Activities such as journal writing and discussion can offer students the opportunity to process their experiences in the community, and to find the language and ideas to better understand their world.

In high-quality service-learning activities, reflection is not something that occurs at one isolated point in time. Rather, reflection permeates the service experience, and helps every participant to learn and be open to learning at every stage in the process.

Reflection, then, starts even before the service effort starts, when a teacher or facilitator decides how the service experience will be defined. Is service seen as a way for students to gain experience in a particular field or area of expertise? Is it described as a way to meet diverse populations and build community? Is it framed in terms of relationships? of religious principles? of democratic values?

In the Education by Design program at Antioch New England Graduate School, the service experience is framed as a challenge in finding solutions. Known as Problem-Based Service Learning (PBSL), this approach puts the student in the role of problem solver.

Once the service project has been framed within a particular model, students need a strong foundation to build upon. PBSL students engage in a series of experiential loops. These are small-scale exercises in which students practice the steps of identifying and addressing a problem. Students work in teams and engage in interviews as a form of capacity building. This helps students hone their decision-making, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.

Framed around problem-solving, and given a strong foundation, the structure of the service project grows from there. In PBSL, the effort starts with finding out what the problem is. Although many forms of service-learning offer students community problems that have long since been identified, this would undermine the reflection component of Problem-Based Service Learning. PBSL students meet with people in the community and talk to them to find out what problems they feel need fixing. Rather than looking at these people as service recipients, in PBSL they are appropriately described as clients, people who have enlisted the services of others to help solve problems that they cannot solve alone.

In the course of identifying problems, PBSL students build communication skills, and inevitably reflect upon the issues that they are discussing. This way of looking at things continues to inform students service activities as they engage in other stages of Problem-Based Service Learning, focused on such areas as: problem statement, project management, and assessment/exhibition of learning.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

For more information: http://www.edbydesign.org/pbsl/pbsl.html