journal

Section 1: Describe the situation.

Section 2: Connect course materials to the described situation.

Section 3: How does the combination of class materials and the service experience re-late to your personal life and how you might approach similar situations in the future?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

WE CAN all relate to the experience of looking backover a long-term project that started with enthu-

siasm and vision but ended with discouragement,anger, resentment, and despair. It happens to everyonefrom time to time. When you engage in a community-based project and begin to work with various others,

including faculty, students, and community partners, itis not unlike embarking on an unfamiliar road, towhich you bring a unique set of skills, strengths, andprior experiences. Some of those prior experiences in-clude situations that went relatively smoothly, somethat may have been wildly successful, and others thatwere not productive. Perhaps some were downrightdismal. Consider the following case study in light ofprevious experiences you may have had with successful(and not so successful) group project work.

Roadblocks and Flat Tires: A Case Study

When entering any collaborative experience, it isnecessary (and useful) to spend focused time review-ing what has and has not contributed to success andfailure in previous settings. Even if this is your firstlearning-through-serving course, you bring a wealthof firsthand experience relating to other human be-ings in a variety of contexts. When you view thoseexperiences—the great, the good, the bad, and theugly—with “fresh eyes,” your perspective is en-hanced and your ability to respond flexibly and cre-atively expands as well. You may have much more tocontribute to the success of this project or coursethan you ever imagined.

Service-learning is often a journey into unchartedterritory. Even with meticulous planning, carefullyoutlined expectations, and outstanding effort on

CHAPTER7Failure with the Best of IntentionsWhen Things Go Wrong

JANELLE D. VOEGELE AND DEVORAH LIEBERMAN

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Roadblocks and Flat Tires

“Not again,” thought Darrell. “Not another problem with this class! When were we supposedto meet with the community partners—ten minutes from now?” And here he was, backed upin traffic behind a construction roadblock. The last meeting had been canceled because one ofthe partners had a flat tire, and the time before that, a problem at the community organiza-tion, and the time before that, midterms, and the time before that . . . When would they everget together all in one place? “Without a doubt,” thought Darrell, “if this weren’t a class in-volving grades, we’d have all given it up by now.”

As traffic slowed to a complete stop, he sighed, leaned back in the driver’s seat, and thought backover the sequence of events of the past several weeks. In the beginning, he recalled, everyone hadseemed excited about the work they were doing. The subject matter was interesting, there weren’tany tests, there was a lot of hands-on experience working in the community and the chance todo something that real people could benefit from. How many times in school did that happen?

Then, practically overnight, it all seemed to go downhill. The first time Darrell knew some-thing was wrong was when things got heated in his project group. That was the day he andChun got into it over what the community partners needed. What did they need? Everyoneseemed to have a different idea.

“Why don’t you ask the partners these questions?” Dr. Davis, their professor, had responded.A good idea, if they would call back. One week, two weeks passed with no response. ThenChun got nervous and began to work on her idea with two others in the group, which furtherannoyed Darrell. Why was she so closed-minded? Darrell chose not to involve himself. Whyshould he? No one asked his opinion.

Finally, someone from the community organization left a message with Darrell that the volun-teer coordinators had both resigned and that a new interim person would be assigned to workwith them shortly. “Now what?” everyone seemed to be wondering. Dr. Davis had given agood pep talk, Darrell remembered. He reminded them how much they were needed at a timelike this. The class remained focused on the course material while they waited for further com-munication, but it felt like the wind had gone out of their sails. The interim coordinatoragreed to meet with the students in class, but she seemed overwhelmed and not sure which di-rection to take. The next day she called back: “I have a project for you to do,” she announcedexcitedly. By then, Chun’s group and one other faction had devoted a lot of time outside ofclass to other ideas and were less than excited about jumping in a new direction. Darrell re-called that he had tried the role of peacemaker. “Why don’t we just give her idea a chance?” hehad wondered out loud to several students before class.

Jay, a student in the “Chun Fan Club,” as Darrell liked to call them, reacted angrily. “You’vejust sat around, waiting for something to happen and letting us do all the work! Why shouldyou have the right to tell us what to do now?”

After that, Darrell thought, it went from bad to worse. Dr. Davis had arranged for a lengthy dis-cussion with the new volunteer coordinator, reminding the students that they should begin bylistening to her ideas and working from there. The session appeared to go okay; to Darrell, atleast, it seemed like everyone had listened and been open to the coordinator’s ideas. At the com-munity site, however, there had been conflicts over how to begin the project. Some studentsthought they should take the lead on the specifics of the project, since they had already volun-teered for several weeks whereas the new volunteer coordinator had only just arrived. Not sur-prisingly, she reacted defensively. “It’s the professor’s job to teach the class, it’s the students’ job tovolunteer, and it’s my job to supervise the volunteers,” she responded when two students ap-proached her with concerns about her directions. “You need to do what the community organi-

everyone’s part, things can go wrong. The good newsis that we can prepare ourselves for and avoid many ofthe “roadblocks and flat tires” along the way. Thispreparation occurs in several steps. First, we encourageyou to explore some prior experiences in collaborativecontexts while considering how those experiences havebeen framed and defined in terms of “success” or “fail-ure.” Second, we will look at common roadblocks inthe service-learning journey. Third, you will have achance to consider alternative response strategies fornegotiating unexpected events and circumstances.Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion ofcommunity-based learning in retrospect, focusing onframing and learning from various experiences at the“end of the road.”

Choosing Directions: The Meaning of“Failure” in Service-Learning

Let’s be honest—the term “failure” doesn’t exactlyconjure up the most pleasant mental associations. Itmay bring to mind visions of a scrawled red “F” onthe side of a term paper or exam or the unpleasantgroup experience you would rather not think about.One of the ways to prepare for these and other po-tential problems is to understand the dynamics offailure in the context of service-learning. As you readthrough the following list of typical “failures” in

community service contexts, remember that thesedynamics do not by themselves cause failure; instead,the challenge of how you react to them may result inperceptions that some aspect of the course has failed(or failed to meet initial expectations). Therefore,when those involved can focus on the underlying dy-namic of those events as well as the perceptions ofevents, the progression to learning from and respond-ing to those events can become clearer. It is importantthat you frame your experience as opportunities to“learn from” and “respond to” these situations. Theintervening variable or event may be out of your con-trol, but how you respond to it is within your con-trol. You have the power to impact the outcome ofthe entire learning-through-serving experience, in-fluencing your community partners and your class-mates through your choices.

Everything is going really great. I like our professor—she knows so much about this subject. And I like thegroup I’m working with, which hasn’t always beenthe case in other classes I’ve taken. Also, the volun-teering turned about to be so much fun that I actu-ally look forward to going every week. So it’s allokay—thinking about something as depressing as“failure” makes it seem like we’re waiting for the luckto run out or something.

FA I L U R E W I T H T H E B E S T O F I N T E N T I O N S101

zation wants, not the other way around.” So Dr. Davis scheduled another mediation session,which had to be rescheduled, and rescheduled . . .

Which brought him to the latest roadblock, a real one this time. Yet, it seemed to him that thecourse had been like that all along—a potentially exciting journey that had somehow turnedout all wrong. Roadblocks and flat tires all the way. Could we have foreseen any of them, Dar-rell wondered? Could any of the problems have been prevented? Well, too late now. Or was it?

Exercise 7.1: Roadblocks and Flat Tires Reflection

• What do you imagine will happen next in this situation?• What factors may have contributed to the difficulties faced by the students and commu-

nity partners?• What might have prevented or minimized the difficulties in this situation?


Some common and familiar dynamics of service-learning failures include the following:

• Difficulty anticipating the unknown (ambi-guity). Typical “unknowns” in service-learningexperiences are (1) reactions of communitymembers to your presence in their lives, (2)what exactly you will discover in long-term re-search projects for community partners, (3)how your work will be received by stakehold-ers, and (4) how you will learn the skills youneed for the community service project. Peoplereact differently to ambiguity in their lives, andthe same is true for reactions to unknowns incommunity-based learning. For example, inthe case study at the beginning of this chapter,Darrell preferred a “wait-and-see” approachwhile Chun and Jay responded by developingtheir own plans for the project.

• Responsibility to community need (respon-sibilities). In chapter 1, the complementarybut competing forces of freedom and responsi-bility were discussed in relation to the develop-ment of educated citizens. A feeling ofresponsibility to those with whom you work aspart of your community experience may attimes appear to conflict with your own personalbeliefs or competing commitments. As you ex-pand your awareness of the complexity of com-munity needs, you may feel overwhelmed orconcerned about whether you are truly makinga difference or “doing enough.”

• Reliance on others whom you do not knowwell (trust). Reliance on others for assistance,expertise, direction, and support takes a greatdeal of effort and goodwill. Trust is an issuethroughout the stages and phases of collabora-tive group effort.

• Conflicts with students and/or community(controversy with civility). Remember the“Visionary Skeptics” and “Mudslingers” fromchapter 4? Which group had more conflict?Although the conflict exhibited throughoutthe Mudslingers’ process is no doubt morememorable, the answer is that neither grouphad more conflict. The type of conflict cer-tainly differed between the two groups, as wellas the response strategies used by individual

participants in each group. In this chapter wewill extend the discussion on the stormingphase of group development to include ideasfor positive individual orientation towardconflict, as well as strategies for engaging inconstructive, rather than destructive, conflict.

• Flexibility in the face of rapidly changingconditions (adaptability). Just as people re-act in various ways to ambiguity, they mayalso respond differently to circumstances inwhich plans have to be cancelled, assump-tions are challenged, and goals must be re-vised. According to Schon (1987), flexibilityand acceptance of uncertainty are two keycharacteristics associated with the ability tothink creatively in problematic situations.Even if you generally describe yourself as “laidback” when it comes to last-minute changes,there are other factors in service-learning thatcan impact creative problem solving. For ex-ample, you or your classmates may wonder ifyour grades will be impacted by changes inthe partnership or project goals. You or yourclassmates—not to mention your professorand the community partner—may experiencestress, as multiple constituents with compet-ing commitments and busy lives attempt to“re-group” and invest time and energy re-sponding to unplanned events.

• Unexamined assumptions about the role offailure and success (redefining success).When we characterize a situation or event ashaving been a “success” or “failure,” what dowe mean? Unless we answer this importantquestion, we may equate our framing of eventsas “failures” or “successes,” closing off the pos-sibility for alternative interpretations of events.Articulating individual and group meaningsfor the experience of success and failure sets thetone for productive communication and cre-ative problem solving.

In this section, we have explored the underlying dy-namics commonly related to perceptions of successand failure in service-learning environments. It is of-ten the case that more than one dynamic operates si-multaneously, making the task of responding flexiblyand creatively more challenging. Have you ever en-

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countered a situation in which it felt as if no mutuallyagreed-upon solution could be found, as though youwere surrounded by “Road Closed—No Detour”signs? Next, we will discuss common roadblocks youmay face in service-learning experiences and offerpractical suggestions for framing and responding pro-ductively to those events that initially seem insur-mountable.

Checking the Map: Common Roadblocks

Conflicting Expectations: Faculty, Community Partner, StudentsThere are countless reasons why expectations differ ina community-based learning experience. For example,students may be expecting a direct-service experienceor an internship, when a project-based experience is


Exercise 7.2: Exploring Success and Failure

Completing this activity will help you see how you have evaluated and “framed” your pastexperiences. What you learn will help you “re-frame” your current and future learning andserving experiences.

1. Think of an experience in college where everything “came together,” when you said toyourself, “This is what I really enjoy about being a student.” Now think about a timewhere there was a problem or an unsuccessful experience. Write a few brief notes aboutthose two experiences. Be as specific as possible. What made these two experiences satis-fying or unsatisfying?

2. If possible, discuss your responses with one or two other students. Try to derive at leastone general statement that seems to sum up your responses. For example: “Successful ex-periences made us want to continue; unsuccessful experiences made us stop and reevalu-ate things.”

3. Compare your statement to the following quotes about failure:

Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of [the] way to come back a shortdistance correctly. (Albee, 1960)

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving goodenough to be called a failure. (Eliot, 1986)

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that onehas reached in life as by the obstacles which [one] has overcome while trying to succeed.(Washington, 1901)

4. What similarities and differences do you see between your general statements fromnumber 2 and the quotes above?

5. What does “failure” mean to you? What does “success” mean to you? Make a list of thosemeanings either on your own or in your group.

6. Very often, multiple and conflicting meanings for failure and success exist side by side.For example, failure may be described as “uncomfortable” and “a possibility for growth”simultaneously. Try to complete the following two sentences:

In what ways does this course allow for success and failure? (For example, the communitypartners understand that we’re all learning as we go; the course syllabus does not state “Youwill be graded down for mistakes,” etc.)

How will you respond to failure? (For example, be open about it, be accepting of others’ errors,set aside time to problem-solve, etc.)


planned, or vice versa. Community partners may as-sume that students will carry out their work independ-ently, while students expect more input or supervisionfrom the community partner. Faculty and communitypartners may discover that they have differing ideasabout one or more aspects of the service portion of thecourse. If you have read and completed the exercisesfound thus far in this book, you have created a strongfoundation for clarifying your own and others’ expec-tations. However, as you proceed with the course andyour community service, you will find that clarifyingexpectations and assessing progress toward intendedgoals is fundamental to success. Repeated clarificationof expectations will serve to help your group progressand to deepen your personal understanding and com-mitment to the group, the project, and the commu-nity partner. As long as you are interacting withothers, you will always be interpreting layers of mean-ings, some of which will be closer (or further away)from what others intended. Moreover, you need to bevigilant against social loafing, missing deadlines, andnot fulfilling promises.

As Edelman and Crain (1993) remind us, “Every-thing we see and hear is processed through the filterof our own personal history and our own perceptionsof a situation” (p. 63). We often assume that we areunderstood by others until future actions provethat—surprise!—our message was filtered, often in-accurately, in surprising ways. Given the complex na-ture of communication, Edelman and Crain suggestthat team members accept misunderstanding, ratherthan understanding, as the norm in human interac-tions. In other words, problems are normal.

When you approach interactions assuming thatyou’re likely to be misunderstood rather than under-stood, you need not be surprised or embarrassed orwaste time trying to get at the truth of “who misun-derstood.” Blaming or identifying who is in error isnot a productive part of this process. Instead, acceptmisunderstanding as inevitable and focus your ener-gies on clarifying expectations and group communica-tion practices for the future. As an additional bonus,this state of mind leads to a more habitual practice ofeffective listening strategies.

Changes in the Community PartnershipIn the case study at the beginning of this chapter, thestudents were caught off guard by a change in staffing

at the community organization in which they werepreparing to work. There are several types of changesthat potentially impact the partnership:

Staff Change: Many service-learning courses are asso-ciated with agencies in which there is great need for as-sistance. As a result, there may be change in staffingthat occurs during any community partnership. As aresult of these changes, community organization staffmay be reorganized. Though these staff changes are inno way directly related to the student actions or proj-ect, students may feel abandoned or somehow person-ally offended by staff changes. There may be externalpressures or other organizational realities of which youare not aware. If you experience a staff change at somepoint in your course, you can do many things individ-ually or as a team to make the transition go moresmoothly for everyone involved.

