Hastings Spencer and Johanna Phelps
The importance of reflection lies in this function of lending a process of understanding to experience such that it may better inform future practice; as Schön (1983, 1987) writes, reflection involves “paying attention to phenomena and surfacing… [an] intuitive understanding of them” (p. 72 qtd. from Merickel 1998, Ash and Clayton 2004, 2009). It is a process which “generates… deepens… and documents learning… [and] is an evidence-based examination of the sources of and gaps in knowledge and practice” (Ash and Clayton 2009, p. 28). It is a process which, done well, attaches analysis to experience in the formation of understanding. It is the mechanism by which community engaged scholarly experiences become transformative.
We recognize that most community engaged pedagogical efforts are situated in constructs where the dominant assessment model is based on standard letter grading. Therefore, this section recognizes the dominance of this model. These recommendations do not propose active resistance to this model, but do offer strategies for evaluating community engaged teaching and learning within such a model.
STUDENT REFLECTION
Reflection is a noteworthy topic in community engaged pedagogies not solely for its potential positive effects, but for its pitfalls when performed poorly. Mere “descriptive accounts of experiences or venting of personal feelings” comprising ill-digested service experiences may well reify a student’s preexisting beliefs and biases about the community with which they are engaging (Ash and Clayton 2004, 2009). Students are liable to fall into this trap without proper guidance. Therefore, it is necessary to scaffold the reflection process alongside other course objectives and integrate them as a key component of course completion.
Ash and Clayton (2004) outline a useful three-tiered model towards effective reflection with a focus on metacognitive work: description, analysis and articulation. This model moves from thorough description of experience to careful analysis of those experiences, arriving at substantive articulation of learning outcomes/personal growth/etc. achieved while engaging with the community. Williams (2012) expands upon this model to “teach both giving and receiving feedback skills, help students get to know each other, and develop meta-cognitive skills” (2012), re-inscribing the process under the acronym “DEAL,” or “describe,” “examine,” “articulate,” and “learning.”
The DEAL model can work across contexts to produce intertwined practices of personal (critical) reflection and interpersonal feedback; at the outset of engaged courses, one effective use for this model is structured in-class, small-group (or partner) discussions. For virtual or distance delivery models, platforms like zoom allow instructors to create small groups for such discussions. By designating class time -and providing focused prompts or a series of questions from which students can choose- students need not “find time” to do this essential work. It is incumbent upon instructors and facilitators to prioritize it for them as a component of meeting learning objectives. Initial conversations occurring early in the course, before students begin their work with partners, helps establish ethical and conceptual frameworks. In turn, these frameworks ensure students have space to clearly – semi-independently and then collaboratively – orient themselves before entering engaged coursework.
Preparing reflection prompts and strategies well in advance may not always be feasible– or prudent. Occasionally we’ve found that many effective reflection experiences can take place in situ, deep in the moments of active work on projects for partners. These reflection environments are responsive to students and harness their experiences with partners to generate reflection that is also forward-thinking. This to say: such reflection is effective in supporting students continued learning in the course and are important, in addition to preliminary project reflection and end-of-course reflections. This is not to say, however, that instructors should not prepare guided learning opportunities early in the semester and assign weight/points to these activities. A schedule can be generally established before the semester begins and reflection can be incorporated into benchmarking for major projects. Planning for time during class meetings or in discussion forums in the LMS, inviting partners to join course discussions, and allocating points or percentages to reflection work are important preparatory strategies as instructors consider the pragmatic aspect of reflection.
FACULTY REFLECTION
Reflection is as necessary practice for instructors, too. Ash and Clayton write:
Supporting student reflection both requires and nurtures reflective practice on the part of faculty… Beyond learning to use these tools in support of student reflection, however, we also encourage service-learning faculty to use this process to support their own reflection and subsequent personal and professional development. Our goal is to have them regularly reflect on their teaching experiences, articulate specific “lessons learned” in the process, and share that learning with their students and each other (149).
The reflection process for instructors is more comprehensive and has much higher stakes than student reflection, as instructors are responsible for maintaining relationships with partners across semesters or even years. As mentioned previously, considerations of a broad range of power dynamics – such as race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and more – should form an active part of the reflective process and is essential not only to maintaining successful partnerships, but creating an inclusive instructional space that can meet the needs of all its students. By way of example, Brizee (2019) writes, following the “collapse” of a collaboration to build a playground in a neighborhood close to the university,
… residents’ reactions were so negative that RSNA meeting attendance dropped and some members of the association broke away. Breakaway residents formed a new a new neighborhood organization to focus on ‘brick and mortar issues’ rather than civic capacity. Members of the RSNA assured me that there were other reasons for the split, but I believed that the playground failure had contributed to the fracture (5).
It is evident based on the timing of the fracturing of the community organization with which Brizee and their students had partnered that the failure of the project was, at least, the last straw in whatever other issues divided residents previously.
