What Is Its Role in Service-Learning?

While there are different types of reflection, the primary form of reflection we strive for in service-learning is critical reflection. Critical reflection is the process of analyzing, reconsidering, and questioning one's experiences within a broad context of issues and content knowledge. We often hear that “experience is the best teacher,” but John Dewey and many other proponents of reflection remind us that experience can be a problematic teacher. Experience without critical reflection can all too easily allow students to reinforce their stereotypes about people who are different from themselves, develop simplistic solutions to complex problems, and generalize inaccurately based on limited data. For example, students who do community service in a homeless shelter without critically reflecting on their experience may come away with impressions like these, which I have personally encountered: “Homeless people would be able to get off the street if they would just get a job” or “Homeless people are lazy or crazy.”

I find Dewey's definition of critical reflection to be more nuanced and useful than the one above: “Critical reflection is the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (1933, p. 9). It is guiding students through the process of considering and reconsidering their values, beliefs, and acquired knowledge that enables them to question and challenge their stereotypes and other a priori assumptions. Critical reflection adds depth and breadth to meaning by challenging simplistic conclusions, comparing varying perspectives, examining causality, and raising more challenging questions.

Using the term critical reflection reminds us that reflection is a critical element of service-learning. It is essential and irreplaceable. It is also critical that reflection in service-learning be done well if it is to develop critical thinking skills, which are a unanimously agreed-upon essential college learning outcome. Critical reflection raises critical questions, which challenge us to consider multiple perspectives and to recognize complexity in a situation or issue that may initially seem to be straightforward. Critical reflection is also the foundation of critical service-learning pedagogy, which is important in teaching for social justice. Critical service-learning is discussed further in 8.5.

According to Janet Eyler, Dwight E. Giles, and Angela E. Schmiede (1996), critical reflection is continuous, connected, challenging, and contextualized. These “4 Cs” have guided many service-learning educators in developing and facilitating reflection in both course-based and cocurricular experiences.

For the deepest learning to occur, reflection must be an ongoing component of the course or program. In the context of a particular experience, continuous means that reflection must occur before, during, and after the experience. Reflection prior to the service or “pre-flection,” prepares students by introducing them to the issues, the community, the organization, and the population that their service will address. Reflection during the service experience enables students to record their observations, to examine theory in practice, to process the dissonance they may find between their expectations and the reality of their experience, and to consider how to resolve issues before they become problems. When it follows the service experience, reflection can help students realize what they learned, what it means in relation to their prior thinking and experiences, and what it might lead them to explore and do in the future.

Reflection connects experience with other areas of participants' learning and development. Connected reflection builds bridges between content learning, personal reflections, and first-hand experiences. It is often demanding too much of students, particularly those new to service-learning, to assume that they will make these connections on their own. In Kolb's experiential learning model, reflection follows concrete experience and connects it to abstract conceptualization and generalization (1984). Without structured, connected reflection, students “may fail to bridge the gap between the concrete service experience and the abstract issues discussed in class; students may become frustrated and wonder why they are involved in the community as part of their course work” (Eyler, Giles, & Schmiede, 1996, p. 19). Conversely, student participants in both curricular and cocurricular service-learning may fail to understand why they need to engage in reflection if it is not integral to their service experience.

Challenging reflection poses old questions in new ways, is designed to reveal new perspectives, and raises new questions. Facilitators of critical reflection engage students in difficult conversations and activities in which they consider unfamiliar and often uncomfortable ideas. Nevitt Sanford's notion of balancing challenge and support is key to understanding this component of reflection. If the reflection is too challenging and if adequate support is not provided, students will often retreat inside themselves and, thus, will not take the risks necessary for them to try on new ideas and perspectives. However, if the reflection is not challenging enough or if the environment is too supportive, then students are less likely to leave their comfort zones and, as a result, will not learn and grow (1967).