Infrastructure Changes: In addition to staffingchanges, infrastructure and administrative changescan impact community-service activities. Examples ofthese changes include revisions to organizational pro-cedures and policies, job descriptions, and hoursavailable for volunteering, among others. Infrastruc-ture changes are often made for specific reasons butmay also have unintended consequences. If unin-tended consequences impact you, you can addressthis by communicating honestly, openly, and con-structively.

First, immediately discuss the situation with the ap-propriate person (instructor, students, and/or commu-nity partners. Another good source may be yourcollege’s community service or volunteer office for someadvice on how to handle the situation.) Let’s say thatyou are serving at a community organization where adecision has been made to cut back on volunteer hours.You are very upset by this, because you feel that the vol-unteers were not consulted and that the decision shows

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If you do experience a staff change atsome point in your course, Exercise 7.5:Responding to Staff Changes on page 110can help to make the transition go moresmoothly for everyone involved.

very little regard for your (and other volunteers’) per-spectives. You could ask,

Why were the hours cut back so much? Do vol-unteers really matter around here or don’t they?Don’t you know we have families and jobs out-side of this place, in addition to school?

Alternatively, you might say,

Since volunteer hours have been restricted toTuesday and Thursday, I’m only able to be herefor part of the hours that the clients are actuallyhere, since I have to go to work on Thursday after-noons. I really want to be able to keep supportingthe community organization and continue inter-acting directly with clients. What suggestions doyou have in this situation?

The second response is more specific, speaks fromthe student’s perspective, does not assume that thecommunity organization was automatically aware ofunintended consequences, shows goodwill, and invitesothers to collaborate in generating a solution. Mostlikely, the person in the organization will not feel de-fensive or attacked. Remember, a result of making thecomment should not be, “These volunteers are morehassle than they are worth,” but, rather, “I’d like to ad-dress these volunteers’ issues so that they can continueto contribute to the organization.”

Perception of Need or Community IssueMost service-learning courses are working toward acommon goal in collaboration with the community.Ideally, the “common goal” is a result of input from allinvolved—community, faculty, and students. In ourwork with community-based courses, we have ob-served that perceptions of the problem to be solved, is-sue to be addressed, or “common goal” change overtime. Often, as multiple constituencies work togetherin community-based settings, they learn from one an-other. As part of this multilayered, complex learningprocess, it is not surprising that views of issues evolveand change.

Look closely at the picture in figure 7.1. What doyou see? Most people initially see a duck, and then, withtime, perceive a rabbit. With more time and practice, itis easily possible to perceive both at the same time.

Learning in partnership with community is somewhatlike this: You are framing, reframing, and defining whatyou see as you move through the process. Metaphori-cally, you may begin by seeing mostly “ducks” in thebeginning and then move to “rabbits.” For example,what all participants perceive as the major goal of yourvolunteer work may have subtly shifted as the work pro-gressed. What is important to the partnership is thatthese changes in perceptions are articulated and clarifiedregularly; otherwise, as the partnership continues, youmay be proceeding on assumptions as different as ducksare from rabbits.

Conflict within the Student TeamIn chapter 4, you read about the distinct phases ofgroup development: forming, storming, norming, andperforming. This model assumes the inevitability ofconflict; in fact, conflict is understood to play a neces-sary and productive role in the process. It should benoted, however, that “having a difference of opinion”is not the same as “experiencing conflict.” Let’s takesome time to define conflict and address the compo-nents of conflict. Folger, Poole, and Stutman (1995)define conflict as “the interaction of interdependentpeople who perceive incompatible goals and interfer-ence from each other in achieving those goals” (p.404). When two individuals working toward the samegoal perceive that the other is “the” deterrent toachieving that goal, then conflict arises. The critical el-ement is not the conflict, in and of itself, it is howthese two individuals approach and deal with the con-flict that is the most important factor.

There are two primary approaches to conflict: de-structive and constructive. The following chart artic-


Figure 7.1. What Is It?


ulates some of the basic behaviors associated with eachconflict style.

Let’s focus our attention on approaching conflictcivilly and constructively. Since constructive conflictinvolves focusing on the source of the conflict, identifythe source. In student working groups, differences overgoals, priorities, and approaches to the project arecommon sources of conflict. First, look at the followingchecklist and identify which of the elements may be act-ing as roadblocks to constructive conflict either in yourown group and/or within the community organization.

Then, read the suggestions for working through theconflict constructively.

1. Identify the root of the conflict. The follow-ing checklists may help:

What’s going wrong?

___ We’re not listening to each other.___ We keep repeating the same arguments

instead of moving on or agreeing on asolution.

___ We constantly interrupt each other.___ We allow aggressive members to

dominate and quiet members to becomemore passive and less invested in theproject.

___ Some of us don’t contribute.___ We don’t compromise or collaborate

enough.

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Exercise 7.3: Assessing Your Journey

Completing this activity will help you assess your learning and serving thus far so that youcan adjust your framing of roles, responsibilities, timelines, tasks, and objectives, if necessary.This activity can be done on your own (for example, in a reflective response that may beshared with the course instructor) or can be completed and discussed in class.

Revisit Exercise 2.6: Action and Learning Plan for Serving (ALPS) from chapter 2 (page27), and/or use Exercise 4.4: Jobs List and Exercise 4.5: Timeline from chapter 4 (pages51 and 53) as guides for thinking about these questions:

• How are you doing individually? As a group? Are you on track to achieve your goals? Whatevidence do you find to support your perception of your progress?

• What adjustments need to be made?• How do those changes connect with other aspects of your learning in this course?• What evidence do you have of your success so far?• What lessons have you learned about the elements of success?• How will you sustain success toward your goals?

Examples of Destructive Conflict Examples of Constructive Conflict

• Open hostility: Attacking or underminingothers’ ideas

• Subtle hostility: Lack of cooperation orwithdrawal

• Imposing and forcing solutions on theother

• Listening to opposing views with the goalof feeling empathy and understanding

• Discussing the nature or source of theconflict (a person’s position on somethingrather than the person him or herself )

• Welcoming various possible solutions

To explore conflict patterns in yourown life, see Exercise 7.6: Identifying YourConflict Patterns, on page 111.

___ We don’t have clear tasks or objectivesfor our group or the individual membersof our group.

___ We are not clear about what has beendecided. (Adapted from Gibbs, 1994)

What seems to be the sources of this conflict?

___ Our individual differences over projectgoals or priorities

___ Our misunderstandings over eachothers’ intentions

___ Our competition for control___ Our personality clashes that we don’t

resolve___ Our differences over methods to

achieve goals___ Our individual frustrations over roles in

the group and the opportunity for allmembers to make an impact

___ Our perceptions that someone is at faultor undermining

___ Our positions (conclusions individualshave reached)

___ Our interests (reasons for taking oneposition over another)

___ Our talking behind each others’ backsinstead of addressing the sources and thecontinuing conflicts

2. Listen carefully to others’ views on the na-ture of the conflict. It is possible that the con-flict stems from more than one source.

3. Work together to focus on the source(s) ofthe conflict, rather than the people in-volved. This may seem difficult. What if a dif-ference in personality is one of the issues?Rather than focusing on the individuals whoclash, explore the nature of the clash. Doesone perceive something about the other’s in-tentions that may or may not be accurate? Isthe personality difference actually related todifferences in approaches to interaction or theroles and responsibilities that have been as-signed to the individuals? Can the group,without assigning blame to any one person, behelpful in exploring these differences and gen-erating alternative approaches toward movingforward with the project?

4. Demonstrate that everyone’s views havebeen understood. Work for understanding atthis stage, not agreement. You can accuratelysummarize everyone’s views on the source of aconflict without necessarily agreeing withthose views. Ask questions often to clarifyyour assumptions about the exact nature ofothers’ views on the root of the conflict. Re-member, “understanding” does not necessar-ily mean that you agree.

5. Identify any common goals and mutual in-terests that underlie various participants’views on the conflict. For example, in the“Roadblocks and Flat Tires” case study, Dar-rell, Chun, and Jay were all concerned aboutdoing the best job possible for the commu-nity partner, but they used different ap-proaches. Darrell assumed that waiting tohear more about the new coordinator’s needswould be the best approach, while Chun andJay wanted to begin on their own. Had theydiscussed the nature of their conflict, theymight have discovered that it involved differ-ences in methods for reacting to staff change,rather than Darrell’s laziness (Jay’s assump-tion) or Chun’s closed-mindedness (Darrell’sassumption).

6. Generate possible solutions based on com-mon goals and mutual interests, with spe-cific, achievable tasks for all participants.More than one solution may be appropriate,based on participants’ diverse needs. For exam-ple, Darrell and Chun might have decided ontwo solutions: (a) carefully assess needs basedon the new volunteer coordinator’s perspective,and (b) begin developing a student proposal.By working on these approaches together, re-moving incorrect assumptions about inten-tions, Darrell could function as the initialcontact with the new coordinator while Chuntook the lead on the student proposal. Eventu-ally the project could merge both efforts.

Conflicts with Community PartnersIn addition to conflict within the student team, conflictwith community partners may arise. When approach-ing conflict with community partners, it is crucial tocreate a climate of support, goodwill, and mutual bene-fit. For example, students may unintentionally misread



community partners’ assumptions about their role inthe project. The community partner may mistakenlyhave stereotypes about student commitment, studentwork ethic, and student intent. These assumptions caneasily cloud everyone’s perceptions and lead to assump-tions about behaviors, creating a defensive climate. De-fensive climates prevent listeners from focusing on themessage and increase the likelihood that they will focuson defending positions, rather than attempting to un-derstand your views.

The climate that you help to establish will set thetone for all the communication behaviors that ensue.You have the power to create an environment that fos-ters supportive communication or that breeds defensivecommunication among interactants. The next sectionrepresents a communication process for responding tocommon challenges in ways that encourage collabora-tion, empathy, and reciprocal learning.

Reading the Signs: Redirecting around Roadblocks

In the previous discussions, we addressed communi-cation strategies for achieving constructive and pro-ductive outcomes and ways to creative a moresupportive communication climate. The followingsection addresses a sequential process for moving from“recognizing a roadblock” to “redirecting around aroadblock.”

Does the Map Fit the Territory?Language (whether written or spoken) may be under-stood as a map (Korzybski, 1921). Imagine a map ofthe United States. The map includes all the variablesthat make up a particular area, and these variables areexhibited in relation to one another. In the case of theroadblocks, we must ensure that “the map fits the ter-ritory” rather than making the territory fit the map.This reminds us that our written and spoken languagegives us information about the situation which allowsus to see the greater picture (map). The more accu-rately we portray each communication variable (partsof the map), the better we will understand the entiresituation (the overall map). In order to achieve this, wemust continually assess and reassess, for accuracy, theparts of the map (Russell, 1999). It is always possibleto act based on inaccurate maps, especially when we

proceed without checking our perceptions of mapsgiven to us by others and misread maps based uponprior assumptions or what we would like to believeabout the territory, accurate or not. The followingstrategy, adapted from Lieberman (1996), offers aconcrete process to monitor our assumptions, our lis-tening, our language, and our behavior for continueddevelopment in self-knowledge and working with oth-ers across differences.

The D-U-E ProcessThe D-U-E Process is a framework for understand-ing cultural or personality differences that may beroadblocks to effectively listening to or working withanother individual or group. D-U-E stands for thefollowing:

• Describe what you observe• Understand cultural or personality differences• Encourage communication

Step 1: Describe. Self-talk loaded with evaluativestatements or adjectives (“She is inconsiderate andpushy”) is one indicator that you need to apply theD-U-E Process. Think: Is the map I am creating ofthis person’s behavior an accurate representation ofevents or my inaccurate interpretation of thoseevents? The first step is to pause for a moment anddescribe to yourself as specifically as possible yourreasons for your evaluations (interpretations). For ex-ample, a person’s behavior may seem “inconsiderateand pushy” to you because (descriptively) she beginsspeaking before you have completed your sentenceand because she speaks very quickly, without muchvocal inflection. The description you would think toyourself would be “This person is speaking before Ihave finished my sentence.” It doesn’t evaluate herbehavior as “good” or “bad”; it merely describes herbehavior.

Step 2: Understand. The second step is a reminder tothink about possible cultural or personality differ-ences that lie below the descriptions you generated instep 1. For example, rules for interruption, rate ofspeech, and vocal inflection vary from culture to cul-ture and between various groups within cultures. Inthe example in step 1, let’s imagine that the personwho interrupts and may seem “inconsiderate and

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pushy” comes from a part of the United States wherethe average rate of speech is much faster than the areain which you were raised. How might that influenceyour perception of her, and, possibly, her perceptionof your speech?

Step 3: Encourage communication. If you take thesecond step of the process seriously, you will often ar-rive quite easily at the third phase of the D-U-EProcess, and you can begin to focus on the what, orthe content of the message, and focus less on thehow, or the manner in which the message is pre-sented. You can also paraphrase the speaker’s mes-sage, demonstrating your understanding, and savemuch time that would have been wasted had you al-lowed cultural or personality “noise” to interfere withyour understanding.

It may seem like a great deal of work because it isnot something you are normally used to doing. Yetthe whole process takes only a few seconds and candramatically affect your response to others and yourability to comprehend their meaning.

The View from Yesterday: Making Meaning at the End(?) of the Road

Throughout this chapter, we have asked you to con-sider a variety of meanings for and responses to “fail-ure with the best of intentions.” We have exploredtypical dynamics of failure, common roadblocks to

community partnerships, and strategies to see with“fresh eyes”—framing, re-framing, and responding tounexpected events. Negative situations can truly allowfor tremendous learning. Eyler and Giles (1999) inves-tigated the process of understanding and applyingknowledge in service-learning and concluded that stu-dents’ ability to work well with others led to an in-creased sense of personal efficacy, leadershipcapabilities, and self-knowledge. All of these outcomescomprise the knowledge and skills for effective civicengagement and your ability to create positive com-munity change. Chapter 3 recounted a story in whichstudents were able to successfully analyze and respondto initial “failures” to utilize their knowledge and skillsto create a renewed commitment to success. In theend, success was defined not only by what was accom-plished, but also by the ability to remain committed inthe face of difficulty that provided a powerful conduitfor the development of personally meaningful andconnected knowing.

Service-learning is a journey into uncharted terri-tory. We hope that you will make this an ongoingjourney, as you continue to build upon what youhave learned and increasingly translate that learninginto action even after you graduate. The commit-ment to continued growth, self-awareness, commu-nity awareness, and social change may not always bethe easiest road, but we, along with Robert Frost,whose poem began this chapter, invite you to takethe “road less traveled by,” as it truly can make “allthe difference.”


Exercise 7.4: Redirecting around Roadblocks

Completing this activity will assist you in using the D-U-E Process. Record your responsesin writing so that you can easily refer back to them in the future.

Think of a recent situation with another person or persons in which the D-U-E Processmight have been helpful (for example, a conflict or misunderstanding).

Describe: What were your interpretations of others’ behaviors in this event? How did yourespond? Specifically what about their actions (in the form of description) led you to inter-pret events as you did?

Understand: How might their actions have been interpreted (understood) differently?

Encourage Communication: How might you have interacted with this person to encour-age ongoing communication?


Key Concepts

constructive conflictdestructive conflict

D-U-E Processfailure

success

Exercise 7.5: Responding to Staff Changes

Completing this activity will give you the tools to respond, should there be unexpected or-ganizational changes in staffing with your community partner.

First, review the “Roadblocks and Flat Tires” case study. Then write down or discuss in classyour answers to the following questions:

• In “Roadblocks and Flat Tires,” the volunteer coordinator resigned unexpectedly. What doyou notice about the reactions of the students? The faculty?

