Panel Meets

Participatory Action Research

On Halloween, Oct. 31, 2001, a panel of JSRCC and U of Richmond faculty talked about their projects with interested faculty from JSRCC, echoing some of the ideas from last year's panel, updating reports about grants and actions being taken by an informal consortium that includes JSRCC, U of R, Virginia Union University, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Win Loria (English, JSRCC) described her project in a composition class involving the Children's Medical Insurance Program for qualified poor families to enroll their children.  This project, funded by Richmond Connect, occurred during the Fall Semester, 1999.  Students, some of whose families were actually eligible themselves for the program, canvassed selected neighborhoods and helped poor families to complete applications.  Provided with background information by Jill Hankin, students were able to determine answers for questions about the program and to handle some of the quirks of the forms.  Students reflected on and reported on their learning from their experiences in composition assignments and some in-class activities that were adapted to support the project, e.g. a descriptive essay and some problem-solving sessions; part of the course's research assignment was devoted to this project, as well.  The students presented a question and answer forum that was attended by people from several area agencies; in addition, they drafted their recommendations into business letters for appropriate state legislators.

Loria described her service learning projects as "interesting and invigorating."  Students "communicated in writing about a process that directly affected their lives."  This year, students are arranging their own service learning projects, writing descriptive essays to persuade later students to do the same.  A sort of fair was held by these students, complete with poster presentations about their projects.

Martha Lou Green (on leave from JSRCC to help out VCU with retention and other issues) noted that her involvement with this form of service learning began when she and Roland Moore were sponsored by VA COOL to attend a conference on service learning that was held in Arizona.  Such projects are not just academic, but also involve giving back to the community, which explains their popularity with students.  Some community colleges actually designate selected classes as involving service learning, and service learning sections of courses in several studies retained significantly more students than the other sections.

Green's students in a Child Psychology class kept a reflective journal--audio or written--on how Piaget or Erikson was visible in a child care center that they would visit on their own; they also recorded their own views and feelings about observations.  They not only observed but also tested theories with the children at the center.  Under a Learning in Community Settings (LINCS) grant given to the consortium of colleges and universities in the Richmond area (see below), service learning associates (professors who were using service learning in their classes) designed service learning projects.  One, the Alternative Spring Break proposed by the VCU Office of Community Programs, involves some professors and some personnel from student affairs, especially the Volunteer Coordinator.

Joseph Appiah (History, JSRCC) involved his students in a project for the Virginia Museum of Black History that gave them considerable appreciation of exactly why museums and libraries exist.  The museum had a collection of west African artifacts for which they had scheduled an exhibit, but the staff needed help identifying and labeling these artifacts.  Groups of 5 students were given photographs of 5 artifacts to research.  Part of the students' training for the project included visits to the Hampton University Museum, which has the largest collection of African artifacts in the nation, so that students could see the end product they were aiming toward.  Naturally, the effort was quite frustrating for students, since the objects were so far removed from their culture.   Students whose research efforts with books and discussion with staff at area museums and libraries were successful presented their findings to their classmates to illustrate their process as much as the end product.  As students conducted this extensive and intensive research, placing artifacts into their cultural milieu, they came to appreciate the diversity of the west African cultures.  Dr. Appiah himself is so enthused about this research project that he is writing a manuscript about his homeland to be illustrated with photographs showing people and aspects of his own culture in Ghana.

Nancy Stutts (University of Richmond, Director of Campus Community Partnerships) noted that a grant from Dupont supports many of the recent projects that were submitted under an RFP that went to the four colleges in the informal consortium.  She distinguished component features of participatory action research:

For instance, the Mending Broken Promises project was prompted by the 100th anniversary of juvenile justice.  One problem was how to involve detained juveniles without making them the object of the study.  As a solution, two scenarios were designed--one about a male juvenile inmate, the other about a female juvenile inmate--that contained gaps, which detained juveniles were prompted to fill in with likely details.  The project involved several months of study and resulted in a body of information rarely heard in the juvenile justice system.

The Campus Community Partnerships listserv assists faculty who have project ideas with finding an appropriate area agency to work with, since about 300 nonprofits and community services subscribe to the listserv.   As of November 12, 2001, the consortium is launching a website to foster and assist with such research:  http://www.richmond.edu/connect/

Richard Couto (University of Richmond, Jepson School) originated the idea of the consortium and has nurtured it for several years, though Nancy Stutts has been the director since 1998.  Couto urges faculty to think in terms of not just which readings but which community experiences are right for their courses.  Historically, Campus Compact in the 1980s initiated an academic, research base on community service and service learning.  He suggests that one benefit of service learning is a greater concern for quality by faculty and by students because "You can't turn over a C paper to your community partner."   "When it's working," Couto suggests, "students become a learning community," perhaps even an eager one, capable of self-sustaining the inquiry.

Q & A: During the question-and-answer phase, ideas about grants and sources of further reading were mentioned.  For instance, monetary funds requested in proposals often ask for released time, materials, travel, reception for speakers (food) [and speaker fees or honoraria].

The American Association for Higher Education is publishing a series of books about service learning in the disciplines.  So far there are 18 books in the series ranging from accounting and biology to political science and Spanish.  

One sort of project involves college students designing a demonstration for a concept that students in lower grades have trouble mastering, in cooperation with a teacher of such students, and offering to do the demonstration for several teachers at various schools.

Another common service learning project involves tutoring by college students of elementary or other students in reading, math, etc., reflecting on what stumbling blocks pupils are encountering as they are being tutored, and how to get around such obstacles, such as using tactile (or math "manipulatives") to represent mathematical concepts.

Very often, projects tie in with a research component for a course.

In short, such service learning projects involve not just volunteerism but reflection on the academic principles that can be seen manifested in a properly designed project.  

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