Service Learning in the Design Field: The Ripple Effect

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the framing of a broad discussion of perspectives on service learning in the field of design education through the pairing of findings from a service-learning program offered at University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) since 2011, with themes and findings from a related literature review. The focus of this discussion is the importance of service learning and a reflection on the need to go beyond its current de facto add-on nature, as service-learning opportunities are often presented as optional or elective components of the curriculum, or worse may become in the eyes of some, mere branding opportunities for colleges. With an acknowledgement of the current structural limitations of service-learning, this paper will advocate for the recognition of its central epistemological role in design education as the pivotal element between critical social theory and pedagogy, and as a concrete essential moment during the design education path that spurs students to see themselves as “part of a whole”, to acknowledge the existence of systemic contextual structures, to learn socially, creating a ripple effect that prepares them to design socially in their professional careers.

Introduction

Service-learning has gradually emerged as a central buzzword (Forsyth et al., 2000) in design education. There is broad general agreement among scholars, educators, and practitioners across disciplines on the benefits of service-learning for both facilitators and served communities and--although such agreement is backed up by considerable research on and the positive outcomes of service-learning (e.g., Astin et al., 2000)--contrasting voices have clearly pointed out its shortcomings and failures (e.g., Eby, 1998). The complexity of service-learning, due to the numerous stakeholders involved (Astin et al., 2000), the delicate balance of power between participants, organizers, educators, and communities served (Pompa, 2002), as well as the real-time, real-world nature of interactions, planning, and enacting of the service-learning, increase the difficulty of examining and assessing the effectiveness and the outcomes of such type of learning at the case-by-case, student-by-student scale. The interwoven personal, professional, and academic relationships involved in service-learning projects, an often mission-driven perspective, and the aspirational and emotional layers of service-learning experiences all require a holistic approach to assessment and a range of tools for capturing the views of faculty, students, institutions, organizations, and community members involved.

Other questions still remain open. In fact, even though service-learning has been employed and tested in multiple forms for over two decades, its impacts on academic learning and on the communities served have not fully been explained (Butin, 2003; Eyler et al., 2001). Furthermore, the long-term impacts of service-learning also still fail to be captured in the vast majority of studies. This paper will examine overarching themes in perceived learning outcomes for the graduate students involved in the project and connect such themes to important aspects and open issues regarding service-learning as suggested by a review of literature. New perspectives on service-learning, such as critical approaches to it, are referenced to reassess the centrality of the “added value” that service-learning can bring to design curricula. In fact it must be noted that though there is a plethora of service-learning offerings in higher education institutions, these courses, even when quite visible overall and actively marketed as unique elements that distinguish one program from others, often occupy peripheral positions in the curriculum.

Background

Understanding the Service and the Learning

Service-learning can be understood as a form of teaching and learning that prioritizes real-world experience and multi-person interaction. Sigmon (1979) defined service-learning as an experiential educational approach based on “reciprocal learning”. Therefore service-learning really occurs only if “both the providers and recipients of service benefit from the activities” (Furco, 1996, p.2). This broad standard for service-learning is considered a basic threshold to distinguish it from other forms of experiential learning such as volunteerism, in which service in prioritized over learning, or internship, in which learning is prioritized over service. But distinctions are not easily made, as the assessment of benefits for all stakeholders involved often proves to be a complex endeavor. In particular, while capturing benefits for students involved in the projects seems achievable, measuring the outcomes of service-learning projects for recipients has proven to be historically challenging (Cruz & Jill, 2000). In addition, current approaches to service-learning bring to question the notion itself of benefits, and advocate for more subtle definitions of the ambivalent nature of the relationship between higher education institutions and served communities (Mitchell & Humpries, 2007). Finally, the literature on service-learning suggests other essential traits that further refine the definition of authentic service-learning: On one hand, the internal issue of the relevance of service-learning to the academic content of the course, and on the other hand, the external issue of ensuring the active role of members of the served community in defining the service versus simply accepting it passively (Butin, 2003).