• What led up to the eventual conflict at the community organization? How might this havebeen handled differently?

• Generally, what do you think a student can do to achieve a smooth transition during andafter a staff change with the community partner?


Key Issues

• What are the most common dynamics of service-learning “failures”?• What does it mean to allow failure as a possibility in community-based settings?• How would you describe the difference between destructive and constructive conflict?

What are some of the characteristics of each?• How might you turn conflicts with another individual into constructive conversation

by using the D-U-E Process?


Exercise 7.6: Identifying Your Conflict Patterns

Completing this activity will assist you in identifying conflict patterns that you may haveestablished in your own life. Set some time aside and write down your responses to the fol-lowing questions. It may be helpful to share insights from your responses with your studentteam, if possible. Together your group (or class) can give one another feedback on develop-ing constructive conflict patterns.

• Think of a conflict that you have had with another individual.• What do you think was the overarching goal that you were both trying to achieve?• What was your recommendation for achieving that goal?• What was the other person’s recommendation for achieving that goal?• How did you respond to the other person’s recommendation? For example, did you just

disagree and say that the person was wrong? Did you listen to the other person and talkthrough his/her perspective? Looking at the behaviors in the chart on page 106, specificallyidentify which of the behaviors you exhibited.

• How do you think your behavior exacerbated or resolved the conflict?• Do you think your behaviors were primarily destructive or constructive?• If your behaviors were primarily destructive, how might they have been more constructive?• Think of one or two other conflict-based situations that involved you. Go through the same

process as you just did with the first situation. Are you beginning to see a pattern in howyou approach and resolve conflict? If these patterns tend to be more destructive than con-structive, identify patterns you would like to change and patterns you would like to adopt.

Exercise 7.7: Roadblocks and Flat Tires Reconsidered

In contrast to the outcome described in the case study “Roadblocks and Flat Tires,” whichopened this chapter, create an alternative case study, one in which Darrell, Jay, and Chun areable to respond to conflict constructively, creating a supportive climate for listening andcommunication.

It’s 8 p.m. on a Friday. I would certainly rather beout with my friends tonight. Instead, I’m stuck insidea warehouse counting cans of soup for the food bank.What a boring service project.

I never thought that paying tuition meant I wouldhave to measure manure piles. It’s gross. What do Icare if a cow poops two feet or two miles away fromthe creek?

I have blisters on my hands from pulling ivy awayfrom the library building. Shouldn’t I be inside read-ing to kids or something? Wouldn’t that be a lot morevaluable?

SOMETIMES IT’S HARD to see the connections be-tween our service-learning tasks and larger social

and political issues. If we are dealing with cans, ani-mals, or buildings, it might be difficult to understandhow these relate to hunger, water rights, or urban re-newal. Yet, most community concerns are multifac-eted as well as interdependent.

Consider this example: A state in the Midwest had tocut custodial services to all public facilities, including

libraries. The laid-off janitors and groundskeepers madeuse of local food banks for their families while they wereseeking new employment. Unfortunately, milk andmilk products such as cheese were in short supply in thewake of a court battle over watershed contamination.The case had pitted farmers against environmentalistsand resulted in a farmer protest in the state capital,where hundreds of gallons of milk were poured into thestreets. This led to a public outcry against senators andlegislators, who were blamed for inept budgetingprocesses. The representatives, in turn, pointed the fin-ger at voters for rejecting a recent initiative to raiseproperty taxes in order to enhance the state revenue.

Given the above scenario, you may ask what you,your class, or your school could ever do to make a dif-ference. As the anthropologist Margaret Mead (1971) isquoted as saying, however, “Never doubt for a momentthat a small group of individuals can change the world.Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” By stockingshelves in the food bank and discussing family needsand sources of donated support, you may gain greaterinsight into hunger issues and state economic policies.By interacting with farmers and hydrologists, you mightlearn of the complexities of sustaining family-ownedfarms and the preservation of drinkable water down-stream. By working with architects, historians, and ur-ban planners in the preservation of an old library, youmay come to view differently the relationship betweenlibraries, literacy, and juvenile crime.

So, are we saying that serving soup to the homeless

CHAPTER8Expanding HorizonsNew Views of Course Concepts

CHRISTINE M. CRESS AND JUDY PATTON

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is not enough? Yes. Is picking up litter on a beach justthe first step? Yes. Is tutoring a third grader to read agood thing in and of itself? Yes. To go a step further,we are challenged by colleges and universities to domore than just single acts of kindness. The whole ideabehind service-learning is to learn. We must try to useour service-learning experiences to expand our under-standing of the underlying issues that create commu-nity problems and to find the solutions individuallyand collectively.

Transformational Learning

In chapter 7, you read about service-learning as a jour-ney, one that is sometimes fraught with disappoint-ment and frustration. So, too, every journey providesus with new vistas. When we journey into new experi-ences, we may notice that things don’t look the same asthey did a week ago, yesterday, or even an hour ago.Many educators have referred to this phenomenon asa shift in consciousness. Indeed, Mezirow (2002) callsthe process transformational learning.

Transformational learning involves far more thanmemorizing facts or reciting information. It is deeplearning where new knowledge becomes personallymeaningful and connected to community. In otherwords, our experiences give us new insights and newskills that allow us to interact differently with ourworld. In chapter 5, we learned that being intercul-turally competent involves a mindset, a heartset, anda skillset. Similarly, transformational learning uses these

competencies to ask critical questions, to engage inreflection, and to identify strategies for leveragingchange. It means living conscientiously, knowingthat everyone’s individual actions in some way affectthe lives of others. Thus, the essence of transforma-tional learning is using your talents and skills (in-cluding your academic knowledge) to make yourcommunity and your world a better place in whichto live, work, and play.

Ways of Knowing

Engaging in transformational learning involvesknowing your own preferred styles of taking in andprocessing information. This is called ways of know-ing (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986),which are closely related to learning styles (Kolb,1984; see chapter 6). For example, some students areespecially skilled at doing research and writing pa-pers. Others are best at interviewing communitymembers or providing counseling assistance. Thereare those who excel at organizing tasks and develop-ing project timelines, while others are artistically andvisually creative.

You might think these are just differences in per-sonality, and that is true to some extent. How we actand interact, however, is intricately connected tohow we learn. Some of us would rather research andanalyze the latest crime statistics, while others wouldprefer to talk with prison inmates about their ownexperiences. Some of us are more concerned with

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Exercise 8.1: The Menial and the Meaningful

1. Whether you are working alone or in a group, make a written list of five to seven menialtasks that you have performed as a part of your community-based experience (e.g., makingcopies, setting up appointments).

2. Connect these tasks to the larger goals of the project. How are these rather simple taskshelping to meet the intended outcomes of the project?

3. Connect the project goals to larger societal or political issues (e.g., does removing graffitiassist a neighborhood in community-building?).

4. Identify the specific capacities needed to create positive community change. How doesaddressing these issues require a mindset, a heartset, and a skillset? How does transfor-mational learning result from the application of these capacities to the issues at hand?How might your community work and class learning facilitate a renewed sense of meaningfor and with your community partners?

how our community project affects the people in-volved (regardless of what gets accomplished), whileothers of us want to make sure the project is efficientand effective (maybe even at the expense of somepeople’s feelings).

What is the right answer or approach? All of theabove. The more we can understand our own ways ofknowing, the better we will be able to contribute tocommunity problem solving. In turn, this may give usmore patience and empathy for those with whom weare working who may be different from ourselves. Ul-timately, that is one of the most distinguishable char-acteristics of transformational learning.

Complete Exercise 8.2. Notice that the last set ofquestions requires us to think beyond the logistical de-tails necessary for completing a successful project. In-deed, at the end of the evening, the students were verysuccessful in raising over six thousand dollars for thehigh school programs. In terms of long-term impact inthe community, were the students successful? Was com-munity change created, or was this merely a “Band-aid”approach to a bigger problem?

Critical Inquiry

Transformational learning means using our ways ofknowing to deal with issues directly in front of us (forexample, money needed for new band uniforms) andto ask challenging questions as a part of critical in-quiry into the economic, societal, and politicalsources of community problems.

Critical inquiry is comparable in many ways to crit-ical thinking and active reflection. When you are en-gaged in critical inquiry, you ask yourself and othersquestions like the following: What are the internal andexternal influences keeping an organization in crisis?With whom and where does the power for change re-side? Are there issues of privilege, oppression, or dis-crimination involved? What specific strategies (orleverage points) could create opportunities to make apositive difference? What values and beliefs are impor-tant to the organization? What does the individualneed? What does the group need? What does the com-munity need?

As opposed to simply being cynical, negative, or

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Exercise 8.2: Art for Art’s Sake

After reading the following newspaper headline—“Local School District to End Extracurric-ular Activities”—concerned college students in a community-based learning course decidedto work with a local high school to raise money to keep its arts, drama, and music programsalive for one more year. The college students planned to get donations from communitybusinesses for a silent auction that would take place during a talent show performed by thehigh-school students themselves. Assume that you are one of these students and that this isyour service-learning project:

• Identify a list of roles and tasks that need to be completed to carry out the project.• Which of these roles and tasks would you like to perform?• How might these interests connect to your preferred styles of learning and knowing?• How could you use your styles to facilitate the learning, knowing, and doing of others?

Exploring the underlying issues:

• Was this type of project necessary? Why or why not?• How does it help meet community needs?• How might the project be avoiding larger community, political, and societal issues?• What project could the class do instead to address these larger issues?• What information, ideas, theories, and/or conceptual models from your academic major

might provide insight into these community challenges and offer possible solutions?


snide, critical inquiry is less about making judgmentsthan being a means for understanding underlying andconnected issues. In the case in exercise 8.2, lacking artor theatrical supplies is merely a symptom of larger ad-ministrative and economic problems. Critical inquiryasks why: Why is there no money for supplies? Criticalinquiry asks who: Who is empowered to make decisionsabout how funding is distributed? Who is responsiblefor managing the money? Is this an individual manage-ment problem? Is this a problem of the funding streamfrom the state? Both? Critical inquiry asks when, how,and where: Did these issues first arise at the school dis-trict level, or have federal priorities shifted funding fromproviding holistic education to meeting standardizedtest requirements? Critical inquiry asks, Is there a rela-tionship between spending money on computers andlearning outcomes? How does this compare with thelearning outcomes realized by spending money on afield trip to the local history museum or the productionof a play at the school?

In some educational realms, this inquiry approach isreferred to as deconstruction. For example, a commu-nity problem such as teenage vandalism could be de-constructed by critically examining answers to a myriadof questions, such as the following: Is teenage vandalismsimply caused by a few misdirected youth? Is teenagevandalism a consequence of poor parenting? Is teenagevandalism a failure of schools and educational efforts? Isteenage vandalism a result of hard economic times?What are the roots of teenage vandalism? How mightwe find solutions to the problem?

The intent in deconstructing social issues is to iden-tify and scrutinize layer by layer the elements that sup-port the problem. Once these factors can be identified,then community problem solving can begin.

Academic Disciplines as Critical Inquiry

In collective problem solving, a valuable tool thatworks in tandem with ways of knowing and critical in-quiry is the lens of the academic discipline. Indeed,business and community members have told leaders inhigher education that one of the most important skillsneeded in its graduates is the ability to communicateacross disciplines. If you plan to be an engineer, youmay need to be able to talk with environmentalists. Ifyou want to be a botanist, you might work collabora-tively with public health specialists. If your desire isto become a lawyer, you may find yourself asking foradvice from mental health counselors in assisting yourclients.

At some point in your academic career, you will fo-cus on a major area of study. In colleges and universi-ties, disciplines fall into four major categories: science,social science, humanities, and professional schools.We might say that academic disciplines are particularframes of critical inquiry. They are ways of consideringissues through specific theoretical frameworks or sets ofquestions to ask. In science, the scientific method iscentral to understanding and being able to do science.In English, literary theory is the way English majorsthink about and look at written text. Bringing multipledisciplinary perspectives to a community issue or needoften provides the means for thinking differently andbroadly enough to find a strategy or solution (leveragepoint) that is perfect for that moment and one that anindividual working alone would never have discovered.Disciplinary lenses and frameworks can also informeach other. The most groundbreaking work in researchis done at the fringes of disciplines, where they meetand mingle with one another. Consider biotechnology,

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Exercise 8.3: Who’s to Blame?

• Brainstorm a written list of everyone and everything to blame for the issues addressed byyour community partner. Make sure to consider local, county, city, state, national, andeven global sources.

• Next, examine this list in terms of categories or patterns. Are there sources that can belinked together, such as economic, political, societal, environmental, geographic, etc.?

• Now, ask some critical inquiry questions about what you see, using the list of critical in-quiry questions above as a guide.

• Finally, what can you identify as strategic or key areas (leverage points) for creating change?If possible, discuss your ideas with others working on your project.

medical anthropology, or the genome project. All ofthese advances demand an understanding and expertisein more than one discipline, in more than one way ofknowing and thinking critically.

A significantly challenging aspect of service-learningis discovering how to use and apply the knowledgefrom your academic discipline in the community. Asthe learner who is serving, it is very easy to focus di-rectly on the client or project (through tasks that cantake great amounts of time and effort), forgetting toapply—reflectively and effectively—your academiclearning.

In working with a community health organization,a student who was an English major could not easilyidentify a strategy for contributing to his class’s proj-ect. Then the community partner described the needfor information that explained its services to its clients.This student knew how to target written materials toparticular audiences and how to write effectively. Be-cause of his suggestions and abilities, the project devel-oped brochures and other media pieces on specifichealth issues for homeless youth. Moreover, all the stu-dents in the course worked collaboratively to createboth a computerized tracking system for donatedmedicines and a business plan for the agency. Pre-medmajors, English majors, business majors, and graphicdesign majors contributed their unique skills and tal-ents to meet the community partner’s objectives andhave a positive impact on the health needs of youth atrisk for compromised health.

Consider this community situation and think aboutwhat you would do: A city transportation authority

contacted the engineering department of a local col-lege. Administrators were concerned about the safety ofpassengers in wheelchairs after a recent accident indi-cated that their chairs were not being strapped in prop-erly. Engineering students teamed with physics majorsand mathematics majors to examine the harnessingsystems. In the lab, the operability of the equipmentseemed more than adequate. So what was the prob-lem? And how would they solve it?

The students decided they needed information fromreal-life examples. They asked anthropology students—whose disciplinary background and skills emphasizedthe value of data collection in real-world settings—totake the bus to school over a period of two weeks andobserve how the harnessing systems were used by ridersin wheelchairs. The anthropology students noticed that,for bus drivers to assist with the strapping mechanism,they had to hug and touch the passenger from behind.Given social norms against physical contact betweenstrangers, the harnessing could not be connected prop-erly. What seemed to be a mechanical issue was actuallya human interaction issue. Still, the entire apparatushad to be redesigned and then tested by employing theinsights of psychology, communication, anthropology,and sociology students.

You will be challenged to apply your academicknowledge and skills in unexpected ways. In the caseof one service-learning project, faculty and studentsfrom a university business school intended to create amarketing plan for a start-up technology company.When the class arrived at the community partner’ssite, however, it became clear that the company


8.4: The Disciplinary Lens

Make a list of the skills or critical inquiry perspectives for your major or academic disci-pline. Next, compare this list with the kinds of activities that your community partner orproject needs. Start with the easiest connections and then tackle the more challenging ones.(Try to think differently about the typical activities in a major. If you are a graphic designmajor, how could you contribute to a cancer survivor research project? If you are a historymajor, what skills could you bring to a senior activist interview project?) Finally, write ashort reflection on how your academic lens will contribute to your service-learning worknow and in the future.

