Journals
Students may be asked to keep a journal as they engage in the service experience. The journals should not merely be simple inventories of events. They should address situations objectively, subjectively and analytically. Instructors may provide questions to guide students in addressing issues and should review the journals periodically. It is helpful to offer written comments, questions, and feedback that will encourage, challenge and provide a dialogue that deepens the students’ thought processes. Taking up an entry each week or reading a weekly online posting can ameliorate worksite problems and challenge students to rigorous intellectual inquiry.
Group Discussions
The groups may involve either the entire class or just small numbers of students. the instructor may allow students to choose their own group members, or s/he can set criteria for group composition (e.g., no groups composed of a single ethnicity or gender), or s/he can assign students to groups. The group members exchange ideas about the course topics and/or the service experiences. The instructor may either pose general or narrowly focused questions for discussion. A scribe may be assigned to submit a summary of the discussion to the instructor or to the rest of the class.
Analytic Papers
Analytic papers provide students with an opportunity to describe their service experience, to evaluate the experience and what they learned from it and to integrate their experiences with course topics. If the papers are assigned at the end of the course, students can make use of ideas derived from class discussion, journals and other reflective activities provided during the course. Papers may include traditional library research, interviews or other quantitative and qualitative methods.