This failed project was one conducted by a seasoned practitioner and scholar, Allen Brizee, who serves not only as an associate as professor of writing at Loyola University Maryland, but as the Faculty Director for Community-Engaged Learning and Scholarship. As a widely published scholar on civic engagement, Brizee is, by all accounts, an authority on the subject. Yet even he lacked an airtight, unsinkable project; we are fortunate to have such reflections appearing more frequently in published scholarship. It is an important reminder that community engaged pedagogies are not contained or clear-cut. But, they can be carefully constructed. With balanced reflection, often these experiences teach us a great deal as faculty working through our own biases, assumptions, and habits about what a classroom should look like and how partnerships should look.
Brizee’s story should not discourage those who would undertake community engaged projects; instead, we share it as a reminder to inform practitioners’ processes – it underscores the importance of reflection. Reflection can operate in these contexts to both prevent and redress negative impacts of the campus on communities. In this case, Brizee utilizes a “participatory, iterative, and empirical model” to centers resiliency in response to failure. This fundamentally reflective model enabled the project to “pivot” to a more successful second phase (24). In short, this makes evident the essential nature of reflection combined with flexibility and resiliency to supporting effective engagement.
Axtel et al.’s model of reflection restructures a process of reflection useful for instructors when considering course implementation from the perspective of “critical action, rather than missionary mindset.” The checklist emphasizes a two-tiered approach emphasizing understanding power dynamics in knowledge production and accountability in counteracting them through the act of engagement. The following questions model this type of reflection with the added consideration of the ethical concerns outlined in Section I. These prompts can be useful as both starting points for reflections or prompts to re(consider) at various points in the process of instruction, including assessment.
- What am I doing to position our community partners as a valuable source of knowledge for students? Or, how am I presenting community partners and projects involving them to students alongside so-called expert knowledge? How do I understand and contextualize my own expertise in the classroom, and in working with partners?
- In what ways might the presentation of engaged projects or assignments be reifying unjust power dynamics, regardless of my intention?
- How can we understand and navigate ambiguity and uncertainty in community expectations around interacting with the university? Consider observations and emotions from interactions, current events both local and national/global, as well as broader historical events.
- o What are my biases in pursuing this work, given my knowledge of all stakeholders?
- How am I demonstrating the necessary ambiguity of navigating these relationships so that my students might be better prepared for these situations? What am I doing to hold myself accountable to a broader ethical framework? How can I best articulate that framework, and is it sound?
Instructors’ reflection should not be a solo act. Iterative design and future engagement opportunities, with the goal of continual improvement of partnership and pedagogy, necessarily require communal reflection. This means instructors’ work is improved when they engage with their students in co-reflective spaces. Instructors also need to create space to ensure community partners have time and are comfortable debriefing, sharing feedback, and reflecting with instructors, too. Like healthy, reciprocal partnerships, the efforts of reflection are necessarily communal, informed first by stakeholders’ open and transparent positionally towards the work.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Importantly, across the spectrum that encompasses the development, implementation and reflection on community engaged practices, instructors must make space for honest and transparent feedback– both as giver and recipient. In our experience, this is facilitated long before the semester begins, by building collaborative learning and development environment with partners. This advance work, while time consuming, provides partners an understanding of the scope of the course and how learning objectives can be yoked to their needs. And, too, it is important to strategically prompt students so that their reflections are not merely rote responses composed for a grade, but rather true accounts of their lived experience. Even when these positions challenge instructors’ understanding of the learning environment they worked to build, these insights offer crucial knowledge to improve praxis as we reflect and prepare for future iterations.
WORKS CITED
Ash, Sarah L., and Patti H. Clayton “DEAL: A 3-Step Model for REFLECTION.” Ed. Cindy Williams. 2012.
—- . “Generating, Deepening and Documenting Learning: The Power of Critical Reflection in Applied Learning.” Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education 1 (2009): 25-48.
—- . “The Articulated Learning: An Approach to Guided Reflection and Assessment.” Innovative Higher Education 29, no. 2 (2004): 137–54. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:IHIE.0000048795.84634.4a.
Axtell, Sara. “Creating a Community-Engaged Scholarship (CES) Faculty Development Program Phase One: Program and Skill Mapping,” Office for Public Engagement, University of Minnesota, 2008.
Brizee, Allen. “What Happens When We Fail? Building Resilient Community-Based Research.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, October 15, 2019, 004728161987629. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281619876292.
Brizee, Allen, Paola Pascual-Ferrá, and Giuliana Caranante. “High-Impact Civic Engagement: Outcomes of Community-Based Research in Technical Writing Courses.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, June 12, 2019, 004728161985326. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281619853266.
House, Veronica. “The Reflective Course Model: Changing the Rules for Reflection in Service-Learning Composition Courses.” Reflections 12, no. 2 (2013): 27-65.
Howard, Jeffrey (ed.) Service-Learning Course Design Workbook. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2001.
Merickel, Mark L. “Reflective Practice: The Reflective Practitioner.” Oregon State University School of Education, 1998. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/pte/module2/rp.htm
Shumake, Jessica, and Rachel Wendler Shah. “Reciprocity and Power Dynamics: Community Members Grading Students.” Reflections 17, no. 2 (2017): 5–41.