If you are working in a group, you might complete this exercise on your own and then com-pare your responses to others. This will be especially revealing if there are a wide variety ofacademic majors in your class. You might also replicate the exercise using your skills andknowledge from your academic minor.


needed basic reorganization before any kind of planwas even possible. The students and faculty were facedwith the politically sensitive issue of how to work withmanagers who were not strong leaders and employeeswho lacked commitment to the organization. Theirfirst step was to develop a corporate vision and philos-ophy that engaged both the workers and the directors.

Similarly, graphic design students who were invitedto design informational signs for a community recre-ation site found there was great controversy about thesigns and whether there was a need for them at all.While students were under the impression that theirwork was to create a simple design product, what theylearned, instead, was that their skills in listening to andnegotiating with neighbors were the critical elementsof the project.

Getting experience thinking on your feet, reactingin the moment, and managing conflicting values andpriorities are part of living and working in the world.Unlike most classes where the “right” answers are filledin on the “test,” the service-learning project will testyou to consider multiple approaches.

Community Partners as Sources of Expertise

A key feature of service-learning is the opportunity forstudents to use their skills and learning in actual situa-tions. Moreover, critical inquiry and conceptualknowledge is very important, and seeing those ideasand concepts in action is crucial for lasting and deeplearning to take place. However, a prime source oflearning is the community agency itself. Communityprofessionals have a variety of knowledge and skillsdrawn from their experiences that are uniquely dis-tinct from what can be provided in a college classroom(no matter how knowledgeable the instructor mightbe). Community partners look to students and facultyto share their academic expertise to address commu-nity issues; students and faculty learn through servingthe community (with its own expertise) as they turntheory into practice. This symbiotic relationship ex-emplifies reciprocity. Service-learning establishes a re-ciprocal learning process between the college and thecommunity.

For instance, education students who agreed totutor immigrants and refugees at a local support cen-ter assumed that their expertise in teaching skillswould help participants learn English. What quickly

became apparent, however, was that the participantswould not always agree to talk with one another topractice their language skills. Frustrated, the educa-tion students complained to the community partnerthat the participants were uncooperative and unwill-ing to learn. The community partner then providedthe education students with a workshop on the cul-tural, religious, political, and historical backgroundsof the immigrants and refugees. The education stu-dents came to understand that it is not just a “smallworld after all” as they discovered that national, social,and political factors can inhibit engagement across dif-ferences.

At times, students may find the expertise of thecommunity partner difficult to accept. Architecturestudents who were assisting Habitat for Humanity gota lesson in budgeting and urban planning when theproject coordinator dismissed all twelve designs forlow-income homes because they were impossible tobuild on the selected site and within financial con-straints. A marketing class that developed a slickbrochure for a local YMCA’s services was literally sentback to the drawing board by the agency director forusing college-level language when the average readinglevel of their clients was seventh grade.

Such lessons from the community may not feel likethe type of reciprocal learning you hoped to gain.Thus, reciprocity (to and from the community) re-quires openness to new views and a willingness to con-sider issues from the community perspective.

As a service-learner, ask yourself these questions:Have you been intentional about listening to commu-nity professionals’ viewpoints? Have you includedcommunity partners in planning sessions and meet-ings about the project? Have you made explicit thegoals and objectives of the project while concurrentlyattending to the values and motivations of the com-munity partner? In sum, reciprocity involves not justthe project’s product, but also the process you used tocomplete it. Reciprocity is the impact you had on thecommunity and the community had on you.

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To further understand community per-spectives, complete Exercise 8.6: Both Sidesof the Table, on page 122.

Being fully aware of the process as well as the hoped-for outcomes may give you additional insights. As withinternships or practicum experience, service-learningprojects may allow you to explore the professional stan-dards of various career fields. For example, in a projectto design a marketing logo for a new constructioncompany, students learned about the culture of thefirm, including expectations about work behavior,dress, communication, decision making, and accept-ance of critique and feedback.

In another case, students created a CD to help can-cer survivors. The project gave the student team expo-sure to medical terminology and community healthneeds, as well as experience in software development.Most importantly, students were challenged by theirown ethnocentric perspectives. Originally planningto have all information in English, the students real-ized, in working with a diversity of cancer patients,that they had to identify and include Web site linkswith health information in multiple languages. In ad-dition, during meetings with physicians and nurses,the students were privy to discussions about health-care coverage and differences in prevention and treat-ment options depending on clients’ socioeconomicstatus. It is this type of service-learning that will beforever memorable, providing you with richer in-sights and learning about the real world of healthcarethan could ever be addressed inside a classroom.

Thus, when academic theory meets actual com-munity issues, a different level of understanding andactions frequently results. The community partnergenerally has knowledge and expertise that can be in-tegrated into the project and utilized to gain broaderinsights into community concerns. Working side byside with community professionals, you will learnthat social problems are complex and that solutionsrequire thoughtful and intentional involvement andintervention.

Finally, reciprocal learning is frequently gainedfrom working directly with the community clients.Even though our good intentions are to help others,we often receive more than we give. A sociology majorreflected in her journal:

I’m so impressed with the perseverance of some ofthese women [at the domestic violence shelter]. It’sincredible what they go through. Many of themhave kids, so they push the courts to act faster, they

deal with school administrators, they negotiate billpayments even when they can’t return to theirhomes safely. Their organization and tenacity isamazing. They’ve taught me to not take anythingfor granted.

Similarly, an English major who was tutoring non-native English-language learners noted the followingfrom his experience:

Yes, I’m teaching them grammar and sentence con-struction. They’re teaching me about Vietnamese cul-ture, Buddhism, and a whole different way of beingin the world. I’m teaching them about language ele-ments. They’re teaching me about life elements.

Conscious Living

In a service-learning project called “Equalizing Ac-cess to Justice,” students at a community collegeworked with juvenile justice services and marginal-ized youth. At the end of the course, a history majornoted in his journal how he had understood in-equities theoretically before the class, but, after wit-nessing the issues for himself, he now had a morerealistic sense of historical racial and ethnic stereo-types inherent in the system.

I always believed that one of the strengths of theAmerican judicial system was to treat everyoneequally. That illusion has been totally demystified.My client was a fifteen-year-old Latino who workedhard the last three months with our class. In court,the probation officer hadn’t filed his behavior report,and his attorney met him just five minutes beforethe proceedings. Just because he had one minor cur-few violation, the judge sent him back to detention.I felt so powerless. I knew this was a good kid, butthe system saw him as a troublemaker. I’m left won-dering if a white kid in the same situation wouldhave been let off.

The understanding of this college student’s experi-ence gave him a transformed view and new conscious-



ness about the reality of those without power and howthey have to deal with the policies and procedures ofthe justice system. For him, history came alive.

Shifting our worldview is an implicit goal of mostservice-learning courses. Unless we come to see howpolitical, economic, and judicial systems tend to favorone group over another, we will be forever preventedfrom truly assisting those in need. In a service-learningclass working with recent refugees from South Amer-ica, the students were initially naive about the geogra-phy of the region. One student admitted in herjournal, “Since the weather is much warmer in LatinAmerica, it’s not so hard to live on less. Being homelessis easier there than it is in the United States.”

Students’ perspectives began to change as theyworked with families who had fled to the United Statesbecause of political unrest and the lack of citizen rightsin their country. The students researched historical andcurrent political events, worked with the communityagency to learn about cultural life issues, and held dia-logues with their refugee partners. To their surprise,students learned that, to protect corporate interests, theUnited States had funded a military coup that led tocivil war. Now, as they examined the issues through thelives of their refugee partners, students felt a differentsense of connectedness and responsibility:

We tried to see what it was like through their eyes,even though we were from such different places. Welearned a lot, but more than that, I think I’m a bet-ter person. I’ve got a sense of understanding and be-ing part of a much bigger issue. My governmenthelped create their situation—so, in some ways, Idid too. I see now that I need to be more aware andpolitically involved.

As part of a summer school project, an industrialtechnology student participated in a camp for severelydisabled children. In working with the campers, thestudent changed her career direction by taking addi-tional courses in physical therapy so that she could de-velop equipment to support these children’s abilitychallenges. She told her faculty member that she hadfinally found her “true calling.”

It is these personal transformations and a consciousshift in how we view ourselves and our place in theworld that service-learning can affect. For many, thefeeling that we do not count and cannot really do any-thing to change things is very different after an experi-ence in the community. The point of these examples isto ask you to think about yourself and how you under-stand your goals, aspirations, and values. Right now,you may just be thinking about finishing this course. Ifyou’re a senior, you may be dreaming about graduation.For graduate students, the main issue may be findingthe right advisor or thesis topic. However, at some pointyou will be finished with your education and continu-ing your life beyond college. What kind of life do youwant to create for yourself? How do you plan to liveconsciously? For what do you want to be known?

Summary

Service-learning courses give you practice using the-ory (academic concepts) in a real setting (experientiallearning) to achieve both a heightened sense of con-sciousness and transformational learning. In thischapter, we have examined the relationships betweencourse content and community issues in order toconnect your experiences with the larger world ofideas and issues outside the college campus. Ultimately,

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Exercise 8.5: In Retrospect

Imagine that a biographer is coming to interview you about your life and work thirty yearsfrom now. Because you want to be prepared, you jot down some notes. What have you beendoing in terms of career, family, community, and political involvement? What do you thinkis most noteworthy? Has your life been fulfilling? What has made it so, or not?

If possible, meet with another person (or as a group) and share elements from your reflec-tion. What type of communities will you create if you bring to fruition what you haveimagined here?

service-learning courses should help you learn how tocreate change actively and intentionally. In our finalillustration, a group of students at Portland StateUniversity planned and opened an organic restaurantafter a service-learning project on sustainable ecologyand the food-service industry. The restaurant cur-rently provides a place where students can findhealthful vegetarian meals. The students also influ-enced the competing food service company on cam-pus to offer alternative food choices and organicfruits and vegetables.

We hope that you consider the social, economic,environmental, and political aspects of your project,using questions like these as a guide:

• What have you learned through your commu-nity service project that you would not havelearned in a traditional classroom?

• What insights have you gained about yourcommunity, your state, and your world as a re-sult of the project?

• How are these issues simultaneously intercon-nected and interdependent?

• Have you discovered cultural stereotypes andassumptions that influence community inter-actions and individual lives?

• What new skills, knowledge, and insights canyou apply to improving current systems andpractices for addressing issues in the future?

The result of your service-learning experience is abroadened understanding of the complexities of com-munity interactions and an informed sense of how totranslate your beliefs and values into action. Thesenewly acquired skills and knowledge, which have beenreinforced and extended by your academic disciplinelens, can then be utilized in your community incountless ways. Further, you know how change is cre-ated (that is, the internal and external influences andleverage points). As you are more fully cognizant of is-sues of power and privilege, you are better positionedto facilitate equity and social justice. In the end, wehope you believe that continuing such connectionswith community organizations will make your lifericher and more meaningful by contributing to agreater sense of the common good.


Key Concepts

consciousnesscritical inquirydeconstruction

expertiseleverage pointsreciprocal learning

reciprocitytransformational learningways of knowing

Key Issues

• What relationships do you see between course content and community issues?• How can you use your academic discipline to better understand community problems?• How do abstract concepts and experiential learning inform each other?• What are the relationships between social and political issues at your community

partner site?• How is your community a source of knowledge and expertise?• How has this experience expanded your understanding of yourself?• How has this experience expanded your understanding of organizations?


Exercise 8.6: Both Sides of the Table

If you are working in a group, break into two smaller groups. One of these will be the “col-lege group,” and the other will be the “community group.” Members of the “college group”will work together to make a list of all the assumptions and plans that you and your facultyhad at the beginning of the project. You may consult your notes and reflections from the be-ginning of the service-learning experience. The “community group” will list all the changesand new perspectives that the community partner brought to the project. When you are fin-ished, compare notes and discuss the evolution of your partnership through the reciprocallearning process.

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE

PART FOUR

Assessing the Engagement Effort

The goal of part 4 (chapters 9 and 10) is to assist you with evaluatingthe results of your community-based engagement. Did your efforts withthe community actually make a difference to that community and itsstakeholders? As for yourself, what skills, knowledge, and values did yougain in the process of connecting with the community? How might youleverage this learning in future efforts to make positive change in yourcommunity?

K E Y S Y M B O L S




I had no idea that less than a mile from our univer-sity children were going hungry. If we improve thelife of even one kid I’ll feel like I did something good.

IN THE QUOTE above, the student contemplates chil-dren going hungry and the importance of helping

them. While no one would argue with the need to do“something good,” it is important to put our workinto context. In assisting others, is it sufficient to pro-vide a single meal, or do we need to work towardsfinding a long-term solution to hunger?

At this point in your project, you have probably dis-cussed many of these types of issues. For example, youmay have researched how many children are in a simi-lar situation in your community. You may have decidedduring what period of time you could provide assis-tance (for example, the Thanksgiving holiday). Youmay have evaluated, individually or as a group, whetherit is most valuable to feed a child, hold a food drive, orwrite a grant to connect families and communities withexisting service providers. Moreover, you may havetried to use the theoretical and academic models ofyour disciplinary major to address these issues.

As you bring your service-learning experience to aclose, ask yourself, your classmates, and your commu-

nity partner about the impact of your efforts and work:Did you do something good? Did your project make adifference? On the surface, these are deceptively simplequestions. In all likelihood, you did help. You did dosomething good. As we’ve learned, however, in previ-ous chapters, service-learning is a complex, integratedapproach to learning. As such, it is imperative for youto engage in a strategic and methodical evaluation todetermine what effects you have had on the commu-nity, as well as to identify how these interactions haveaffected you. In so doing, you may find yourself reeval-uating some of the premises and assumptions that youand your classmates initially brought to learning andserving in the community. In chapter 7, we asked youto investigate your assumptions about “failure” in orderto contextualize your progress on the service-learningjourney. Similarly, in this chapter, we will help youexplore and broaden your definitions of “success” byincreasing your knowledge of and ability to use assess-ment techniques. Specifically, we offer strategies forbetter understanding the impact of your project byintroducing a tripartite framework (concepts, indica-tors, evidence) for examining and evaluating your ex-periences. We will also build upon the earlier aLpswork you have completed to make explicit the impor-tance of assessment at the beginning, middle, andconclusion of your service-learning experience.

CHAPTER9Beyond a Grade: Are We Making a Difference?The Benefits and Challenges of Evaluating Learning and Serving

SHERRIL B. GELMON, SUSAN AGRE-KIPPENHAN, ANDCHRISTINE M. CRESS

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Did We Make a Difference?

The question “Did we make a difference?” can yieldmultiple responses. The “difference” may dependupon the perspective of the respondent (student, in-structor, community partner, or client). It may alsodepend upon who or what you are evaluating: a per-son, a group, an organization, a population, or a press-ing societal issue like hunger or homelessness. Whenwe can state that we have had successful experiencesworking with the community and provide documen-tation, data, stories, case studies, and other evidencethat support this assessment, we not only demonstrateimpact, but we position the community organizationfor even more positive change.