Contextualized reflection engages service-learners in activities and with topics that are meaningful in relation to their experiences and appropriate for their developmental levels and life situations. The desired outcomes of the service-learning experience should guide facilitators' choices about the forms and processes of reflection. Contextual considerations include whether the reflection will occur on campus or at the community site, whether community members should participate, and whether reflection should be an individual or collective activity. Another contextual factor is what else is going on in students' lives and thoughts. For example, students are not likely to possess the mindfulness necessary for deep reflection when stressed by family or work situations or on the day before final examinations or spring break. Current events, such as natural disasters or violent attacks, can also profoundly affect students emotionally and intellectually, providing either distractions to critical reflection or enriching it by providing a context of immediacy and relevance.

In short, critical reflection should be carefully and intentionally designed to generate learning by applying theory to practice, seeking to understand causality, and appreciating the complexity of social issues and potential solutions. It deepens learning by encouraging students to examine their assumptions, avoid facile conclusions, and ask more complex questions. It also provides evidence of student learning for the purpose of assessment (Ash & Clayton, 2009).

What Does Critical Reflection Look Like in Practice?

Reflection in service-learning takes as many forms as the facilitator can imagine. There are four general categories of reflection formats or mediums: speaking, writing, activities, and media.

Speaking, or oral reflection, can takes multiple forms, including directed discussions, presentations, interviews, storytelling, teaching a class, debate, deliberation, preparing real or mock testimony, and even a poetry slam. Reflection through speaking encourages students to think carefully about their messages and speech habits. They also can increase their self-confidence and self-esteem as others find their insights to be valuable. Spoken reflection can occur both in the classroom and at the service site.

Writing is usually the predominant form of reflection that takes place in academic courses. Like spoken reflection, writing challenges students to organize their thoughts in order to make coherent arguments. It generates a permanent record of how they connect the service experiences and course content that can be used as part of future learning activities. In both curricular and cocurricular settings, it also offers the opportunity to improve written communication skills. Like speaking, writing takes many forms including journals, problem analysis, case studies, essays, theory-to-practice papers, press releases, drafting legislation, and letters to elected officials, editors, or oneself. The double-entry journal is a tried-and-true method for critical reflection in both curricular and cocurricular experiences. Although there are various ways to do it, a double-entry journal generally has subjective reflections, emotions, personal reactions on one side, for example, on the left-hand page and objective reflections, analysis, synthesis, and critique on the right-hand page. Reflection facilitators can give students regular prompts for both sides of the journal and can also ask them to draw arrows to indicate connections between their subjective and their objective reflections. Written reflection can occur on paper and online.

Activities, or reflection through action, work well for many students by providing variety and, if done in groups, can also help to develop relational and teamwork skills. A simple example is the forced-choice exercise, in which students are given a controversial statement and asked to go to one side of the room if they agree with it or to the other side if they disagree. The students on each side of the room then formulate their reasons for choosing the side they did and present them to the students on the opposite side. Participants then have the opportunity to change sides if they wish. The exercise can be repeated several times to encourage students to hone and deepen their arguments.

Role plays can be quite effective, with students taking different roles in a challenging situation. This can be an effective way of preparing students to enter the service site for the first time. For example, a role play situated in a service-learning course on the psychology of domestic violence could prepare students for their experience of working in a shelter for battered women by providing opportunities for the students take on the roles of the victim, her children of different ages and genders, the primary caregiver, the director of the shelter, and the student volunteer. As much detail as desired can be provided, for example, specifying that the primary caregiver, the shelter director, and the student have different views of what would be best in the way of treatment and support for some of the shelter's clients. Racial or ethnic factors could also be varied to add another dimension to the reflection.

The fourth general type of reflection is engaging students through media and artistic creation. This could include doing individual or collective collages, drawings, photo or video essays, musical compositions, and other art forms. Reflection through creative expression recognizes students' various talents and learning styles and provides opportunities to capture subtle emotional truths that may be more easily expressed through media other than words. As with writing, the use of media becomes even more powerful for students who revisit their compositions to recognize their growth as the service-learning experience progresses and their reflections deepen.

