Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: When we speak of service-learning as building a bridge between campus and community, we invoke image of two lands separated by a stream or river. The campus is here, community there, and bridge permits traffic between them. Of course campus and community are seldom really so separate. Especially at metropolitan universities like one where I teach, many students have grown up, live, work, and raise their own children in very neighborhoods we hope to serve. One of my students remembers going to daycare at community center where we've formed our service-learning partnership; another works for center's principal corporate donor; agency director is a graduate of our University whose last faculty partner was once her teacher. And yet bridge metaphor makes sense to us. We all feel that, whatever prior connections we may have had, service-learning relationship does in fact represent a link between two worlds. For faculty, one of most satisfying rewards of Service-Learning partnership is opportunity to glimpse a world of activities and ideas that lie outside our familiar professional realm. Both academia and nonprofit sector are extremely complex and diverse but nevertheless identifiable subcultures characterized by distinctive values, goals, and worldviews. In interest of maintaining respectful and productive service-learning partnerships, we continually seek to more deeply understand two cultures, our common ground, and our differences. This study addresses how selected members of two cultures--a group of faculty and a group of staff members from community agencies--conceptualize key constructs of knowledge and Participants in study took part in focus group discussions during which they talked about their experiences with service-learning. The discussion transcripts were then analyzed to infer of learning that informed their talk and to compare across groups. Theoretical Framework I distinguish between two kinds of theories: one kind that operates as theory conventionally does, supplying a lens through which data can be viewed, and other kind object of study. Capital-T Theories of are coherent, well-developed concepts that philosophers, educational theorists, and psychologists work out over their careers; in service-learning, we rely on Theories of Learning derived from John Dewey, Paulo Freire, William Perry, and David Kolb. These arise in context of an ongoing discussion about what learning is and how it occurs. In recent years, discussion has been enriched by exchanges between cognitive psychologists, who represent learning as, the acquisition of structures that are stored in memory (Greeno, 1997, p. 12), and situated-learning theorists, who define learning as improved participation in communities of practice. (For situative perspective, see, e.g., Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990. For cognitivist critique of this perspective, see Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1996; 1997. A comparative overview appears in Greeno). Contrasts foregrounded in this discussion--especially between learning by means of symbolic representation and learning by means of activity, and between individual and collective learning--informed this analysis. Small-t working theories are clusters of ideas and beliefs that guide everyday behavior. It is commonplace to observe that every teacher is guided by theory, whether he or she knows it or not. When a community partner takes part in educational enterprise, he or she too makes decisions and later can reflect on those decisions in light of a working theory of learning. The goal of analysis was to uncover participants' working of learning. The analysis depends upon two assumptions about talk. One is that participants' talk offers a reliable basis for inferences about their ideas and beliefs. …
Author: Nora Bacon
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1569313547