For example, at a high school in a poor neighbor-hood, the student drop-out rate had risen from 11percent to 19 percent in just three years. Concerned,the school principal approached an English professorand a math professor at a local community college,and the three teamed up to create an interdisciplinaryservice-learning project focused on basic academicskill acquisition and student retention. At its mostfundamental level, the community college studentsprovided tutoring for the high school students. Moreimportantly, as the high school students improvedtheir skills, they were trained to tutor one another.Within two years, the drop-out rate decreased to 7percent, and the overall number of students who en-rolled in college after high school graduation increasedby 18 percent. Impressed by these numbers, a philan-thropic foundation gave the school district and thecommunity college a $450,000 grant to continue andexpand the program.

While the impact of some projects may not be im-mediately apparent or the scope of impact may bemore limited than you, your classmates, or your pro-fessor had originally anticipated, it is still essential toevaluate your accomplishments carefully. Indeed,there are a myriad of outcomes you can examine:

• Creating and strengthening communitypartnerships: In an ideal service-learning ex-perience, the community partner becomes atrue collaborator. Our ability to identify whatwe contributed, as well as what we received,makes real the concept of reciprocity.

• Measuring personal growth: Community ex-periences provide opportunities for us to reflect

on our values, to develop skills and expertise,and to consider our personal career plans. In-sights about our newly gained knowledge ex-pands our capacity to be effective workers,family members, and citizens.

• Examining the teaching and learningprocess: Service-learning courses have explicitgoals for connecting community experience tothe academic experience. Evaluation canstrengthen courses, contribute to faculty learn-ing, and have a long-range impact on studentexperiences and program development.

What Do We Mean By “Evaluation”?

Evaluation provides a structured opportunity to re-flect upon what has been accomplished (or not) andthe value of such accomplishments. It involves partic-ipating in a thoughtful iterative process in whichmultiple aspects of an experience are considered andconstructive feedback is provided. Frequently, theterms evaluation and assessment are used interchange-ably. Regardless of what term you use, the goal ofevaluation is to help us articulate and share our learn-ing with others in an effort to make improvements. Inthis sense, evaluation can be imagined as a loop orlearning cycle (figure 9.1). You evaluate (assess) an ex-perience, draw insights (analyze), try something new(implement) based on those insights, and evaluatethe experience again. This evaluation cycle is funda-mentally about learning and putting those new in-sights directly back into practice.

In introducing the concept of reflection in chapter6 (page 83), we discussed what are essentially threelevels of evaluation for the service-learning experi-ence: (1) pre-service reflection (project identificationand planning), (2) reflection during service (meaning,observations, analysis, and adaptation), and (3) post-service reflection (new understandings and applica-tion). Thus, in completing those exercises, you havealready been actively participating in the EvaluationLearning Cycle.

Now that you are reaching the post-service reflectioncomponent, a critical element for determining new un-derstandings and applications that can be shared withothers is to demonstrate how you successfully achievedyour outcomes. Outcomes are the goals you accom-plished. Imagine that your project goal was to rebuild

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the playground equipment in a local park, and you suc-cessfully accomplished this task, thus turning the refur-bished equipment from being a shared goal to a realizedachievement or outcome. How did you reach this goal?What evidence supports your assertion of this achieve-ment? Suppose, for a moment, that you finished withmore donated lumber than you needed for the play-ground equipment, so you redonated these materials toHabitat for Humanity. Evidence of your success cer-tainly starts with the rebuilt park equipment, and it alsoincludes the amount (board feet) of lumber you gave tothe nonprofit organization. Other evidence of the out-comes of your success might be the amount of timeyou took to accomplish the project (you completed itfaster than expected), the number of people participat-ing (fourteen neighbors volunteered to help), theamount of money spent (you were under budget by$465), and even comments and quotations you wrotedown from happy parents and children at the park.

In evaluating an entire service-learning course (asopposed to a single community experience), students,faculty, and community members may take a criticallook at the goals and objectives of the course, the activ-ities that supported those objectives, and the resultingoutcomes. Depending on the course and the nature ofthe project, the outcomes or evidence can vary fromthe number of children served in an after-school recre-ational program to the production of a public televi-sion announcement on how to become a mentor. Youmight count the number of homes participating in anew recycling program. You might have created a bookof narratives from interviews with women who workedin factories during World War II. In other words, youmight gather quantitative data (things you can count)and/or qualitative data (written descriptions of obser-vations and experiences). Indeed, many researchers use

multiple methods of evaluation (quantitative and qual-itative) in order to best uncover strengths and weak-nesses of a project, to prove or disprove assumptionsand assertions, and to allow for creative forms of com-municating and disseminating the information depend-ing on the nature of the report and the audience (suchas charts, photographs, quotations, short stories, etc.)

Evaluation of service-learning courses can also beconducted from other perspectives. Your faculty mem-ber may want to identify which reflective exercises andactivities best helped you learn. Institutional adminis-trators may want to know the impact of your service-learning course on community-university urbanrenewal efforts. The community agency may want todo a time-cost analysis of resources the organizationexpended and benefits the organization received fromyour work and involvement.

Thus, good evaluation flows logically from courseand community partner goals and thoughtfully uti-lizes both quantitative (numbers) and qualitative (in-terviews, observations) methods. These results canthen be summarized in graphs and data tables, and/orin rich stories and descriptions based upon personalexperiences. When evaluation is done in this way, sub-sequent course design and planning are based on ac-tual data rather than hunches and drive continuousimprovement in response to the needs and perform-ance of you, your classmates, faculty, and community.

Challenges to Evaluation

Consider the various perceptions stated in the follow-ing examples. Clearly, each person has a particular per-spective and set of expectations about service-learning.Many reasons may compel us to “make a difference”

B E Y O N D A G R A D E : A R E W E M A K I N G A D I F F E R E N C E ?127

Figure 9.1. Evaluation Learning Cycle

Implementation

Experiences

(Evaluation Learning Cycle)

Analysis

Assessment


through service-learning experiences, including com-munity issues, academic considerations, and issues ofpersonal growth. While all of these are valid, they maynot be equally valuable to each of the participants inthe service-learning experience. This is a crucial con-sideration in assessing the project and determiningoverall impact.

I don’t know if we really did anything important atthe community center. We spent most of our timejust talking to the kids. I didn’t understand why theprofessor never spent time in class discussing howthe work at the community center related to ourreadings in the class.

Student

Working with children at the community center pro-vides opportunities for students to recognize and ap-ply the developmental theories they have beenlearning in class while offering a meaningful re-source for the community.

Faculty

It was so valuable to have college students there to in-teract informally with the kids at the center. Many ofthem had never met anyone who had gone to college.

It changed their ideas about the future. The kids wantus to organize a trip to campus to see what it is reallylike there.

Community Partner

We made an institutional commitment to service-learning. Our long-term community partnershipshave caused us to reevaluate our resource allocationsand organizational support.

University Service-Learning Director

The priority for the community organization maybe keeping kids safe. Faculty may be split between ad-dressing community needs and course-specific learn-ing objectives. Students, including yourself, may careabout the community and academics, but within thecontext of your own career plans. From an institu-tional perspective, the university or college may bebalancing the resource efficiency of courses with an in-stitutional commitment to community relationships.This range of priorities results in a related range of val-ues placed on outcomes. (It may be helpful to refer topage 103 in chapter 7 to review the discussion on thepotential for conflicting expectations among the fac-ulty, community partner, and students. Fortunately,the strategies developed in chapter 7 can be applied to

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Exercise 9.1: Conquering the ALPS

In chapter 2, you articulated your understanding of the goals, roles, and responsibilities forthe service experience. From this you developed a document (exercise 2.6: Action LearningPlan for Serving, on page 27) that specified action items, the person(s) responsible, and atimeframe. In chapter 4, you refined your aLps to delineate tasks within your team and atimeline for accomplishing them.

For this exercise, start by reviewing those documents, and then write down your responses tothe following questions:

1. List three to five achievements you personally accomplished through the service experience.2. If applicable, list three to five achievements your group accomplished through the service

experience.3. For each of the items listed in numbers 1 and 2, indicate how you can “prove” these accom-

plishments; in other words, what evidence of outcomes can you show to others?4. Make a list of questions you have or additional evidence you want to gather.

If you are working with a group, discuss your responses with others.

thinking about conflicting priorities in terms of evalu-ation as well.)

Other challenges to evaluation may be timelines, re-sources, resistant participants, fear of findings, shelvedreports, and/or lack of expertise. The good news is thatstrategies do exist for overcoming these challenges.

A Strategy for Evaluating Service-Learning

Just like the actions and behaviors needed for con-ducting your service-learning project, evaluation andassessment take thoughtful action and coordinated ef-fort. A comprehensive model for doing this was devel-oped at Portland State University and then modifiedand enhanced through application in several otherinstitutional contexts (Gelmon, Holland, Driscoll,Spring, & Kerrigan, 2001). The model allows evalua-tion to focus on areas such as individual studentlearning in terms of achievement of personal andcourse goals, as well as satisfaction with the learningexperience. The model also provides strategies toassess faculty involvement in, and commitment to,service-learning, as well as institutional support forservice-learning. Finally, the model addresses evalua-tion of the impact on the community agency, as wellas on community-university partnerships.

As noted above, evaluation is part of an ongoinglearning cycle that should be woven from front to backwithin the tapestry of any service-learning project. Byassessing your actions, you can recognize strengths(individual and programmatic), identify opportuni-ties for improvement, and make evident academicand community connections on both real and theo-retical terms.

To begin, ask yourself (or discuss with your class-mates and/or community partner) the following ques-tions in considering how to assess your service-learningproject:

• What is the aim of the assessment? What do Ineed to know?

• Who might want or need the assessment in-formation? What do others (students, facultymember, community partner, clients, college)need to know?

• What resources are needed and available tosupport assessment?

• How might I conduct the assessment?

• How can I ensure that the results will be usedproactively?

At first, these questions may seem a bit daunting.Most of us have had little experience with formal as-sessment practices. But the process can be dividedeasily into a useful framework of three components:concepts, indicators, and evidence. The framework termsare defined below.

• Concepts: What do we want to know?• Indicators: How will we measure it?• Evidence: What can we gather, show, or

demonstrate?

Let’s say, for example, that you want to identifywhat your classmates learned about their communityas a result of their service experience at the local home-less shelter. The concept that you are evaluating is stu-dents’ community awareness about homelessness. Anindicator of this concept might be student knowledgeabout underlying issues that contribute to homeless-ness. The evidence you might gather could includedata from a survey you create and distribute to yourclassmates (quantitative data) and/or examples of essayquestions (with student and faculty permission) thatyour faculty member asked on an exam about the con-nections between course readings on low-incomehousing and clients who use shelter services (qualita-tive data).

• Concept: Student awareness about home-lessness

• Indicator: Knowledge of factors contributingto homelessness

• Evidence: Results from surveys (quantitativedata) and/or students essays citing research onhomelessness (qualitative data)

Now suppose that you want to assess the impactof your service-learning course on the homeless shel-ter itself. Here, the concept is the impact of theservice-learning course. An indicator of this conceptmight be placement of homeless clients in free andlow-income housing units. The evidence you mightgather could be the actual number of clients placed(quantitative data) and/or interviews with the shelterstaff about how your class assisted their efforts (qual-itative data).



• Concept: Impact of student service at thehomeless shelter

• Indicator : Placement of clients in low-in-come housing

• Evidence: Number of clients served/placed(quantitative data) and/or quotes from inter-views with shelter staff about how students as-sisted their efforts (qualitative data)

In determining your assessment methodology(strategy/design), other issues are important to con-sider as well: client satisfaction, cost, time, level of col-laboration with other social service agencies, travelissues, and so on. What is most important is that you(and your group) determine a reasonable scope for theextent of your evaluation and a plan for how you willgather, disseminate, and communicate your findingsfor community benefit.

The CIE Model (Concepts, Indicators, Evidence)is particularly useful in evaluating the overall serviceexperience (exercise 9.2). The next section discussesother techniques for helping you evaluate your indi-vidual student growth, the teaching-learning environ-ment, and contributions to community organizationsand their constituents.

Understanding Your Own Experiences

In this chapter’s first exercise (9.1, Conquering the ALPS

on page 128), you began to evaluate your contributions

and achievements in this service-learning experience.Your ability to identify and articulate your skills andknowledge with respect to the service-learning activitiesmay depend on how many previous service-learning ex-periences you have had in other settings. Remember,while you or other students may have had no formalservice-learning prior to this experience, you may havehad other relevant experiences or bring skills that havemade substantial contributions to your own learning aswell as that of your classmates.

In the past, students have observed that the per-sonal impact of service-learning is cumulative overtime. As such, individual “success” or “failure” in aservice-learning activity is complicated to determine,and evaluation cannot be approached from a “one-size-fits-all” strategy. Thus, the learning impact mustbe placed in the context of your own prior experiences,as well as the present project activity.

To do this, let’s look at the Self-Assessment Matrix,which enables you to determine strengths by recogniz-ing your own individual levels of experience with vari-ous dimensions of the service-learning activity. Thematrix is an adaptation of a skill acquisition model orig-inally applied to professional experience (Benner, Tan-ner & Chesla, 1995; Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1996), andfurther refined for use in faculty development withinservice-learning courses and research (Gelmon & Agre-Kippenhan, 2002).

The Self-Assessment Matrix (figure 9.2) shows howexperience and learning evolve along a continuum. Ateach stage, skill levels are categorized as roles (e.g., “en-

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Exercise 9.2: Utilizing the CIE Model

Create an assessment plan utilizing the matrix below. Ideally, you want to link Concepts, In-dicators, and Evidence with your original goals from your aLps (see exercise 2.6 on page 27).Later, you will identify tasks and timelines for this assessment plan, just as you did as part ofyour action planning. Be sure there is a clear connection between your initial goals and yourprocess for evaluating the success of the service experience.

Goal Concept Indicator Evidence

1. 1.

2.

2. 1.

2.

gaged”) and illustrated as descriptors (e.g., “participa-tion”) that you might demonstrate for each element ofthe service-learning experience. A brief definition ofeach skill level and type of service activity follows. Seeappendix 9.1 for descriptors. Review the matrix andthe descriptions that follow, and then proceed to Exer-cise 9.3: Using the Self-Assessment Matrix. (A com-prehensive explanation of each category can be foundon pages 131–132.)

Skill Levels in the Self-Assessment Matrix

• An Explorer student asks: What is this service-learning experience all about?

• A Novice student asks: What are the thingsthat can help me get started in this service-learning experience?

• An Engaged student asks: What am I able to doand contribute through service-learning, whatelse do I need to learn, and what other skillsshould I develop?

• An Expert student asks: How can I help oth-ers learn what I have learned through service-learning and other experiences?