How Do I Make It Happen?

How Can I Engage Students in Critical Reflection?

How Do I Assess and Grade Reflection? How Can I Grade Feelings?

There are five basic steps in the design and implementation of critical reflection, in either curricular or cocurricular experiences. They are (1) identifying learning outcomes, (2) introducing students to the concept and practice of critical reflection, (3) designing a reflection strategy to enable students to meet the learning outcomes, (4) engaging students in reflection, and (5) assessing learning through reflection.

Step 1: State Your Learning Outcomes.

Just as with any other intentional design process, designing critical reflection requires beginning with the end in mind. In this case, this means articulating learning outcomes in concrete, measurable terms. Well-crafted learning outcomes serve as the basis for the design of reflection activities in both curricular and cocurricular contexts and for determining the extent to which the outcomes have been achieved and adequately expressed in the products of critical reflection. Because students may be unfamiliar with critical reflection, it is important to make it clear to them what they can expect to gain. College students are used to learning content, but not so much the metacognitive skills that critical reflection requires. In a course, critical reflection is well suited for outcomes around more complex dimensions of reasoning; developing enhanced understanding; questioning knowledge, theories, and assumptions; examining causality; and evaluating potential solutions to multifaceted problems. Clearly stated outcomes can also motivate students to engage in critical reflection in cocurricular settings. Desired learning and developmental outcomes that students can achieve through cocurricular service-learning include increased empathy, deeper awareness of one's multiple social identities, clarification of values and purpose, and development in terms of spirituality and faith, active citizenship, and socially responsible leadership.

Step 2: Introduce the Concept and Practice of Critical Reflection.

Once you have articulated your learning outcomes, Step 2 involves defining critical reflection and explaining to students why it is an essential element of their service-learning experience. The answer to the first question in this chapter, “What is critical reflection?,” is useful for this purpose. Introducing students to the practice of critical reflection centers on informing them of your expectations. Providing rubrics that concretely describe critical reflection, offer examples of the different levels of reflection, and guide students incrementally to achieving them is helpful. Rubrics are discussed in Step 5.

Step 3: Design a Reflection Strategy to Achieve the Learning Outcomes.

Designing effective critical reflection, like developing a syllabus for any course or the implementation plan for any cocurricular activity, requires us to make choices. These choices should be informed by your desired learning outcomes as well as the opportunities and constraints that are inherent in the context of the course or experience and the abilities of the students. An effective strategy should combine several reflection modes and should be continuous, connected, challenging, and contextualized, the four qualities of effective reflection advanced in 2.1. For example, if collaboration skills are a desired learning outcome, you might choose a group activity rather than an individual one. If oral presentation skills are desirable, you might select at least one oral reflection activity in addition to written ones. Considerations to guide the design of your reflection strategy are offered in Exhibit 2.1.

As you select reflection activities and prompts, it is important to sequence them to guide students toward incrementally higher levels of complexity of thinking, analyzing, and reasoning. Prompts can take many forms, including questions, topics, open-ended sentence stems, and quotes. An effective reflection strategy also includes providing feedback to students along the way through formative assessment. You can use formative assessment to check the reflection process against the learning outcomes so you can refine the desired outcomes along the way, shift your reflection strategies, or change the balance of challenge and support as necessary. Exhibit 2.2 contains a list of sample questions to prompt reflection.

Note: These sample questions are offered to inspire your thinking about how to guide your students through critical reflection in both service-learning courses and cocurricular experiences. I have made no attempt to suggest questions for all disciplines or questions that are appropriate for any course in a particular discipline. They are intended only as examples. Reflection questions should be based on desired learning outcomes and directly relate to the service experience and other readings and learning activities.

Step 4: Engage the Students.

