Students as Practitioners in a Service Learning Context

Abstract

IntroductionMentoring and teaching content can be powerful ways to enhance understanding and retention of course material for students (Amaral & Vala, 2009); however, developing useful mentoring experiences that incorporate course content can be challenging in a university context. As such, this article focuses on the use of students as mentors to adolescents through the incorporation of family life programming within traditional undergraduate instruction. Specifically, we present a case example of an advanced adolescent development course where students had the opportunity to collaboratively develop and lead a prevention program curriculum for at-risk youth. The class was designed to provide an in-depth study of adolescent development extending over an existing three-semester life course development sequence for students with a particular interest in adolescence. A careful review of peer-reviewed empirical research on adolescent development, and a translation of those concepts into practical elements of providing services to adolescents are fundamental components of this course. Service learning is employed as a way to provide services to the local community, while giving students the opportunity to implement the curriculum that they developed as part of the course. Here, we present the theoretical and empirical bases for using service learning, and in particular the strategy of mentoring, to enhance course understanding and application of course concepts. Finally, we present a case example illustrating the strategies employed, lessons learned, and evaluation of the reflective observations of the students.Kolb's Model of Experiential LearningOver the past several decades, Kolb and Kolb (2005) have developed and refined models of experiential learning that argue for the balance of content and experience alongside reflection and action. The goal of adult learners, they argue, is to become integrated into the profession by developing an ability to access both components of each these dialectic processes. Integrated learning, that which combines experience with conceptualization, has been found to improve adaptive flexibility to both experience based and concept based learning situations (Mainemelis, Boyatziz, & Kolb, 2002). Complementary dialectics balance the tension between conceptualization and experience with the tension between reflection and action. Individuals with learning styles that balance these dialectics have been found to have improved flexibility, and thus, are viewed as more sophisticated learners (Mainemelis, et al., 2002). Transactions between the individual and the environment establish and maintain learning styles (Kolb and Kolb, 2005). Accordingly, the duty of education would be to provide transactions that facilitate the development of balanced learning strategies. Service learning, which typically incorporates reflection, is an educational strategy that promotes experience to complement academic concepts, and reflections that situate actions in a social and academic context. Thus providing service learning experiences that integrate active reflection has the potential to stimulate more sophisticated learning for students.Using Kolb's model of experiential learning (Kolb and Kolb, 2005), Ethridge and Branscomb (2009) chronicled the active learning processes of children and adults by having university students implement an anti-bias curriculum with young children. Service learning is grounded in experiential learning, and provides a natural opportunity to use experiential education to expand on course information and use advanced cognitive skills. In fact, experiential education has been found to be an important component of guidance and teaching personal skills and development (Roaten & Schmidt, 2009). When students develop experiential activities they learn the value of using such a strategy and become comfortable with experiential processes. Students in Ethridge and Branscomb's (2009) study reported that development and leadership of experiential anti-bias program sessions helped to facilitate not only their understanding of the content but also the process of active learning for students, and reflection on their own biases. …