Activity Components of the Self-Assessment Matrix

• Experience: Exposure to service-learning,prior involvement in related activities

• Learning : Nature of involvement in creatingknowledge for self and others

• Personal Development : Integration of learn-ing with personal skill development and career/life decisions

• Reflection: Deliberate process of thoughtfulreview and analysis of the service-learning ex-perience with the express purpose of identify-ing key areas of learning and connecting theservice-learning experience with the academiccontent of the course

• Connection to Community : View of self asrelated to community


Self-Assessment Matrix (SAM)

Activity Component Skill Level

Explorer Novice Engaged Expert

Experience None or Limited Initial Some Extensive

Learning Exposure Observation Participation Leader

Personal Self-focused Self-aware Connected Big pictureDevelopment to others

Reflection None or limited General insights Connected Rich and integrated

Connection to Individual Recognizes Connected Facilitates Community benefit community locally with community

needs/assets community linkages

Intercultural Personal focus Aware of others Respectful and Seeks out and Competence appreciative adapts to others

of others

Civic Engagement Unaware Participates in Organizes Initiates social activities justice action

Capacity to Work Unknown Limited and Responds to Imaginative, in Community directed requests self-directed

leadership

Figure 9.2. Self-Assessment Matrix (SAM)


• Intercultural Competence: Recognition ofsimilarities and differences among differentpopulation groups and ability to interact be-tween and among different groups

• Civic Engagement: Scope of personal in-volvement in activities (both academic andnon-academic) that support community de-velopment and participation

• Capacity to Work in Communities: Individ-ual recognition and awareness of potential forpresent and future involvement in work in rel-evant communities

Methods for Evaluating Learning Environments

As you well know, service-learning courses are signifi-cantly different from traditional courses. Rather thanspending all your time in the classroom, you are out inthe community. Rather than listening to an instructorlecture to you each day, you are involved in workgroupdiscussions. Rather than taking tests, you decide onthe timeframes to get the project completed. Granted,not all service-learning takes place within an actualcourse. Some of you may be doing community serviceas a part of co-curricular activities on campus. Othersof you may be involved in federal work/study programswhere you chose to perform your project in the com-munity. However you came to be involved in service-learning, we hope that all of you are engaged in some

kind of active reflection and are not just “doing” yourservice. Indeed, that is the whole idea behind service-learning: that we serve and learn.

I found myself thinking about our class all the time.It affected my own decisions.

After taking one service-learning class I felt moreconfident taking on and even leading communityprojects.

Stop for a moment and evaluate what has supportedyour learning. Did you complete readings on commu-nity issues that gave you insights into your clients? Didthe instructor or administrator with whom you areworking provide clear goals and information about theproject? Did you attend an orientation or training ses-sion with the community partner to familiarize your-self with their needs and interests?

Now assess for a moment what has inhibited yourlearning. Was the amount of time you actually per-formed the service too short? Did the instructor oradministrator give you too much freedom and re-sponsibility? Did the community partner fail to keeppromises about information and support?

Assuming that you are completing this service expe-rience as a part of a course, you may be able to assessthe environment for learning by using a set of teaching

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Exercise 9.3: Using the Self-Assessment Matrix

Review the matrix and each of the descriptors carefully. Using a highlighter, mark the one de-scriptor for each component that best described you at the beginning of this service-learningexperience. Consider specific examples, if possible, that illustrate these components. (Mostpeople have answers in different columns for the various components.)

Next, take a different-colored highlighter and mark the descriptor for each component thatbest describes you now, at the end of this service-learning experience.

• What comes to light for you? How have you changed?• What facilitated your change(s), and how did those factors cause that change?• Remembering the CIE Model, frame these changes in terms of Concepts, Indicators, and

Evidence.• What could you do to further evaluate your own learning experience and your contributions

to the community?

and learning continua that describe the classroom con-text. These continua offer a lens through which onecan evaluate a service-learning course, examine thelearning process itself, and illustrate a range of interac-tions among and between students and instructors(Gelmon, Holland, et al., 2001). The five elements inthe continua can be defined as follows:

• Commitment to others: In a traditional class,the focus is on students’ (academic) needs,while in an ideal service-learning classroomthe focus is both on students’ and the commu-nity’s needs. Questions asked to assess thelearning community include the following:Do students and faculty seem to be interestedin other people’s needs and interests? Do theyexpress a commitment to discovering theseneeds and interests, both for the communityand for their peers?

• Student role: In a traditional class, studentsare relatively passive learners. In this service-learning class, are the students actively in-volved in the teaching and learning processes?Do they make decisions about course content,process, and activities? Do the students transi-tion from a role as a learner to a role as alearner and teacher as they take on responsi-bility for their own learning and contribute totheir learning of their peers?

• Faculty role: In traditional classes, the facultyis directive in managing, ordering, and in-structing. Is this the role of the faculty in thisservice-learning class, or does the faculty facil-itate collaboration and offer support? Doesthe faculty share the authority in the class withthe students? Is the faculty member open tolearning as well as teaching?

• Learning orientation: In traditional classes,the focus is on individual learning, wheremany service-learning classes are concernedwith collective learning. Is the learning envi-ronment a collective one in which studentsand faculty work together? Or is it one inwhich each individual focuses solely on his orher own individual learning?

• Pedagogy (teaching strategies): In tradi-tional classes, faculty may demonstrate a“banking” approach where they “deposit” in-formation into students’ minds; students are

then expected to regurgitate information forperiodic “withdrawals” such as exams or pre-sentations. At the other extreme, the facultycreates a “constructive” environment wherethey facilitate experiences and students con-struct their own meanings and learning. Inthe service-learning environment, is knowl-edge created that both finds answers andgenerates questions? Is there an emphasis oncombining theory and experience to con-struct knowledge?

Regardless of the type of service-learning in whichyou are engaged, your thoughtful reflection on com-mitment to others, student roles, instructor roles, thelearning orientation, and teaching strategies (peda-gogy) can be useful in providing feedback to othersabout your experience (exercise 9.4). After all, evalua-tion itself is a learning process. As noted earlier, you as-sess your experiences, develop insights throughanalysis, and offer ideas for implementation. More-over, you identify evidence for the outcomes of the ex-perience. Say, for instance, that a roommate asks you,“What did you like about the service experience?”Your response might be, “Everyone made an explicitcommitment to the group process even though we hadreally different personalities. This made the groupboth fun and interesting, and amazingly each personmade every meeting that was scheduled.”

Staying with this example, let’s imagine that yourroommate next asks, “So what does your teacher do?”You might state, “He acts as a facilitator rather than aninstructor. He helps us brainstorm and problem-solve,but he’s made us ultimately accountable to the com-munity partner.”

Measuring Benefits to Community

By now, you have identified how the service experiencehas made a difference to you and to the class (possiblyeven the instructor). Did it also make a difference to thecommunity? Working on your own and/or in a group,you have probably already gathered some evidence(quantitative and qualitative information) of your suc-cess, especially as you reviewed personal and groupachievements in the first activity. Look back at the list ofquestions you made in Exercise 9.1: Conquering theALPS (page 128). What else do you need to know in



order to determine your effectiveness? What else do youneed to gather to demonstrate this effectiveness?

Your service-learning work can have a significant ef-fect in addressing real community issues and in pro-viding additional resources to support communityactivities. Your involvement (and that of your class-mates) may have enabled the community partner toprovide new or additional services and programs thatwould otherwise not be available without this contri-bution. Developing a thoughtfully planned assess-ment with a defined scope, clear roles and tasks, andstrategies for dissemination of findings provides lever-age for guiding future actions and community impact.(Complete exercise 9.5.)

Understanding benefits to the community can be

directly achieved by asking the community representa-tives themselves about the work of the students andtheir shared experiences. One strategy for doing this isto hold a guided conversation (much like a focusgroup) with students and community representatives(including clients, if possible). An outline for such aconversation is presented on page 137 (Exercise 9.6:Community Evaluation of Service-Learning).

Other Important Issues in Evaluation

Other considerations can affect service-learning eval-uation. These range from very specific areas such aseconomic impact and benefits, to issues that are more

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Exercise 9.4: Evaluating the Classroom Learning Environment

What does it feel like to be a student in a service-learning course? Are the methods used bythe instructor the same or different from those in traditional courses? Look at the five ele-ments of teaching and learning listed below, and for each mark an “X” that best indicateshow you would describe the teaching/learning context of this class.

Commitment to others Low HighStudent role Passive ActiveFaculty role Directive FacilitativeLearning orientation Individual CollectivePedagogy Banking Constructivist

What evidence can you identify for your positions? If possible, discuss your insights with an-other classmate or in a group, and generate a list of suggestions or recommendations youwould offer for future service-learning courses.

Exercise 9.5: Measuring Success: A Planned Approach

Building from exercises 9.1: Conquering the ALPS and 9.2: Utilizing the CIE Model (andany other worksheets you find relevant), create a planned approach for your assessment effort.

1. Note your concepts or indicators.2. Next, identify the type of evidence (quantitative and qualitative information) you will seek.3. Now identify who will gather the evidence (collect data) and from whom (other students,

the instructor, clients, the community partner) and in what form (surveys, reports)?4. Identify the timeline when this will occur.5. Finally, be specific about how the data will be analyzed and synthesized into a report or a

presentation that includes a set of recommendations for implementation.

difficult to measure, such as cross-cultural challengesand humanitarian considerations. We must also con-sider evaluation against a backdrop of service decisionsmade by the community organization and career deci-sions made by both students and faculty. The rele-vance of these issues will be determined by the contextof the specific course or service experience.

• Economic impact and benefits: Service ac-tivities are sometimes measured in terms ofwhat they would cost if the agency providedthe service itself. For example, if each oftwenty students provides four hours a week oftutoring for the duration of a ten-week course,then the class has provided a total of eighthundred hours of tutoring. A monetary valuecan be attached to these services using com-parative market values. Community partnersand institutions can then use these measuresto help communicate the kinds of resourcesthat students provide. While not a completeexpression of value, this is one example of ameasure that is understandable to a wide audi-ence. In addition, community partners mayneed to report to funding organizations, andeconomic measures can be helpful. However,economic measures do not give the entire pic-ture of the service-learning experience; theymay not be completely accurate, as studentsare learning as they work in the community,and their efficiency may not be at its maxi-mum.

• Cross-cultural challenges: As we’ve alreadydiscussed, there are often competing expecta-tions and priorities at work that affect evalua-tion. In chapter 5, we looked at interculturalcompetencies and attendant issues. Bringingtogether diverse groups of people from differ-ent cultures and institutional backgroundsposes issues that affect evaluation. There maybe language barriers that impact the ability todiscuss goals. There may be cultural prefer-ences that affect the ways that students andcommunities interact. These differences maycreate roadblocks to meeting outcomes. Redi-recting around these roadblocks can be a cru-cial step to evaluating specific service-learningcourses. Cross-cultural challenges can also af-

fect how various evaluation methods are de-signed and implemented.

• Humanitarian considerations: There may besignificant humanitarian concerns that affectservice-learning courses. Faculty at an institu-tion may choose to work with a specific com-munity on a number of projects. Alternatively,an institution may select several key issues toaddress. There may be some community issuesthat cannot be ignored. These considerationsmay give priority to certain projects and maydetermine students’ placements where theyare perceived to be most important as serviceproviders rather than where they can best beacademically designed or evaluated.

• Service decisions: Given choices, studentsmay gravitate to service experiences for anynumber of reasons that can affect evaluation.They may be limited by schedules that arepacked with classes and family concerns andtherefore select courses that fit into theirschedules but are not of great interest to them.Other students may choose a service opportu-nity that connects with their experiences inschool or in their private lives and be able tobring a great deal of expertise to the work. Arange of interest levels and skills may make foruneven accomplishments and increase the dif-ficulty of evaluation.

• Career decisions: Future employment oppor-tunities may be a critical consideration in se-lecting a service experience. Students mayplace importance on the success of a coursethat they feel helps prepare them for their ca-reers. They may also feel a disproportionateresponsibility for anything that does not gosmoothly. It may be impossible to evaluatesuch experiences without accounting for thecareer implications, and findings must be in-terpreted accordingly.

As an evaluator, you can meet these specific chal-lenges by anticipating how these factors will affect theservice-learning experience and by addressing them inyour evaluation strategy. Use the evaluation expertiseof your faculty member, community member, and/orcollege institutional research office to ensure that allevaluation methods are ethical and meet college oruniversity safety guidelines.



A final step in evaluation is reporting the results.Once you have collected your data, be timely and re-sponsible in your analysis of it, and report your find-ings to the various parties involved (other students,faculty, community, institution) to improve futureprocesses and outcomes. A fairly typical approach is towrite an assessment report that describes goals, activi-ties, methods of measurement/observation, results,and recommendations (Gelmon & Connell, 2001). Itis also common for the results to form the basis forpresentations (in class or to the community agency),for publications (student newspapers or journals), orfor displays (local malls). Care must be taken to ensurethat no confidential information is disclosed and thatthe community organization has given permission forits evaluation findings to be released. Some of themost convenient ways for sharing information includeposting results on a Web site, preparing a poster fordisplay at the community organization, integrating re-sults into an annual report or some other form of re-port to the community, or incorporating them into aninformational brochure for the community partner.

Once careful assessment of your achievements hasbeen completed, it may still feel like there is much leftundone. Children are still hungry, families are stillhomeless, and communities are still unsafe. There is

almost always more to be accomplished in a commu-nity than we are able to do during a single service-learning experience. We hope that your thoughtfulevaluation of your efforts will provide you and otherswith inspiration and commitment to keep engaging inand working on community issues since you were, infact, able to demonstrate that you can “make a differ-ence” in the lives of others. We encourage you to re-member that your focused community engagementand kindness can have lasting impact even after yourexperience and contribution is long over.

In our graphic design class we created an identitysystem for a nonprofit that provides mentors for kidsstarting in the second grade and continuingthrough their high school graduation. The organi-zation was thrilled with our work. They were in-vited to the White House, where they handed out abrochure we designed. The most rewarding thingfor me was that a few months after the class endedI was at a Saturday football game and a van pulledup with our logo on it. Out poured a whole footballteam of middle-school kids wearing shirts with ourlogo. It was amazing to see!

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Key Concepts

analyzeassessCIE Modelconcepts

evaluateevidenceindicatorsimplement

outcomequalitative dataquantitative dataSelf-Assessment Matrix

Key Issues

• How might you identify the best method for evaluating your service-learning ex-perience?

• What are some ways to observe and measure the outcomes to a service experience?• How might evaluation be integrated into ongoing course activities?• What are some of the challenges to evaluation, and how might you overcome them?• How might the evaluation findings best be disseminated?


Exercise 9.6: Community Evaluation of Service-Learning

In order to get feedback from community representatives on the service-learning experience,select community representatives (and/or clients) and invite them to participate in a guideddiscussion with yourself, other students, and your faculty member. Assign a facilitator toguide and monitor the conversation. (You may even want to identify and invite an independ-ent facilitator, not the faculty or anyone else directly involved with the class). Encourageeveryone to participate, making sure that no one person dominates the conversation; the goalhere is inclusion, not consensus or agreement.

Here are some sample questions that you can adapt to fit your own service experience:

1. Please introduce yourself and indicate your role in this service-learning course.2. What went well during this experience? What factors contributed to successful outcomes?

What evidence do you have of this success?3. What obstacles or barriers did you encounter during this experience? Please describe how

these could have been avoided.4. Did you accomplish your own personal goals for this experience?5. What would you do differently next time? What is one thing you would change?6. What might the college do differently in preparing students or community representa-

tives for the service-learning activity?7. What might the community organization do differently in preparing students or faculty

for the service-learning activity?8. How would you describe this experience to another student or community representative?

What would you emphasize?

After the conversation, debrief the experience and discuss what you will do with all the in-formation that was shared. Who should have access to it? In what format?

