Stories From Service: The Power of Stories as Tools for Cognitively Challenging Reflection in Service-Learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Engagement, Reflection, and Identity Development Through Service-Learning

Abstract

Cognitively challenging reflection has been identified as one of the most important elements in effective service-learning. While the need for reflection is widely recognized, how it functions is less well understood. This presentation reports findings from a qualitative, sociocultural study that demonstrates how stories from service were central to students’ process of reflection. These stories were transformed over time as students were exposed to other stories that acted as either counterexamples or supporting evidence. The study presented here used Cultural Historical Activity Theory to examine reflection in service-learning as a civic practice where stories from service became tools for understanding and talking about others.

Author

• Christopher George Pupik Dean, University of Pennsylvania