Intersected Social, Epistemological, and Postructuralist Perspectives

Service-learning can also be defined and assessed through other lenses. Its birth can be understood as a response to political and economic contexts (Kezar & Rhoads, 2001). During the 1960s and 70s, social movements facilitated critical approaches to dominant and positivist discourses in the academy, and favored changes in curricula that aimed to address the lack of representation of perspectives and voices of underserved and minority communities (Lyman & Corroto, 2010).

The importance of experience in education and its connection with the ideas of freedom and social norms have been advocated long before in foundational publications by John Dewey (1938/1997), and have been further developed later on by Paulo Freire (1970/2000). The idea of learning as a by-product of social activities is one of the philosophical pillars of service-learning. The importance of learning socially through collaboration versus competition brings to the table foundational ideas about how knowledge is constructed and recognized. These philosophical underpinnings simultaneously links together the epistemological question of how knowledge is created and understood and the question about authority in knowledge. By whom is such knowledge warranted? And furthermore, what is the role of the educational process in establishing, reinforcing, questioning, or overcoming the status quo of social norms? Paulo Freire questioned neutrality of the educational process and its openness to be used as either a tool for conformity or one with a transformative potential that enables social change. While these questions have long been intertwined with the origin of service-learning, they have recently began to occupy front seat positions in the definition of new conceptualizations and assessment strategies for service-learning.

Participants in service-learning programs become active community members while also engaging with academic work. The linkages between service-learning and academic and civic learning have been well detailed in the Service-Learning Course Design Workbook by the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (2001), and by earlier publications (e.g., Bringle & Hatcher, 1995) focusing on enhanced sense of civic responsibility as one of the key outcomes of service-learning. The idea of participants as civically engaged actors that help communities is captivating, but may mask a dark side of the matter. A new and more critical understanding of service-learning has gradually spread among scholars, administrators, and organizations involved in service-learning, in regard to several intertwined issues. At the core of the critique sit the multifaceted issues of power, race, and social bias. The issue of power imbalance between those “doing for” and those “being served” (Butin, 2003) has emerged, in conjunction with the new awareness that service-learning may potentially have a disempowering effect on “served” communities as the giver is granted power over the receiver of service (Pompa, 2002). Issues of race and social status (Green, 2001) and education level (Butin 2003) are being raised to explain the limitations of service-learning and provide opportunities for redefining what service-learning seeks to become. Whiteness in service-learning has been acknowledged as critical issue (Green, 2001; Mitchell et al., 2012), one that visibly reflects systemic problems in the structure of education in the United States. At a conceptual level, the definition by privileged groups of the needs of underprivileged minorities and the framing of such needs as deficiencies (Astin et al., 2000) is also critical. This problem is connected to a potential lack of a broad understanding of systemic, structural societal issues by the students involved in service-learning, in particular if such experiences are short-term. Students may only develop a “truncated understanding of the nature of social problems” (Eby, 1998, p.1). In this respect, the development of an ability to understand social contexts and broad patterns, defined as sociological imagination (Astin et al. 2000) is advocated as a crucial priority for service-learning. Such broad and more profound understandings of structural issues can be effectively approached through reflection and critical analysis of service learning (Mitchell 2008).

In order to overcome the potential limitations of service-learning as a process that replicates and strengthens conformity to current power systems and normative social structures, it is imperative that service-learning be understood through the lens of social change. The idea of redistribution of power among participants/stakeholders in the service-learning experience, a search for authentic relationships within and across groups, and the embracing of a social change perspective have been identified as the three most cited elements in the literature in regard to a new approach identified as critical service-learning (Mitchell, 2008), which seeks to dismantle potential conflict of interests and hidden inequalities in the service-learning relationships, and more openly embraces social justice aims. This approach overlaps with postructuralist and political perspectives on service-learning. The central question is understanding how service-learning operates as a process that “constructs, reinforces or disrupts particular unarticulated societal norms of' being and thinking” (Butin, 2003, p. 1683). Service-learning has both the potential for questioning teaching and learning roles, as well as roles of serving and being served, and more broadly the potential to promote the crossing of borders (Hayes & Cuban, 1997) in relation to norms of definition, control, and access to knowledge and power (Butin, 2003). The recognition that “needs” are systemic and not individual, and that they are derived from structural inequities in power relations at the social level, which also include restricted access to knowledge, is therefore the catalytic element towards the engagement of postructuralist and political perspectives in service-learning.