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE


Appendix 9.1: Self-Assessment Matrix Descriptions

Learning is an incremental process, with skills andexpertise building as you progress. A detailed expla-nation of each component of the Self-AssessmentMatrix follows. As you read this, consider how it ap-plies to you personally based upon past experiences.

• Learning: At the Explorer level, students have noprior experience with service-learning and learnthrough their initial exposure to the pedagogy, tocommunity involvement, and to the idea of work-ing in a collaborative setting. Novices learn throughspecifically observing the processes and interac-tions and through the ways in which their facultymodel collaboration. Students who are Engagedlearn through active participation in the experi-ence. At the Expert level, students learn by leadingothers through the activities that contribute to aservice-learning course.

• Personal Development: Explorers are generallyself-focused on their personal concerns, withoutconsidering integration of learning skills anddecision making. The Novice student is develop-ing self-awareness and the ability to employ amore integrated approach to learning and per-sonal decision making. Engaged students viewtheir learning and decision making as connectedto, and influenced by, others. Expert studentsconstruct the “big picture,” integrating theirlearning and skills with long-term career and per-sonal decisions.

• Reflection: At the Explorer level students do notactively employ reflection as a learning strategy.As a Novice, reflection is deliberate (and often as-signed!) but not integrated into learning. Reflec-tion typically is presented in journal entries as a“weather report”—a self-conscious listing of ac-tivities that does not connect to concepts, read-ings, or other course activities. At the Engagedlevel, students begin to make connections amongthe various aspects of the service-learning experi-ence. The Expert demonstrates reflection that isrich and integrated. Students thoughtfully exam-ine the associations among readings, course goals,community experiences, and their own personaldevelopment.

• Connection to Community: As Explorers, stu-dents view themselves individually and withoutconnection to community. As Novice, studentsstart to recognize community needs as well ascommunity assets and begin to see their ownconnections to the community. At the Engagedlevel, students begin to forge relationships withthe local community and define themselves inthe context of their community. At the Expertlevel, students recognize interconnected needsand facilitate community linkages.

• Intercultural Competence: As Explorer, studentsview the world through their own set of values. AsNovice, they develop an awareness of the similari-ties and differences of diverse groups. Engaged stu-dents are cognizant of differences and respectful ofothers’ viewpoints, values, and priorities. Studentsat the Expert level recognize the importance ofseeking diverse input to community issues. Theyappreciate differences and see them as a vital com-ponent in service-learning.

• Civic Engagement: Explorers are unaware of theconstruct of civic engagement. At the Novice level,they participate in various activities without know-ingly viewing them as contributing to communitydevelopment. At the Engaged level, students un-derstand the concept of “civic engagement” andhave the capacity to organize activities that con-tribute to its development. As Expert, studentshave developed a comprehensive understanding ofcivic engagement, can initiate activity, and havedeveloped an understanding of social justice thatthey then can apply to community problems.

• Capacity to Work in Community: With noprior experience, the capacity of the Explorer is notknown. For the student at the Novice level, inter-action with community is limited and directed, sothey follow the course assignments and partici-pate as requested. At the Engaged level, studentsdevelop a more independent ability to respond torequests without the specific direction needed bythe Novice. At the Expert level, students work withthe community in imaginative ways that recog-nize and respond to need; they are self-directedand able to provide leadership to others.

ACOLLEAGUE of ours at Portland State Universitybegins each of her service-learning courses by asking

her students to consider the following: What they areabout to engage in as learners-through-serving will ulti-mately compose only about a third of the totality of theirexperience. The first third, she says, they’ve already livedthrough, in the days and weeks and months and yearsleading up to this particular moment in their personaland academic lives. The middle third is the collaborationthey are embarking on right now. The final third lives inthe future, when this group of individuals takes thelearning they have gained in the past and in this currentmoment and applies it to future actions. Rememberingthat we have had a whole host of experiences that hasshaped the persons we are, that we currently are living anew set of experiences that inform our being, and thatwe make decisions, whether intentionally or not, aboutwho we are becoming, reminds us of the power we haveas individuals to choose how to live our lives withincommunities of others. (Complete exercise 10.1.)

Becoming an engaged citizen is an ongoing journeythat requires hard work, critical thinking, clear com-munication skills, the ability to collaborate with oth-ers, and problem-solving expertise. Service-learningand community-based learning courses, like the oneyou are completing, are evidence of your college’scommitment to providing you with opportunities toacquire valuable citizenship-related skills.

We hope that you have been able to use this book asa tool to help you develop a personal understanding of

yourself as a civically engaged individual and tobroaden your insights about community issues andthe role your academic knowledge might serve in ad-dressing them. Through the activities and exercises, wehave tried to foster the realization in each of you that,as engaged citizens, you bring your own uniquestrengths and skills to collective efforts to promote so-cial justice and the greater good of your communities.

In chapter 1, “What is Service-Learning?” we exam-ined the nature of “service” as it is enacted in service-learning courses and connected this description to alarger conversation about democracy, citizenship, andcivic responsibility. The fundamental concept behindlearning through serving is the idea that as citizens it isour obligation to contribute to the improvement of ournation and the world. We are accountable for ourselvesand for the welfare of others. In this chapter we also ex-plored what role colleges and universities should playin facilitating the development of students’ civic capac-ities. As we discovered, the development of civic mind-edness is more than just what you know, it is what youdo with what you know. In essence, community-basededucational experiences increase your capacity to applyyour knowledge and skills to civic issues.

Chapter 2, “Building and Maintaining CommunityPartnerships,” explored the student–community part-ner relationship, with particular emphasis on the re-spective benefits and rights of both yourself as a studentand your community partners as part of the reciprocallearning environment. In this chapter, we introduced

CHAPTER10Looking Back, Looking ForwardWhere Do You Go From Here?

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the ALPS—Action Learning Plan for Serving—whichyou used to clarify your service project and identifyyour individual learning and serving goals.

At the end of chapter 2, we highlighted a writer whooffers us clues about how to live authentic, engagedlives. Angeles Arrien, in the book The Four-Fold Way:Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Vi-sionary, encourages us to show up, pay attention, tell thetruth, and be open to the outcome. We suggested thenthat these words might be especially appropriate toservice-learning courses, and case studies and quotesin subsequent chapters often illustrated this point. Be-fore we continue our review of the preceding chapters,take a moment to reflect on Arrien’s ideas and theirconnection to this experience that you are concluding(exercise 10.2).

In chapter 3, “Becoming Community: Moving fromI to We,” we invited you to bring who you are and whatyou know into both the classroom and the wall-lessclassroom (the world beyond your campus) and put itinto practice to create change. In forming communitywith other students, the instructor, and the individualscomprising your community partner, you increased thepossibilities for creating change, as you experienced theprinciple of the whole being more than the sum of

parts. We also examined the “Seven Cs of LeadershipDevelopment” as a framework for considering the threelevels of involvement in this service-learning course: theindividual, the group, and the community. As welearned, each of these levels informs the other: That is,individual students impact the group dynamic andprocess, and that dynamic and process affects each indi-vidual; the group works in concert to effect positivechange in the community, which then in turn affectsthe group; and each individual connects with the serviceactivity in the community and is then shaped by that di-rect experience as well.

Most service-learning courses seem to involvesome level of group work. In chapter 4, “Groups AreFun, Groups Are Not Fun: Teamwork for the Com-mon Good,” we examined several aspects of groupdynamics as they relate to “getting the work done” inservice-learning courses. For example, the “PhaseModel of Group Development” offered a conceptualframework for understanding how groups developthrough a series of identifiable stages. In this chapter,we introduced exercises to broaden your learning andserving goals to include the others with whom youhave been collaborating.

Chapter 4 also highlighted some of the challenges

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Exercise 10.1: Reflecting in Thirds

As you prepare to leave this learning-through-serving experience, reflect for a moment onhow you got here, what happened for you in this experience, and how those experiences haveshaped possibilities for your future choices. You might choose to read through any or all ofthe exercises you have completed so far, particularly those that have asked you to think aboutpast experiences and reflect rigorously on current ones. After spending sufficient time reflect-ing, do a ten- to twenty-minute freewrite in response to these questions:

• What life experiences (of any sort) prepared you for this learning-through-serving experi-ence? When you remember back to important events and moments leading up to this com-munity service endeavor, what stands out as being especially important to your preparationfor this work? How did you enter this experience?

• What happened to you and for you while you were here? When you review importantevents and moments in this community service endeavor, what stands out as being espe-cially important and meaningful? How were you in this experience?

• How are you poised to leave this experience? When you imagine the places your experi-ences are leading you, what stands out as being especially compelling for you to experiencenext as a person, a community member, a learner? How will you move forward from herein your academic, professional, and personal lives?

Adapted from the work of Carol Gabrielli (2003).

in bringing your work as a class team into collabora-tion with a community partner. We introduced theconcepts of task, maintenance, and organizational roles,as well as exercises and activities to help you identifyhow group members assumed particular roles withinyour group. Finally, we emphasized the importance ofclear communication and active listening amonggroup members and between group members andcommunity partners as a useful strategy for addressingthe challenges of working together on a community-based service project.

Chapter 5, “Creating Cultural Connections: Navi-gating Difference, Investigating Power, UnpackingPrivilege,” provided you with resources to frame yourservice-learning experience in ways that expand yourcapacities for working effectively with those who aredifferent from you and to recognize how to act onshared desires for creating positive change in theworld. We asserted that our different perspectives areactually keys to maximizing the innovative problem-solving capacities that exist in any community setting.We explored the ways that our notions of “service” are

culturally based and sought out a common languagefor serving and learning with respect and integrity.Moreover, to be interculturally competent, we pro-posed that you need to cultivate a mindset, a skillset,and a heartset. A useful conceptual tool, Bennett’s“Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity,”was introduced as a framework to explain the develop-ment of increasing sophistication in our experienceand navigation of differences. Finally, chapter 5 chal-lenged each of us to explore the ways in which privi-lege attaches to membership in certain groups in orderto better understand the cultural dynamics at play inour community partnerships and to continue to de-velop our intercultural competence.

In chapters 6, 7, and 8, we highlighted multipleapproaches for understanding the community-basedexperience—when things are going well and whenthings are not going well. Specifically, these chaptersexplored how you can bridge the disconnect betweenlearning and doing through reflection, what can bedone if the community interaction is a disappoint-ment or is “failing,” and how the context and the con-

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Exercise 10.2: Walking the Four-Fold Path

Take some time to reflect thoroughly on the questions written below. After reflecting, com-plete a ten- to twenty-minute freewrite on the elements of these questions that seem mostrelevant for you to address.

• When you think about this service-learning experience and your own way of showing up init, what comes to mind? How did you manifest your own particular ways of being and do-ing in this collaborative endeavor? How were you able to be authentically who you are?What challenges did you experience in regard to showing up? How did you address thosechallenges?

• How were you able to pay attention during this experience? How well did you listen to oth-ers and strive to understand their perspectives and needs? What kinds of things were pres-ent but went unsaid in this experience, and how did you pay attention to that? Whatchallenges did you experience in regard to paying attention? How did you address thosechallenges?

• How were you able to tell the truth as you experienced it during your learning-through-serving? In what ways were your truths similar to others’, and in what ways were they dif-ferent? What meaning do you take from those similarities and differences? What challengesdid you experience in regard to truth-telling? How did you address those challenges?

• In what ways were you able to remain open to the outcome of your shared efforts? How wasthe outcome different than you imagined it would be at the start of your experience? Whatmeaning do you take from the differences between your expectations of the outcome andthe outcome itself? What challenges did you experience in being open to the outcome?How did you address those challenges?


tent of the service-learning course itself provide direc-tion and meaning.

In chapter 6, “Reflection in Action,” we turned ourattention to the process of reflection and the central rolethat it plays in service-learning classes. We reviewed thework of Dewey and Kolb and introduced the idea ofdeep reflection that is composed of three elements: ob-servation, personal relevance, and connection. To prac-tice deep reflection, we offered ideas for different modesof reflection—telling, activities, multimedia, and writ-ing—that may be helpful as you search for ways to bestarticulate the insights and meaning that are part of yourcommunity-based experience.

Even with meticulous planning, carefully outlinedexpectations, and outstanding effort on everyone’s part,things can go off-course in service-learning courses.Chapter 7, “Failure with the Best of Intentions,” lookedat how to approach breakdowns and conflict con-structively. We “walked” you through a three-stepprogram to prepare you to minimize destructive con-flict and avoid a range of what we called “roadblocksand flat tires.”

First, we encouraged you to explore some prior ex-periences in collaborative contexts while consideringhow those experiences have been framed and definedin terms of “success” or “failure.” Second, we discussedsome of the more common roadblocks in the service-learning journey. Finally, chapter activities and exer-cises—like the “D-U-E Process” for understandingcultural or personality differences—provided you withopportunities to consider and “try on” some alterna-tive response strategies for negotiating unexpectedevents and circumstances.

In chapter 8, “Expanding Horizons: New Views ofCourse Concepts,” we examined how to apply aca-demic discipline-based knowledge in community set-tings. Unlike most classes where the “right” answersare filled in on the “test,” your service-learning projecttested you to consider multiple approaches in deter-mining what is right for the community. This is trans-formational learning—deep learning where newknowledge becomes personally meaningful and con-nected to community. We examined the relationshipsbetween course content and community challenges inorder to connect your experiences with the largerworld of ideas and issues outside the college campus.

Finally, in chapter 9 we examined the conceptual

underpinnings of evaluation in service-learning coursesand provided you with tools such as the “Concepts, In-dicators, and Evidence (CIE) Model” to help you eval-uate the results of your community-based engagement.The “Self-Assessment Matrix” also enabled you toidentify strengths you have gained during the projectby recognizing your own individual levels of experiencewith various dimensions of service-learning. We alsoasked you to revisit your “Action Learning Plan forServing” to examine how the different outcomes ofyour service project provide evidence for whether youmet (or did not meet) specific partner, learning, andservice goals.

As we noted in the beginning of this chapter, thejourney toward becoming an engaged communitymember and citizen requires, among other things, skills,commitment, a willingness to be open to new ideas, andeffort. It does not begin and end with a single service-learning course at your college or university. This jour-ney is an ongoing, lifelong one. Still, you have traveledquite a distance on this particular service project road,so let’s take one final look back as you begin to preparefor future journeys (exercise 10.3).

We hope that you have evolved from understand-ing yourself solely as an individual student in a classof other individual students, motivated only by re-wards like grades and course credit, to feeling likepart of an interconnected community of other stu-dents, faculty, and community partners who are allworking together to make a difference in our sharedworld. So where do you go from here? In a famousquote, Mahatma Ghandi challenges each of us to livethe values that underlie service-learning: “You mustbe the change you wish to see in the world.” As youhave discovered in your service-learning experience,doing so requires skill, insight, patience, courage,compassion, fortitude, commitment, and a host ofother ways of being. In our final activity, we encour-age you to look forward, into your future as an engagedparticipant in the life of our communities (exercise10.4).

On behalf of the persons with whom you havelearned through serving over these past many weeks,we thank you for the efforts you have made in and forour shared communities. We all benefit from the workeach of us chooses to do. The future is in all of ourhands. The next step of your journey is up to you.

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Exercise 10.3: The Other Side of the Mountain

You may be familiar with the children’s song “The Bear Went over the Mountain.” Thepunchline of the song is that, when the bear crossed over the mountain, what the bear sawwas the other side of the mountain . . . and then another mountain, and another . . .

