Community Engagement at Bennington: Reflection and Reciprocity Resources

Rather than create separate reflection assignments, which can be problematic for a number of reasons described in this article, the author offers composition teachers strategies for embedding critical reflection concepts into composition assignments to create a “reflective course.” The author provides models of types of reflective assignments from a first-year service-learning writing course, including a research paper, a proposal letter to a member of the community, and an oral presentation.

This chapter explores how community engagement creates opportunities to facilitate meaningful discussions about issues including: the nature and sources of power; who benefits and who is silenced by service and leadership efforts; which community actions result in change rather than charity; and how to developmentally sequence reflective practice.

This project looked at four different learning settings that varied in sustainability topics and extent of experiential learning that suggests applicability to a wide educational audience. Our work identified four effective features of instructional design that supported critical thinking: planning, instruction method, content, and explicit critical thinking outcomes. We found that strong critical thinking outcomes result from experiential learning with appropriately scaffolded critical thinking exercises and processes.

What are critical thinking and creative thinking? What is Bloom's taxonomy and how is it helpful in project planning? How are the domains of learning reflected in technology-rich projects?
Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as you develop the critical thinking skills of your students.

by Stephen Brookfield, c2006.

" In this historiography of service-learning, I examine four scholarly texts and three well-accessed online historical summaries published by service-learning practitioners. I explore how these historical narratives represent people of color, what they include and exclude, and how these representations and inclusions/exclusions may reinforce or challenge White normativity in service-learning. Additionally, I suggest supplemental events, figures, and philosophies that could be considered part of the history of service-learning in order to challenge its prevailing Whiteness."

Given the ever increasing numbers of Students of Color engaging in higher education, the importance of cross-cultural interactions for all students, and the evidence that White students and Students of Color may have vastly different experiences in higher education, there is a need to further explore the types of cross-cultural experiences that different college students have and the ways that those expe-riences facilitate learning and development. Using data from the National Survey of Alternative Breaks, the purpose of this study was to explore how one particular type of cross-cultural experience, partic-ipating in a service-learning based alternative break (AB) program, contributes to the racial under-standing of White students and Students of Color. Findings point to the importance of considering the different experiences that White students and Students of Color have in ABs and other service-learn-ing experiences.

This study examines the ally development process and behaviors of ten white student affairs educators at four-year institutions in the Bay Area region of Northern California who were identified as racial justice allies by a colleague of color. The methods of this study included a survey to understand the context of multicultural competency in California and in-depth interviews to understand the lived experiences of racial justice allies. I analyzed this data and generated a grounded theory that identified cognitive, affective, and action-oriented components of the racial justice ally development process. My analysis also found a set of behaviors, or habits of mind, heart, and action, that comprise a racial justice disposition for student affairs educators. I recommend shifts in student affairs preparation programs and ongoing professional development to foster a racial justice disposition and support white student affairs educators in the ally development process.

This paper presents the results of interviews with staff from 64 community organizations regarding theirexperiences with service-learners. One of the themes that emerged from the interviews focused on con-cerns related to short-term service-learning commitments that last a semester or less. We explore thechallenges presented to community groups by short-term service: investment of staff time; staff capacityto train and supervise; incompatibility with direct client service; timing and project management; andacademic calendar issues. Despite these obstacles, many community organization staff reported theirdesire to continue working with service-learners for altruistic and other reasons. The paper concludeswith thoughts on how to deal with the challenges presented by short-term service-learning.

Faculty learning about service-learning is an important area of research because understanding how faculty develop their practice is an important first step in improving student learning outcomes and relationships with community members. Enacting reciprocity in service-learning can be particularly troublesome because it requires faculty to learn to develop courses and partnerships in counter-normative ways. This article reports on an approach to investigating and generating faculty learning – in our case about the threshold concept of reciprocity – through a group self-study process that included a new-to-the-field interview method developed for Decoding the Disciplines (Pace & Middendorf, 2004), followed by individual and then group reflection.

To more fully appreciate the nature of reciprocal service-learning relationships, the authors (two community partners and two faculty members at the University of XXX) explore six things community partners want you to know about what makes effective service-learning partnerships. While the six are not intended to be a comprehensive tally, they offer insights into the structure necessary to ensure that relationships are beneficial from the community partner’s perspective.