Once the outcomes and strategy are developed, the groundwork has been laid for engaging students in critical reflection. Facilitating critical reflection inside and outside the classroom is different from traditional modes of teaching in both content and process. As reflection facilitators, we may be uncomfortable initially when confronted with questions that we cannot answer. For example, when I taught French for many years, there was never any doubt of whether a noun was masculine or feminine or what is the correct form of the future subjunctive of a particular verb. On the other hand, I have come to recognize that I cannot answer all the questions that arise when students confront poverty and oppression firsthand for the first time. It can be even more challenging to engage students in critical reflection outside the structures offered by course-based service-learning, such as regular class meetings, credit, and grades. Some tips for facilitating critical reflection in both curricular and cocurricular service-learning are offered in Exhibit 2.3.

Step 5: Assess Learning Through Critical Reflection.

Assessing and grading reflection often produces some angst among those who are new to it. When reflection is misconceived as private, “touchy-feely,” or stream of consciousness, assessment and grading seem elusive at best. In response to questions I am frequently asked about how to assess or grade students' feelings, I would say that we should not assess or grade the content of students' feelings. Rather, we should assess how authentically and deeply students think about their feelings.

Some questions we need to address in developing our reflection strategy are: What products will demonstrate learning? What criteria will you use to assess learning through critical reflection? How and how frequently will you provide feedback to students? For course-based service-learning, additional questions include: Will you grade reflections? and How will evaluation of reflection be used in determining the course grade?

There are many ways to assess the quality of reflection, both within and outside the formal curriculum. Rubrics are often used for this purpose. A rubric is a set of demonstrables that are linked to the desired learning outcomes of the service-learning experience, together with criteria that enable both students and facilitators to determine the level of the student's knowledge, skills, or understanding. It is good educational practice to give students the rubrics as you introduce them to critical reflection at the beginning of the course or experience so they know what you expect in terms of complex thinking and analytical reflection. Rubrics also provide consistent criteria for grading. Two examples of rubrics that are readily adaptable for assessment of reflection are provided in Exhibits 2.4 and 2.5. James Bradley's criteria are useful for assessing reflection in both curricular and cocurricular experiences.

How Can Critical Reflection Enable Students to Understand the Root Causes of the Need for Their Service?

As discussed in 1.2 and 2.1, Dewey is widely regarded as the inspiration for critical reflection as a fundamental practice of service-learning. Dewey believed that reflective thought must consider the wider historical, cultural, and political contexts of experience in order to frame and reframe problems for which solutions are needed (1933). Critical reflection for Dewey meant becoming more skeptical toward what one has considered as established truth, questioning one's assumptions and their underlying assertions, and challenging the rigidity of one's views and beliefs that makes them seem certain. In addition, critical reflection, in Dewey's view, leads us to challenge social structures that place people in unequal and exploitative conditions and constrain well-being and agency. College students often come to service-learning with the belief that all well-intentioned service is beneficial to those they are serving. It is often difficult for them to imagine how an act perceived to be altruistic or benevolent can have negative consequences, such as reinforcing prejudices and perpetuating the status quo.

The question for service-learning educators is how to facilitate critical reflection that enables students to view social problems and inequalities in systemic ways, promote students' efficacy to effect social and political change, and lead them to commit to change aspects of society, such as institutional policies and practices, that they perceive to be unjust (Flanagan & Cristens, 2011). In order for students to begin to understand the root causes of the need for their service, reflection needs to encourage them to think deeply about their values, identities, perceptions of themselves and others, and experiences. We should engage students in reflection, analysis, and discussion about how their prejudices and other beliefs affect their views and relationships with community members. Students need to be able to “name the ways they are both like and unlike the individuals they work with in the service setting, and further, how those similarities and differences impact their interactions at the service site and away from the service site” (Mitchell, 2008, p. 59). Critical reflection should also lead students to ask what they have learned about themselves and to put their experiences into a larger context, exploring who they are in the world. Students should challenge, but not necessarily change, their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, and stereotypes. They should explore, seek to understand, question, and challenge policies, laws, and social institutions in the context of their experiences and readings, discussions, and written assignments.

