How does the service experience relate to course concepts?
Did the experience contradict or reinforce course concepts?
How did course material help you overcome obstacles or dilemmas in the service experience?
What aspects of your learning may be due to your service experience?
Issue Focus Questions
Why is there need of your service?
What do you perceive as the underlying issue, and why does it exist?
Who is involved in this issue? (in helping solve it, or perpetuating it)
Do you see connections to public policy at the local, state, or national level?
What social, economic, political and educational systems are maintaining and perpetuating it?
What would it take to positively impact the situation (from individuals, communities, education, and government)?
Client Focus Questions
What similarities do you share with the people you are serving? What differences?
What are their strengths? What can you learn from them and their strengths?
How might you be perceived by the people you are serving?
What might a typical day be like for the people you serve? What pressures might they they confront?
How might their situation impact their life socially, educationally, politically, recreational, etc.?
What stereotypes or biases are you confronting about the people you serve? Where did these biases come from? Have you reconceptualized these stereotypes? What new information lead you to do this?
Self / Identity questions
How would you describe your culture and identity? (What cultural and identity factors have made you who are? E.g. gender, national heritage, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, generation, locality, sexual orientation, education, etc.)
How might your culture and identity influence how you see [people], how you interact with people, and how they perceive you?
What assumptions do you have about the people you will encounter? Where did those assumptions come from?
How might your assumptions influence the way you interact with people?
Career focus questions
What skills do you want to develop or enhance as a result of this experience? How might these skills be valuable in the future? How might you develop/enhance these skills?
How might you use this experience to build your professional network? Who do you want to meet, how might you stay in touch, and how might these people support you in your future?
What have you learned you about your likes/dislikes and your strengths/areas for improvement as they relate to future employment? What are your next steps for continuing to build skills and gain experience?
How might this this experience look on your resume? How are you going to talk about it in an interview?
Self Focus/Personal Development Questions
In what ways is your involvement with your service program challenging?
What about your personality helps you move past these challenges?
What personal qualities (e.g. leadership, communication skills, compassion, etc.) have you developed through service-learning? How will these qualities help you in the future?
What happened that made you feel you would like to pursue this field as a career? Or not?
Civic Focus Questions
What can you do with the knowledge you gained from the experience to promote change?
How is what you study preparing you to address this issue?
How do your lifestyle choices affect this issue? Is there anything you are doing/not doing that perpetuates the situation?
How has your orientation to or opinion about this issue changed through this experience?