The Teaching and Learning the City project

Overview

Teaching and Learning the City is a one-semester long service-learning graduate seminar that has been offered in 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2018 at UDM. Graduate architecture students lead activities focused on design principles with students at partner K-12 schools in Detroit. The project has brought UDM students to the Detroit Community Schools Elementary and High School, the Gesu Catholic Middle School, and the Palmer Park Preparatory Academy Middle School, all in the city of Detroit. The semester-long collaboration is developed with one class of either elementary or middle- or high-school students at a single school. This enables the UDM students to gradually know the younger students and to progressively gear the activities to their skill levels, interests, and personalities. This program is not a one-day event, or multiple school project, and therefore lends itself to iterative work in the planning, enacting, and assessing of activities throughout the semester.

The graduate students begin the semester by conducting literature review and case study research. They study key pedagogical theories for the specific partner age group, as well as service-learning approaches. There is usually a first encounter with the younger students at the school, which is a meet and greet event in which the UDM students attempt to get a sense of the classroom dynamics and personal interests of the younger students. The graduate students are then charged with designing, in teams of three or four, an eleven- to six-week curriculum, depending on the year and specific circumstances. They identify core topics and ideas for activities and develop project-based, hands-on learning activities targeting specific architectural and urban design principles, with the general understanding that projects presented during the semester can differ in scale, but should refer to scaffolding strategies in order to reinforce and build upon previously introduced concepts. The students begin by understanding which concepts they will focus on, the specific goals and objectives, what tools and what pedagogical concepts they will engage with, and how they plan to measure outcomes of the activity. After a three-week preparation period, the college students begin to lead weekly activities at the partner school, and also continue to meet weekly as a class to reflect on the service-learning and develop subsequent activities and learning materials. Reflections, in form of group or class discussion, individual writing and essays, are essential components of the course. The graduate students gain a teaching know-how as they implement the curriculum during weekly lessons at the school. By doing so, the graduate students have an opportunity to reflect on their own level of understanding of those architectural concept they are about to explain, on their own initial assumptions about service-learning, and also on their own assumptions about teaching, education, the role of educational institutions, and the structure of public education in Michigan.

Overall the process of teaching and learning that is fostered in the class is reversible, as students are constantly shifting from learner to teacher, and bidirectional, as students begin to blur distinctions between being a teacher who is learning to teach, and learning, at a different level, from those who are “being taught”. The process of brainstorming, discussion, trial run of activities with peers, the presentation of activities to the younger students, the subsequent group discussions and evaluations, as well as the reflections in group and individually, spur the graduate students to question the separation of teaching from learning as they engage in the repeated cycles of learning and teaching. These cycles of thought, action and reflection (Jacob & Associates, 1996) allow students to become active participants in the class, and to gradually shift from passive knowledge to “actively knowing”, through continuous problem solving and critical thinking.

The Teaching and Learning the City project pursues a dual set of goals. The students at the partner school are exposed to process-based design ideas, in-class collaboration, and an understanding of broad architectural and urban phenomena, with the goal of spurring increased observational skills, sense of empowerment, and self confidence. Goals for the UDM graduate students include: increased problem solving, awareness of real word urban and social issues, increased sense of civic engagement, and broadly the questioning of one’s one convictions and ideas about the role of service-learning in education and the value of their service-learning experience. An underlying assumption of the course is that the growth enabled through the project will likely impact future professional and personal goals of participants, as service-learning have been found to impact future engagement in service by students (Astin et al, 2000). From a social perspective, graduate students are in essence asked to become involved in the community around the UDM campus, and therefore to become more effectively members of the broader community, and implicitly to question their position in the regard to the de facto isolation of the UDM campus, via fences and gates, from other communities in the area. The unasked question lingering over the students through the semester is: “While we learn here within the walls and gates of our campus, who else is learning nearby, and what and how are they learning”? This is a particularly controversial question overall, in a private mission-driven institution with relatively high tuition and a limited presence of Detroit natives or African American students in the School of Architecture. Nevertheless, it is an important question to be asked, especially at the final year of the architecture curriculum, in one of the final courses students will take before they officially enter the workforce as professionals.