Working on your own or in a group, you have completed a service-learning project this term.You have “crossed over the mountain” with this project and addressed specific communityneeds while also realizing personal learning and service goals. As the song promises, there aremany more mountains and community needs that are waiting just ahead.

Consider the following questions to identify the new skills, knowledge, and insights you willtake with you on the next step of your journey.

• What did you learn about yourself in this learning-through-serving experience?• What did you learn about your community?• What new knowledge related to your academic discipline can you utilize in addressing com-

munity needs?• How has the service-learning experience contributed to your sense of being an engaged

community member and citizen?

Exercise 10.4: Being the Change

Again, take plenty of time as you consider the questions listed below. In fact, you might re-turn to them again and again as you choose how to bring your personal energy and expert-ise to the communities of which you are a part.

• When you survey the world (in the form of your family, your neighborhood, your com-munity, your city, your state, your country, or the global community), how would you de-scribe the change you’d like to see in its simplest terms? What change do you wish to see inthe world?

• How would this change benefit you and those closest to you? How would it benefit others,and thus contribute to the common good?

• What would it cost you and those closest to you to act in ways that might bring about thischange? What would the cost be to others not close to you?

• How might you seek to balance the benefits to your work to bring about this change withthe costs to yourself and others?

• How has this service-learning experience prepared you to work for this change? What skillsand capacities have you developed that will assist you in your work as a change agent?What skills and capacities would you like to develop further?

• What could you do right now to contribute to this change happening? How might youcreate shifts in your life such that you might be the change you wish to see in the world in anongoing, committed way?

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R E F E R E N C E S147

Index

A

Academic disciplines, as criticalinquiry, 116–118

Action Learning Plan for Serving(ALPS), 36, 139-140

developing, 24–26, 50ALPS. See Action Learning Plan for

ServingAltman, Irwin, 84Ambiguity, failure and, 102Anxiety, 84Arrien, Angeles, 26, 140Assessment, community partnerships,

126–127Authenticity, 26

B

Barber, Benjamin, 15Bourdieu, Pierre, 77Boys and Girls Club, 35

C

Cantinflas, 38Capital, cultural capital, 77Career decisions, 135CCPH. See Community-Campus

Partnerships for HealthChange. See also Growth

in community partnerships,104–105

infrastructure change, 104–105staff change, 104

individual and group change,40–42, 113, 142

Change agent, 39Change for the Common Good, 34,

40Chavez, Cesar, 38

CIE model. See Concepts, Indicators,Evidence

Citizen, 10. See also Citizenshipcitizen-learner, 40global citizen, 10

Citizenshipcivic engagement, 132, 139developing civic capacity, 12–13discussed, 10–11, 40freedom and responsibility of,

11–12Classroom, wall-less classroom, 33Code-shifting, 74Collaboration, 40, 107Commitment, 40, 133Common purpose, 40Communication. See also Communi-

cation skills; Listeningin groups, 58–59, 109misunderstanding in, 104

Communication skills, 13–14intent and impact, 24

Community, 131, 132. See also Com-munity partner; Society

becoming community, 34–35,36–37, 38–40, 140

measuring benefits to, 133–134Community-based learning. See also

Service learningcase study, 34–35defined, 7environments, 19–20direct-service environment, 19–20learning environment, 132–133project-based environment, 19–20

Community-Campus Partnerships forHealth (CCPH), 20

Community partner. See also Commu-nity partnerships

conflict with, 107–108defined, 18

learning about, 22–23relation with student, 20–22as source of expertise, 118–119

Community partnerships. See alsoExperience; Service-learning

changes in, 104–105Community-Campus Partnerships

for Health, 20conflict within, 37–38, 141–142contact persons, 19creating and strengthening, 126discussed, 17, 18–19, 22,

139–140, 141economic impacts, 135evaluating, 126–130framework, Concepts, Indicators,

Evidence, 125, 129–130, 142making a difference, 125–126personal relevance of, 90, 94, 117

Community service. See also Servicelearning

defined, 7Competence. See also Expertise

defined, 58intercultural competence, 68, 132

Concepts, Indicators, Evidence (CIE)model, 125, 129–130, 142

Conflict. See also Problemsapproachesconstructive approach, 105–106destructive approach, 105–106

with community partners, 107–108conflict avoidanceD-U-E process, 108–109, 142language issues, 108

failure and, 102meaning and, 109in student team, 105–108

Congruence, 39Conscious living, 119–120Consciousness of self, 39. See also Self

149


Consciousness shift, 114Consensus, 107Contact persons, 19. See also

Community partnerControversy with civility, 40Critical inquiry, 115–116. See also

Transformational learningacademic disciplines as, 116–118deconstruction, 116leverage points, 115

Critical thinking skills, 13–14. Seealso Problem solving

Culturecross-cultural challenges, 135cultural capital, 77cultural humility, 68cultural self-awareness, 68defined, 68discussed, 67–71gender culture, 69generalizations and, 71heartset, 68intercultural competence, 68intercultural context, 68intercultural sensitivity, 71–75mindset, 68stereotyping and, 71

D

D-U-E process, 108–109, 142Data, quantitative/qualitative data,

127Deconstruction, 116Democracy, 10

role of education in, 11–12Democracy and Education (Dewey), 12Depression, 84Development Model of Intercultural

Sensitivity, 71–75Dewey, John, 12, 86Discrimination, 21, 76

E

Education. See also Learningrole in democracy, 11–12, 15

Emotions, 84Empathy

defined, 13discussed, 74

Empowerment, marginalization and,76

Engaged student, 131, 138“Equalizing Access to Justice,” 119Ethics, 13, 20Ethnic heritage, 68–69Evaluation. See also Service-learning

challenges to, 127–129community benefits, 133–134community partnerships, 126–127continua for, 133learning environment, 132–133other important issues, 134–136Self-Assessment Matrix, 130–132strategy for, 129–130understanding your experience,

130–132Expectations. See also Goals

conflicting expectations, 103–104

Experience, 86, 131. See alsoCommunity partnerships

concrete experience, 87personal relevance of, 90telling the story, 93–94understanding, 130–132

Experiential Learning Model (Kolb),86–87

abstract conceptualization stage, 87active experimentation stage, 87reflective observation stage, 87

Expert student, 131, 138Expertise. See also Competence

community partner as source of,118–119

Explorer student, 131, 138

F

Failure, 99, 142. See also Problemsolving

meaning of “failure,” 101–103Four-Fold Path, 141Four-Fold Way, The (Arrien), 26, 140Free-rider issues, 59–60. See also

GroupsFreedom, citizenship rights for, 11–12,

15Frost, Robert, 99

G

Gabrielli, Carol, 140Generalization, 71. See also CultureGhandi, Mahatma, 142

Goals. See also Expectationsidentifying, 107learning goals, 47content goals, 47process goals, 47

Golden Rule, 78Good

doing good, 11, 12group action for common good,

35–36Grant writing, 19Group development. See also

GroupsPhase Model of Group Devel-

opmentforming, 48in general, 48, 140norming, 49performing, 49–50storming, 49

Groupscloseness and cohesion within, 49,

55–57communication in, 58–59conflicts within, 14discussed, 60–62documenting contributions to,

59free-rider issues, 59–60good groups/bad groups,

45–47group action for common good,

35–36group change, 40–42group experiences, 45–47group norms/group roles, 52–55moving from I to we, 34–35,

36–37, 38–40Mudslingers vs. Visionary Skeptics,

47, 48, 52, 57, 60, 61social loafing and, 61

Groupthink, defined, 56Growth. See also Change

personal growth, 126, 131

H

Habitat for Humanity, 127Heartset, 68Heterosexism, 76Hillsboro Police Department, 35, 37,

38Humanitarian considerations, 135

150

I

Identity, 18, 19, 24. See also Selfcultural identity, 68–71moving from I to we, 34–35,

36–37, 38–40multicultural identity, 75

Impact, 24. See also Communicationskills

Individualism, 12Information, 47. See also KnowledgeIntent, 24. See also Communication

skillsIntercultural sensitivity. See also

CultureDevelopment Model, 71–75acceptance of difference, 73–74adaptation to difference, 74defense against difference, 73denial of difference, 72–73ethnocentric stages, 72ethnorelative stages, 72integration of difference, 74–75minimization of difference, 73

discussed, 71–75investigating power, 75–77unpacking privilege, 75–77

J

Journal. See also Written documentsrecommendations for, 9, 13, 94critical incident journal, 94role-taking journal, 94shift-in-perspective journal, 94structured journal, 94triple-entry journal, 94

K

Kahlo, Frida, 38Kennedy, John F., 10, 11Knowledge, 12. See also Information

content knowledge, 84process knowledge, 84socially relevant knowledge, 84ways of knowing, 114–115

L

Language, 108Latino Family Services Coalition, 35,

36, 38

Leader, 38. See also Leadershipas change agent, 39job description, 53

Leadershipdiscussed, 38–40Seven Cs, 39–40, 140

Learning, 131. See also Education;Learning styles; Service-learning;Transformational learning

compared to service-learning, 8experiential learning, 86learning goals, 47process examination, 126reciprocal learning, 118reflection and, 86in service-learning, 15, 21, 37, 114

Learning environment, evaluation,132–133

Learning orientation, 133Learning styles, 87–89, 114

Accommodator, 89Assimilator, 88–89Converger, 89Diverger, 87–88

Leverage points, 115Listening. See also Communication

active listening, 58–59, 107

M

Marginalization, defined, 75–76McIntosh, Peggy, 76Mead, Margaret, 113Meaning, 109Mindset, 68Mistakes, 58. See also Problems

as opportunities, 24Moon Is Always Female, The (Piercy),

33Multimedia presentations, 93

N

Needs, 22perception of, 105

Norms, group norms, 52–55Notetaker, job description, 53Novice student, 131, 138

O

Observation, reflection and, 90Oral presentations, 93

P

Pedagogydefined, 8discussed, 133process examination, 126

Perceptions, 24, 104Performance standard, 61Piercy, Marge, 33Platinum Rule, 35, 78Portland State University (PSU), 34,

45, 129, 139Practicum, defined, 7Privilege

unexamined privilege, 78unpacking privilege, 75–77

Problem solving, 47. See also Problemscase study, 99–101four-stage process for, 49–50

Problems. See also Conflict; Problemsolving

with community partners, 37–38conflict avoidance, 49controversy with civility, 40dealing with, 22–24exampleschanges in communitypartnership, 104–105

conflict in student team, 105–108conflicting expectations, 103–104need perception, 105

in groups, 22–24, 49as norm, 104

Process. See also Process observercompared to product, 49

Process observer, job description, 54Productivity, 47Progress tracker, job description, 53PSU. See Portland State UniversityPurpose, common purpose, 40

R

Racism, 76Reciprocal learning, 118–119. See also

LearningReciprocity, 118Reflection, 36–37, 131

benefits of, 83–84characteristics of, 83deep reflection, 83discussed, 89–92tips for, 91–92

I N D E X151


Reflection (continued)discussed, 8–9, 83–84, 94–95examples of, 9models of, 86–89modes of, 92–94, 126–127service-learning and, 84–86in thirds, 140why reflect?, 83–84, 94–95

Relationships, 14Religion, 37Responsibility

citizenship rights for, 11–12failure and, 102student responsibilities, 20

Rightscommunity partner rights, 21student rights, 20, 21

Rivera, Diego, 38“Road Not Taken, The” (Frost), 99Roadblocks. See ProblemsRoles

defined, 53faculty role, 133group roles, 52–55maintenance roles, 53organizational roles, 53role-taking journal, 94student role, 133task roles, 53

S

Self. See also Identity; Self-AssessmentMatrix

consciousness of, 39cultural self-awareness, 68orienting toward serving and learn-

ing, 17–18personal growth, 126

Self-Assessment Matrix, 130–132. See also Evaluation

Engaged student, 131, 138Expert student, 131, 138Explorer student, 131, 138Novice student, 131, 138

Self-concept, 13Service. See also Service-learning

discussed, 78Service-learning. See also Community

partnerships; Evaluation;Student

action learning plan, 24–26benefits of, 13–14, 14–15measuring community benefits,133–134

as collaborative experience, 24compared to other courses, 8–9,

113–114defined, 7discussed, 7–8, 33–34, 139making a difference, 125–126reflection and, 84–86as requirement for graduation,

10–11service decisions, 135

Service-Learning Cycle, 84Seven Cs, 39–40. See also LeadershipSexism, 76Sexual harassment, 21Skills, 12

academic skills, 18Social Change Model of Leadership

Development (Astin & Astin), 38Social justice, 38Social loafing, 61. See also GroupsSociety, 12. See also Community

social transformation, 14–15Standard, performance standard, 61Stereotyping, 71. See also CultureStudent. See also Service-learning

relation with community partner,20–22

Success, 99. See also Problem solvingredefining, 102

T

Terrorism, 10Thick description, defined, 89–90Timekeeper, job description, 54Transformational learning. See also

Learningcommunity partners, 118–119conscious living, 119–120critical inquiry, 115–118discussed, 114ways of knowing, 114–115

Trauma, 84Trust, failure and, 102

U

U.S. Constitution, 14

V

Villerreal, Luz Maciel, 38Volunteerism

defined, 7requirement for, 10–11

W

Ways of knowing, 114–115. See alsoKnowledge

Written documents. See also Journalfor active listening, 59recommendations for, 9, 94

Z

Zapata, Emiliano, 38

152

Susan Agre-Kippenhan is a professor in graphic design andchair of the art department at Portland State University.

Janet Bennett is executive director of the Intercultural Com-munication Institute. As a trainer and consultant, she designsand conducts intercultural training for academic institutions,corporations, and social service agencies. In addition she di-rects a limited residency master’s degree in intercultural rela-tions in cooperation with the University of the Pacific, and anintercultural conflict transformation certificate with Lewisand Clark University.

Peter J. Collier is an associate professor of sociology at Port-land State University. He is director and principal investigatorfor Students First, a FIPSE Grant–funded demonstrationproject to improve first-year retention rates for first-genera-tion college students.

Christine M. Cress is an associate professor in the Post-secondary, Adult, and Continuing Education (PACE) Pro-gram in the Graduate School of Education at Portland StateUniversity.

Sherril B. Gelmon is professor of public health in theMark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland StateUniversity. One of her research areas focuses on assessingthe impact of service-learning and civic engagement withinhigher education.

Kevin Kecskes is director for Community-UniversityPartnerships for Learning at Portland State University. He

facilitates faculty, departmental, and institutional develop-ment for community and civic engagement. His researchinterests include community–university partnership build-ing and institutional transformation in higher education.

Seanna M. Kerrigan is director of the Senior CapstoneService-Learning Program in the University Studies (Gen-eral Education) Program at Portland State University.

Devorah Lieberman is provost and vice president for aca-demic affairs at Wagner College, Staten Island, New York.

Judy Patton is director of University Studies at PortlandState University.

Vicki L. Reitenauer is an instructor in the senior CapstoneService-Learning Program and the women’s studies depart-ment at Portland State University.

Amy Spring is assistant director for Community-UniversityPartnerships for Learning in the Center for Academic Excel-lence at Portland State University.

Janelle D. Voegele is coordinator for faculty and TA devel-opment programs in the Center for Academic Excellence atPortland State University.

Dilafruz R. Williams is professor of education and publicadministration at Portland State University. She is a mem-ber of the Portland School Board.

The Authors

153

Documents

Learning Through Serving