In service-learning courses, students play a vital role as active community researchers through application of praxis. Intentions of service-learning education serves as pedagogical means to amplify student learning through implementation of their studies into practice. As active learners in the community, students generate application of praxis and adopt community based knowledge. Through course assigned reflection activities, students can apply knowledge from communities back to the University. Fueling dual roles as a University student and active community agent, students can serve as a medium to reversing praxis by rotating practice back into theory; acting as producers of knowledge. Through reflection and conceptualization of their field learning experience, students can generate community knowledge and bring it back into the University and inform curriculum of community initiatives and agency.
For this paper, I aim to distinguish the role of students as knowledge producers. Students who share their experiences to peers and faculty members amplify community-based knowledge didactically and reflectively back into the institution. To demonstrate this, I will interview instructors of service-learning courses on how their course curriculum stimulates student reflection of their community learning and how students are able to reflect their experience back to the classroom. I aim to analyze whether students play a vital role of bridging field knowledge back to the University through reflective learning experiences.