The issue of diversity in the project was approached from the beginning of the course through discussions and readings. Diversity within the UDM student group has alternatively increased and decreased over the years, and while in some years students from Middle-Eastern countries, and Asian-American or African-American students formed half of the group, in other years there was a completely Caucasian student group. While part of the success of the course resides in the opportunity for a much-needed exposure to diversity from the UDM student perspective, the striking overall “whiteness” of the UDM group in relationship to the almost exclusively African American ethnicity of the K-12 students was an initial concern. Diversity, though, was not only related to ethnicity, but also to age, educational level, cultural background, and inferred social-economic status.

The Pedagogical Perspective

In addition to the service-learning perspective, which was introduced in the course through readings and discussions, another important component of the coursework was the understanding and discussion of the pedagogical perspective. The graduate students were charged to teach, and learn, from younger students. Therefore readings and reflections on different perspectives on cognitive development, such as those by Piaget, Vygotsky, and Montessori were included. Learning, within Piaget’s cognitive theory, was studied as the engagement in adaptation: the building of schemata, or mental structures that enable children to organize the world; assimilation, as the process by which an already existing schema is applied to the external world and helps the children to incorporate new information; and accommodation as the process by which a schema changes or a new one is created to better fit new information or experience (Blume, 2007). Activities included a theoretical component and a practical one, as cognitive development during middle childhood enables children to begin conceptualizing core principles and relating applied pragmatic experiences to abstract concepts. Additionally, as suggested by Blume (2007), activities were geared toward problem-based learning, as this favors both self-directed learning and collaboration. Vygotsky’s process of scaffolding, by which learning is consolidated and expanded, was also acknowledged, and the graduate students strived to highlight one concept and thoroughly investigated the said concept for several sessions before building on it with a subsequent and related concept. Other guideposts considered were: the contextualization of learning skills; the connection with experiences; asking questions to increase interest and involvement; and presenting tasks just above the competency level of the younger students.

While one team of graduate students took the lead in developing, preparing, introducing and facilitating the activity at the partner school, the remaining graduate students acted as collaborators during the planning process, and as facilitators during the activity by interacting at the table level with the younger students throughout the activity. All materials, including a methodological chart with targeted design concepts and pedagogical approaches, rubrics and prototypes, as well as products from the activity, such as models, collages, feedback forms, and class notes, were used to collaboratively evaluate the activity and reflect on the service-learning after the activity was concluded.

Methods

The research spanning the years 2011-2018 was conducted primarily through qualitative methods. Multiple data collection methodologies were utilized to reduce misinterpretation of data, in a triangulation process (Creswell, 1994). The process of data reduction was based on the identification of regularities in students or other participant’ responses (Marshall & Rossman, 1995) and the consequent identification of emerging topics (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). We also identified positive, neutral and negative indicators in written responses (Dukhan et al., 2009).

Class discussions, formal written reflections, essays, and surveys were employed. Class discussions were held roughly once a week during the course. Students were asked to engage in discussions about readings and to question themselves about ways to address these topics during activities at the partner school. Formal written reflections were also assigned prior to the beginning of the service, half-way into the semester, and after the completion of the service. These reflections assisted the graduate students in deeper thinking about their experience, their role, and their personal perceptions, feelings, motivations, and understanding of the service. Interim and final essay papers were also assigned and allowed for the discussion of personal perceptions and individual learning in relation to broader issues and specific perspectives on service-learning suggested by the literature review. Pre- and post- surveys were also administered to both the graduate students and the partner students using a 5-point Likert scale. These surveys captured graduate students’ perceptions, and tracked their prior knowledge about service learning, their sense of responsibility towards the community, and their personal expectations and perceptions about the outcomes of the course. Pre- and post-surveys administered to the partner school, captured the middle school students’ self-assessments of their interests, abilities, and expectations in regard to the class. Utilizing both pre- and post-surveys allowed measurement of any changes in the responses given. Inconsistency in numbers throughout the years, and the relatively small class of graduate students called for a qualitative approach; therefore surveys were used as a reference and not as a basis for the analysis of data for this paper. Additionally, feedback forms were completed by the graduate students after every activity. These short forms allowed students to record what they were seeing, doing, and feeling in the middle school classroom, and acted as organized field notes of the service.

