Reflection During Experience

It’s easy to get caught up with the daily activities of the service and lose sight of the learning.  It’s incumbent upon you to remind students of the primary purpose of this experience and create learning opportunities throughout.  These are some methods to consider concurrent with the service-learning:

• Journals
• Formative Assessment Meeting
• Skill Development
• Panels
• Discussion Boards
• Pair/share (jigsaw learning)
• Team Based Learning

When your students enter your course they often start out unconsciously incompetent—not aware of what they don’t know.   I find this particularly true in interpersonal skills such as teamwork and leadership.  During service learning students’ realize there are specific skills which would facilitate better handling of problems.  As traditional in apprenticeships and many ancient traditions, the learner is ready to seek out the teacher.

At this juncture you need to be agile in your teaching content and take advantage teachable moments.  Different skill sets will be required for different settings.