Reflection, Civic Engagement, and Learning Communities Marie Eaton, Fairhaven College, Western Washington University and Judith Patton, Portland State University “In community-based education, reflection is learning, everything else is 1 9. just doing.” Portland State University (PSU) is a comprehensive, urban public institution. Over the past two decades, the reform of undergraduate education has The university has more than 22,000 focused on engaging students in their own learning and empowering them to enrolled students and serves a population become self-motivated and self-evaluative. While the initial ideas behind this of more than 40,000 individuals in credit reform, including the use of learning communities, active learning strategies, and noncredit classes each year, including service- or community-based learning, and new forms of assessment, grew out of nearly one third of the Oregon University a concern about student learning, that interest is now shifting to embrace the System’s enrolled graduate students. The notion of civic engagement as well. We have begun to ask the question: En- location of the university in its urban hanced student learning for what purpose? For many, the response is, for a more setting provides the impetus for engaging engaged citizenry and just society. with the community as part of the Other chapters in this monograph explore how the intersection between curriculum. University Studies is the learning communities and service- or community-based learning can provide general education program required for some answers to the concerns about our current model of education and the way the majority of students. It is a four-year it prepares students. According to education reformer, John Abbott, the old learning communities program. Its structure of education (sequential classes, lectures, note-taking, and multiple- interdisciplinary curriculum is based on choice testing) was designed to engender an ability to restate, rather than create four goals: inquiry and critical thinking, new learning. This kind of education may have been well suited to the develop- communication, the diversity of human ment of graduates to work in manufacturing and assembly line jobs, but these experience, and social responsibility and attitudes and behaviors are at odds with the skills and predispositions needed for ethical issues. Each year the learning a knowledge-based society. John Abbott lists “creativity, enterprise, purposeful- community is shaped differently to achieve ness, a good sense of community responsibility and collaborative work” as skills, the program goals at that level. The attitudes, and expertise that students currently need (Marchese 1996). He agrees foundational course, Freshman Inquiry, is that some of the basics of education continue to be needed—literacy, an under- yearlong and designed by an interdiscipli- standing and use of quantitative material and an ability to communicate. Never- nary team of faculty with peer mentors. It theless, students need also “the ability to conceptualize and solve problems that introduces students to all four goals of the entails abstraction (the manipulation of thoughts and patterns), systems thinking program through thematic content. The (interrelated thinking), experimentation, and collaboration.” (Marchese 1996). middle portion of the program consists of Statistics (Eyler and Giles 1999) showing a steady decline of involvement of twenty-seven different upper-division students in the democratic process support Abbott’s concerns in that those same theme-based clusters that are introduced attitudes and behaviors are necessary in preparing students for participation in a through term-long learning communities democratic society. The authors in this monograph agree that reflective practices called Sophomore Inquiry. Students are a central feature in the success of learning communities that infuse service- choose three different Sophomore Inquiry learning. Reflective work is essential to building the connections among the courses to expand their range of knowl- community of learners, the material from the classroom, and the larger commu- edge and then specialize in one area by nity concerns. Nevertheless, even beyond those considerations, reflection be- taking three upper-division cluster courses comes an even more critical component if we hope students will make the larger in the chosen cluster. The final course is a connection to engagement in democracy. Reflection at the meta-level offers the Senior Capstone. The Capstones are opportunity for faculty to link the skills, understandings, and experiences of the courses in which interdisciplinary groups learning community course to understandings about the power and responsibili- of students work with a faculty facilitator ties of membership in a democratic society. and a community partner to address LEARNING COMMUNITIES MONOGRAPH SERIES Integrating Learning Communities with Service-Learning 75 needs and issues in the metropolitan Given the desire to improve student learning and to prepare students who region or beyond. At this level the will be engaged citizens, pedagogies that appear to be most effective in develop- learning communities can be composed ing those attributes and skills in students become increasingly important. As of one six-credit, two three-credit or others have demonstrated in this monograph, connecting the pedagogies of three two-credit terms, each encompass- learning communities and service-learning can create powerful learning environ- ing a community-based learning project ments for both students and faculty. But in order to capitalize on the power of that contains a large reflective compo- this interaction, thoughtful reflection is an essential part of the dynamic. nent to connect the theoretical material with the community experience. Each What is Reflection? Capstone course is required to conclude with a final product that may be a report, Reflection, as described by educational philosopher Max Van Manen, (1987) presentation, technological product, or is a practice that constructs understanding through dialectic between theory and performance. For more information our personal experience. Reflection invites the learner to move back and forth about the institution visit www.pdx.edu between the texts being studied and the application in the community; a practice or www.ous.pdx.edu for additional that approaches knowledge as emergent and transactional, with the learner information about University Studies. Judy engaged in a continual reframing, recasting, and reconstruction of past under- Patton is the director of PSU’s University standing. This kind of pedagogy values personal experiences in applied settings Studies, and in that capacity she guides as an avenue to develop fresh appreciation for tensions between ideas and the associated faculty development theories and as a tool to help rethink the assumptions on which our initial under- program, which emphasizes the value of standings of a problem are based. If that problem has wider social application, reflective practices in student learning. the next level of reflection around democratic participation is even more potent. Students can be brought into a consideration of their place as citizens, but more Fairhaven College at Western Washington important, be given a chance to experience making change at a personal level. University is an interdisciplinary Often, students do not participate in civic life because they have a sense of undergraduate college of about 400 powerlessness. Inherent in learning community and service-learning, with their students within a larger comprehensive reflective components, is the ability to help students examine the ways in which regional university that serves more than their own actions and voices do matter and to empower them to make change, in 12,000 students. Fairhaven, begun in 1967 their own lives, in their education, and politically. as an experimental college within Educational theorists have been writing about the importance of reflection as Western Washington University, exists part of the learning process for decades. David Kolb’s learning cycle (Kolb 1981) today as an undergraduate learning included “reflective observation” as an essential part of a four-stage process. community defined by five attributes: (1) John Dewey reminded us that “Reflective thinking . involves a state of doubt, interdisciplinary study, (2) student- hesitation, perplexity, mental difficulty . [Reflective] persons . weigh, designed studies and evaluation of ponder [and] deliberate . a process of evaluating what occurs to them in order learning, (3) examination of issues arising to decide upon its force and weight for their problem.” (Dewey 1933, 120) Jack from a diverse society, (4) development Mezirow (Mezirow and Associates 2000) reminds us that reflective discourse of leadership and a sense of social involves both critical assessment of our assumptions and an examination of responsibility, and (5) curricular, instruc- collective or common experiences to either affirm or shift and transform our tional, and evaluative innovation. previously held judgments. And as we move into the world of work, Chris Fairhaven has a national reputation for Argyris (1991) speculates that effective employees and managers must move student involvement in learning, and was beyond problem-solving to reflection about how they go about defining and solving problems. According to service-learning leaders Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles, “It