Before presenting the results from the study, it must be acknowledged that the course has several limitations, one of which is structural as it relates to the short duration of the program, as it is a one-semester course. Other limitations include the failure to fully understand the nature of relationships with the educational community served, and the lack of evidence on long-term impacts of the program.

Themes and their Contextualization in Literature Review

Several themes emerged from the analysis of the graduate students’ perceptions. Selected themes will be discussed in relation to perspectives and conceptualizations of service-learning suggested by the literature review. Quotes from students form various years will be used throughout this section of the paper as a mode to condense large amounts of data.

Theme 1. PRECONCEIVED IDEAS and SHIFTS in PERCEPTIONS or “They have metal detectors and have class in trailers” (Student, 2013, Initial class discussion)

A shift in perceptions and the uncovering and questioning of preconceived ideas happened throughout the course and became more apparent towards the end of it. Preconceptions included an expected discomfort in the partner school classroom and also in relation to the condition of the school; the anticipation of needing to over-simplify concepts and the assumptions of lower learning ability levels of the younger students; and the expectations of low interest levels and short attention spans. Graduate students also reported having preconceptions about service learning and its impacts/outcomes, and about the relationship between learning and teaching, that were initially being seen as unrelated. Students admitted “judging the book by its cover”. Shifts in perceptions led students through a two-fold process, which began with the self-acknowledgment of having underlining assumptions, and subsequently led to the questioning of these assumptions. Several graduate students reported being impressed by the younger students’ communications skills and classroom abilities, finding comfort in teaching and learning with them, and being pleasantly surprised at the younger students’ contributions to the course and to the graduate students’ learning.

Literature reviewed confirms findings from the study and highlights several aligned topics. For example, Howard (1993) reported how important the role of faculty is in limiting the possibilities that students’ preconceived notions and stereotypes about the communities served are perpetuated. Preconceived and stereotypical notions bring to mind issues of bias and power imbalance, and potentially negative impacts of service-learning in disempowering the community served, as discussed earlier in the present paper. Burr (1997) highlighted the relationship between the shift in one’s view of the world and knowledge, and the full understanding of it, through use of service-learning. Thus, the Teaching and Learning the City course semester-long activities at the school gave the graduate students the opportunity to apply their knowledge as a tool, and we argue that this, more than the acquisition of such knowledge through readings and class discussions, promoted a shift in their belief system. The following quotes reveal the process of acknowledging and questioning of initial positions towards the students in the partner school:

“It was really impressive to see how an 8th grade student can absorb [an] architectural concept, analyze it and work towards it.” (Student 2016, final paper)

“Before this course, I was kind of skeptical about any schools within the city.” (Student 2016, Final paper)  

Theme 2. EMBRACING MULTIPLICITY AND ALLOCENTRISM IN ROLES, or

“I am starting to see myself more clearly as a player in dialogue and not just the main character” (Student, 2016, Post-reflection)

A central theme in students’ perceptions revolved around the identification of one’s role while interacting with younger students. A gradual shift emerged and brought students from a dichotomous approach to interaction: framed as “us/them” to a more inclusive “we” approach. This theme also related to the understanding of where “I fit” in this course, and how “my actions” have an effect, and involved a shift of focus from hierarchical to peer interactions and from an emphasis on directing to that of collaborating. Students reconsidered more subtly their role/s as learners, teachers, observers, collaborators, peers, and listeners. While initially preoccupied with teaching, they began to understand that they were teaching while learning, and morphed their own role from that of a facilitator to that of a collaborator when interacting with the younger students. There is also evidence that a shift from passive student to active and inspired contributor to the course occurred.

