Reflective practice in service learning: possibilities and limitations

Abstract

Purpose

The paper seeks to promote the integration of reflective learning within a broader service learning pedagogy at the undergraduate university level. Furthermore, it aims to illustrate various models for service learning that span multiple academic disciplines.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper illustrates three ways in which reflective learning can be used to enhance the learning potential of service learning pedagogy. The subjective experiences inform its own stories that it presents as examples, supported as they are by the findings of prior empirical studies.

Findings

The paper believes that multi‐dimensional learning has been achieved in each of the three examples presented. Service learning extends the academic learning of students and allows for personal and societal learning to occur, not simply as a result of having a service experience, but of spending time reflecting on it.

Practical implications

Practical implications are particular to the students themselves, as the service experiences it describes have, in some instances, helped to clarify individual students' values and vocational interests.

Social implications

Given the range of service learning models contained in these examples, the social implications likewise range, yet share common dimensions of increasing students' social consciousness, appreciation of diversity, and their own capacities to contribute.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper lies in the linking of reflective learning to service learning best practices to highlight the particular role of reflection in the production of multi‐dimensional learning.

Citation

Gibson, M., Hauf, P., Long, B.S. and Sampson, G. (2011), "Reflective practice in service learning: possibilities and limitations", Education + Training, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 284-296. https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911111138451