As service-learners engage in critical reflection about their work in community settings, it is important that we caution them to avoid the “seduction of empathy” (Bowdon & Scott, 2003). While we want students to consider issues like what it means to be a member of a community and to understand the experiences and perspectives of people whose circumstances are different from their own, we must be careful to help them understand that spending a relatively small amount of time working with people who are facing difficulties does not equate to facing those difficulties themselves. We must discourage students from saying things like they “know how it feels” to be homeless or hungry (Bowdon, 2013). Instead, we should encourage students to focus on actions they can take to address the situation during their current service-learning experience and in the future.

Critical reflection in service-learning should lead students to recognize the need and potential for social change, together with their own capacity to effect it. Several influential books and reports published in the last decade note that students are volunteering in greater numbers, but that community service and service-learning do not necessarily lead them to civic or political action (Colby, Beaumont, Ehrlich, & Corngold, 2007; Colby, Ehrlich, Beaumont, & Stephens, 2003; National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, 2012). For example, students may be passionate about tutoring children in underprivileged schools, but not recognize the need to address the root causes of their underachievement or feel empowered to do so. They may readily engage in environmental clean-ups without considering the sources of the pollution and the steps toward potential solutions that are available to concerned and active citizens. Even more than other citizens, college students suffer from diminished perceptions of our highly polarized political system and, as a result, mistrust political spin (Kiesa et al., 2007; National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, 2012). They are often conflicted in their feelings about politics and government, focusing more on the deep divides that shape our politics and keep our democracy from functioning effectively than on the power of citizens to engage with their government to enact positive social change.

Service-learning experiences together with reflection can enable students to confront these perceptions by considering the extent to which their service addresses the social issues that underlie the need for their service, the avenues of redress that are open to them as democratic citizens, and how they can develop the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue them. The list of sample reflection questions in Exhibit 2.2 includes several that service-learning educators can use to prompt critical reflection to lead students toward further civic and political engagement.

How Can I Engage Students in Reflection If There Is No Classroom and No Credit Involved?

How Do I Build Reflection into a One-Time Event?

There is no doubt that it is challenging to engage students in meaningful reflection outside the structure of the curriculum. However, setting realistic goals and intentionally integrating reflection into the design of the experience can result in positive learning and development. Some guidelines for designing and implementing reflection in short cocurricular service-learning experiences include:

• Consider using a term other than reflection. For some students, reflection may have religious connotations or conjure up notions of forced intimacy. Terms such as check-in, pair-and-share, chat, or buzz session may be more effective. Asking student leaders to suggest terms is likely be helpful. On the other hand, at a faith-based institution or within the context of a chaplaincy-based program, reflection through prayer may seem natural to students.
• Involve participants in “pre-flection” to prepare them for the service experience and for the essential role of reflection in service-learning. Make it clear to students what they will be doing, why it matters, whom they will be working with, and what the big-picture issues are. Allow students to voice their expectations, concerns, and stereotypes. Address concerns, manage expectations, and acknowledge stereotypes.
• Set the tone by establishing simple norms for group reflection, such as: feel free to ask as well as answer questions, avoid profanity, listen carefully, be open-minded, and speak in complete sentences rather than one- or few-word answers.
• Offer students a variety of modes of reflection. For example, students who are not confident speaking to a group may prefer reflection through online discussions, journaling, social media, or artistic expression.
• Provide clear expectations, instructions, and assessment criteria, if relevant.
• Seek closure on emotional issues by the end of the reflection session. Suggest issues and questions students might want to think more about following the end of the session.

A frequently used framework for reflection in short-term cocurricular service-learning experiences is the What? So What? Now What? model in Exhibit 2.6. Chapter Five discusses cocurricular service-learning in depth.