The importance of establishing collaborative non-hierarchical relationships between stakeholders towards more balanced power relationship is also suggested by the research literature. Green (2001) reported the necessity for students involved in service-learning to question their expertise levels and contextualize such expertise, to acknowledge other areas of expertise that they may not possess, and are instead mastered by the community members served. This is an essential step in understanding the difference between “working for” and “collaborating with” other stakeholders in service-learning. Students in the Teaching and Learning the City course reflected on the nature of relationships with the younger students and framed such relationships as bidirectional. The following quotes exemplify such reflections:

“We learned more from them than they from us. We (as facilitators) learned of new and different realities in the urban context and shared ours with them”. (Student, 2013, final paper)

“… I felt it was the best activity [The community development, neighborhood game board] to learn from the students about what they thought about this neighborhood, their own, or the neighborhoods in general.” (Student 2016, Post Survey)

Theme 3. THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SYSTEM STRUCTURAL ISSUES, or “Not every child receives the same education and this is frustrating.” (Student 2018, Post-reflection)

Throughout the semester students began to acknowledge issues of inequality in regard to access to education. As they drew deeper connections between themselves and the younger students and acknowledged similarities in their ways of learning, acting, and thinking, they also, albeit sometimes reluctantly, began to voice concerns about social injustice in relation to the question of educational opportunities. Structural disparities in public education between the suburbs and the city of Detroit became concrete issues in their eyes. The class size, the unfortunate low level of maintenance of some of the classrooms, and other contextual elements were understood as evident symptoms of larger societal unanswered questions of equality and fair opportunities for all children. At the end of the semester, three items colluded together and produced a strong impact on students: 1) The deeper connections between themselves and the younger students, 2) the reliance on iterative reflection, as a primary mode to absorb, process, and reorganize their systems of beliefs, and 3) the acknowledgement of structural social issues. As a result of these three components of the experience, students seem to develop an authentic appreciation for their own engagement in social change. They began to frame their role of future design professionals in relation to a responsibility to the community. The following selected quotes exemplify the various interconnected aspects of this three-partite impact.

Deeper connections:

“I had to learn how to change my approach based on each student”. (Student, 2013, Post-reflection)

“It was very important to find an area of relation with them…”. (Student, 2013, Final paper)

Reflections:

This class has helped me become aware of the usefulness of reflection as it pertains to understanding others and how you relate to them.” (STUDENT 2016, Post-Reflection)

“Unlike private reflection, this medium [group discussion] allowed the topics to be right in your face, and confronting them in the lives of my classmates gave me a very human way to look back at my own life.”

(Student, 2016 Midterm paper)

Social change and future career plans:

“I wish to know my community personally and to be an active member. This experience has helped shape how I relate to people, especially of a different age.” (Student 2016, Mid-Reflection)

“…people think and perceive things very differently and [I] know it is my job to adapt to others in the design process”(Student, 2013, Post-Reflection)

The importance of reflection in service-learning has long been asserted (e.g., Sigmond, 1979), and also recently restated by several scholars. More recently though, the role of reflection as a tool to increase students’ sociological imagination (Astin, 2001) has been put forth as a tool to overcome potentially myopic approaches to service-learning that fail to broaden student perceptions about larger societal structural issues and therefore reinforce current structures of power and inequalities. Finally, advocates of critical service-learning call for the embracing of authentic relationships in service-learning (Mitchell, 2008).

Finally, the themes that emerged through the analysis of qualitative data from the Teaching and Learning the City course point to a core set of perceived outcomes for the graduate students. These outcomes include: 1) Personal growth, which spans from the understanding of one’s one role in teaching and learning to the questioning of assumptions and preconceived ideas; 2) Deeper thinking in relation to the self and others as it pertains to building relationships, interacting collaboratively, the appreciation for diversity, and the acknowledgement of diverse perspectives; and 3) A new understanding of one’s multiple and interconnected roles as facilitator, educator, community member, and future professional, also in relation to a new understanding of the social context and structural societal issues.

“I have learned a ridiculous amount of knowledge about children, teaching, though process, and most of all, [about] myself”. “[this] I think was the most important part of this course: self-discovery”. (Student, 2013, Final paper)

Conclusions

Final considerations about the course can best be framed through postructuralist perspectives on service-learning and the acknowledgement of its transformative component. Butin (2003) discussed this postructuralist perspective in terms of the perpetuation or disruption of dual relationships, such as questions of “who the teacher is and who the learner is [and] who the served is and who is doing the serving” (Butin, 2003, p.1683). Similarly, hooks (1994) referred to the questioning of the hierarchy and authority of the student-teacher relationship. Furthermore, Butin (2003) links the transformative component of service-learning to the disruption of notions of self and otherness (Butin, 2003).

The Teaching and Learning the City service-learning course provided students opportunities to question teaching and learning relationships, the multiplicity of roles of one’s self, and broader systems of relationships at the societal level. Reflection and action both reinforced this ripple effect. Interestingly, the transformative process began at the scale of the self as the relationship one nurtures with one’s own beliefs; gradually moved to the scale of self and others, peers or younger students as multiple non-hierarchical relationships allow us to operate and gain feedback on our actions; and finally grew to the scale of self and society as a context in which the self and others are immersed through the acknowledgement of the existence of systemic contextual structures. The following quotes capture important shifts in scale, as students begin to think of themselves as part of a whole and stretch towards a larger societal scale:

“In this way, service learning is reflective, and sets you up with an opportunity to intimately view yourself as part of a whole.” (Students 2016, Midterm paper)

“This class really humbled me into knowing what has been provided for me in my life”. (Student, 2013, Final paper)

“Not every child receives the same education and this is frustrating.” (Student 2018,  Post-reflection)

Exposure to diversity became a trigger element to re-evaluate beliefs and assumptions. Diversity enables border crossing, and allows students to see and experience previously unknown physical, cultural, intellectual, and social aspects of reality and to interact with groups of people who would otherwise not be encountered. As stated by Butin (2003): “In so doing, service learning from a poststructuralist perspective provides a fruitful occasion to make visible and begin to question the sui generis of such borders and definitions” (p. 1683).

Diversity simultaneously revealed different viewpoints, perspectives, and identities, and brought to the eyes of the UDM students a new awareness of similarities. They bonded with the younger students, acknowledging similar ways of learning and growing. Similarities allowed inequalities to become evident. “All children” want to learn. “All children” should be given equal opportunities, became discussion topics toward the end of the semester. The following quote captures this more fine-grained conceptualization of diversity as similarity:

“I assumed these children would be very different from myself, but found they are very similar to us” (Student, 2013, reflection after)

In assessing the role of service learning in design education it is important to recognize the potentials of the ripple effect of service-learning as it specifically pertains to the profession of architect, planner, urban designer, developer, and related professional figures. As discussed earlier, students engaged in cycles of acknowledgment and questioning of assumptions, beliefs, system of values, and the status quo of systemic issues from the scale of self to the scale of self plus others immersed in a larger context. This progressive process of “complexifying” of opinions, views, and ideas about reality also impacted students’ ideas about their future career as designer. While all design professionals may agree that design is for people, and while participatory practices are becoming more and more widespread, the question of pedagogical approaches and design curricula that effectively promote collaborative versus competitive modes of work and real abilities to be open to diverse perspectives is still an unsolved and ever-shifting challenge. A series of questions surface: What elements of service-learning courses should also be tackled by non-service learning course to reinforce positive benefits of service-learning and build upon the ripple effect? Should service-learning be mandatory for design curricula? Should service-learning courses be offered in foundation years or as upper level courses? The final question that comes to mind is reminiscent of Freire’s work and could be framed as: “Do current design curricula form graduates who will, in their future work, accept, conform, and reinforce to the current status quo, or who will question it, disrupt it and bring change, towards equality and justice”?

“I think that this is a very important course for young architects to take. Especially those that will be involved with making decisions in urban areas.” (Students 2016, Post Survey)\

“I want to be an active community member. Yes, before I had little appreciation [for] the role of community members, but now I have a better understanding of the positive impact that can be done by someone.” (Students 2016, Mid- Reflection)

“I want to be a community member that can help people realize the potential the community can have.” (Students 2018, Post Reflection)

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