Service-learning and community relationships

Prior to the introduction of a service learning final project within the course “Introduction to Networked Systems”, students completed a final project in which they were asked to be consultants for a fictional public library.  Students were assigned to one of several teams, each of which were to provide recommendations to the library board (their fellow students) regarding the significant upgrade to the existing technology services within the library.  The project required research into the types of technologies currently implemented within libraries as well as to research newly emerging technologies.  They also needed to balance overall costs to most effectively meet the stated objectives within the “RFP” presented to them mid-semester.

During the Fall 2000 semester, about half the students participated in the traditional final project, while the other half chose to participate in a final project in which they refurbished donated computers, installed operating systems, and networked those computers together.   These computers were subsequently installed by the final project teams at the end of the semester in one of several non-governmental organizations within the East St. Louis area. Beyond the trip to East St. Louis to deliver the computers, students also traveled to the community mid-semester to perform a site survey to determine specific needs and identify existing resources.  Less research was done to determine implementations at other Community Technology Centers (CTCs), the availability/desirability of emerging technologies, and balancing costs (little funding was available for implementation, instead students used primarily donated equipment).  But on the other hand, students gained more hands-on experience working with technology and the challenges of implementing technology within community.

Prior to the first trip to East St. Louis, as the instructor I strongly emphasized the responsibilities the students were assuming as consultants to these community organizations.  I stressed the importance of professional behavior and the philosophy that the customer is always right.  While we certainly didn’t want to discount our own expertise and wanted to appropriate advise our customers, we also wanted to appreciate that they were the ones who would ultimately be implementing their programs using these computers and we wanted to be appreciative of their expertise in that implementation.  To that end, they might decide on configurations that were against our own better judgment, but that was probably based on their own deeper understanding of their overall objectives.  Essentially, we were to put into practice in this service-learning option for a final project what the rest of the class was role-playing within the former traditional final project for the course.

This community member as client approach to service learning was one with which the students could easily relate. All of them had had both positive and negative interactions with service providers within and outside of the technology field.  To that end, they by and large worked at trying to model the more positive qualities they had seen in service providers.  I continued to use this approach for the first several semesters in which the service-learning project was implemented as part of the course.  But I found somewhat disconcerting the ways and means in which students would sometimes try to sell their specific implementation plans to their community clients.  On occasion, these could be rather confrontational as students and community members each had firmly held ideals of how to best proceed.  Probably the most touchy topic was parental control software.  Some of the students, primarily masters-level Library and Information Science students, strongly felt that such software was a restriction of free speech and therefore an abomination.  Community members, on the other hand, were reflecting the ideals and principles of their community in asking for ways to keep curious youth from those parts of the Internet they found were in conflict with those ideals and principles.  I knew something needed to change after one particular site survey visit in which, despite my active interventions, a student and a community member had several extended dialogs that monopolized much of the the groups assigned two hour block to perform the site survey.

A second event that occurred about the same time provided a new ideal of the relationship that should exist between the academic institution and the local community.  In this case, the students had completed a site survey and returned to Urbana-Champaign.  In subsequent communiques with their site coordinator for a church in East St. Louis, they began receiving conflicting information.  The intended use and specific location of the lab changed, they expectations of what would be accomplished by the students changed, and overall the tone deteriorated.  I decided that for the sake of the students, I needed to return to East St. Louis to speak with the site coordinator to clarify specifically what we could and couldn’t accomplish during the course of the semester, and that if that was not acceptable, to identify an alternate community site.

While there, I met with not only the site coordinator, but her pastor.  In this way, I came to better appreciate the role of the site coordinator vis a vis the pastor of the church.  The site coordinator had little in the way of authority over the lab, and as such, the changes in understanding occurred because the pastor had provided greater definition of his goals after we had left East St. Louis.  To that end, the conversation that afternoon was primarily between the pastor and myself.  I found it confusing and frustrating that the pastor seemed to be actively throwing verbal barbs at me, as if he were goading me into an unprofessional response.  Finally, after about 45 minutes of such dialog, I did indeed throw a verbal barb back his direction.  He instantly broke into a smile and responded “now we’re talking!”.  He went on to clarify that he missed the deep relationships he had built with the founders of the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) during its early days.  In his viewpoint, it wasn’t until I felt comfortable enough to throw barbs back that I could stop being his service provider and begin being his partner.

Following that interaction, I began to describe to the students a new concept for the relationship between the class and the community, that of partners.  I aggressively removed language from my class notes and my own speech that referred to community members as clients, and replaced it with partners.  I added a section before our first trip to East St. Louis the next semester that described how the students were beneficiaries of  the rich partnerships developed by ESLARP over the years and how the students would affect those partnerships to the positive or negative, depending on their actions.  (It’s not that I didn’t recognize ESLARP and it’s history before, but I had never stressed the partnerships aspect before.)  I also added a visioning exercise in which students were asked to imagine their experience on a blind date, such that at the end, things had gone so well they wanted to see that person again.  They were then stepped through a second blind date in which they were turned off by the other person to the point they had no intentions of ever trying to talk to that person again.  We then reflected on the differences that contribute to a positive first meeting and the factors that contribute towards the building of a longer term relationship.

While not always perfect, the interactions between students and their community partners has steadily improved since the time the approach was changed, emphasizing community member as partner.  Indeed, relationship building is a two way street and students are now more aware than ever when they end up with a site coordinator that is not interested in partnership but is instead looking for a service provider.  These differences are especially emphasized during those semesters when a different group ends up with a site coordinator that is especially gifted at establishing a partnership.  Fortunately, through group reflections and the final class presentations, the whole class is able to learn from these comparisons.

As important as these changes have been for the students, I believe the changes I’ve experienced in my relationships with community members in East St. Louis has been equally or more critical.  Over the course of 15 semesters, I have transitioned from community member as client, to community member as partner, and most recently, in a number of cases community member as friend.  The changes in my relationships with community members in East St. Louis has brought with it an ever greater depth of understanding of the challenges faced by minorities within our culture, and especially of minorities who find themselves located in an economically distressed community like East St. Louis.  I’ve often come to appreciate the depth of character and resources it takes to survive under, let alone overcome, such circumstances.  This understanding has not only affected my professional approach within academia, but also my personal life in numerous positive ways.  This in turn has subsequent benefits for those with whom I interact, from family and friends to students and business associates.  I continue a process of discovery personally regarding the transformative process for me specifically started during the fall of 2000 and the implementation of service learning within that one course.

Communities of Practice and Introduction to Networked Systems

In Chapter 5 of his book Technology and Social Inclusion, Mark Warschauer reviews the importance of communities of practice in the learning process. In particular, he makes a strong distinction between learning about, learning how, and learning to be. Warschauer uses an example of learning to write to illustrate the differences. One learns about writing by memorizing facts through reading a book. One learns how to write by critically analyzing the works of others and then reproducing examples in one’s own works, and by also gathering input from experts in one’s field. To illustrate the difference between learning how and learning to be, Warschauer points out that “learning how to conduct scientific research inevitably involves learning how to think, act, and interact as a research scientist.” He also highlights the research of L. Stanley (2001), reported in the paper Beyond Access, Occasional Paper 2, UCSD Civic Collaboration. In this research, Stanley points out that computer users at a community technology center were able to begin to effectively use computers, precisely because joining in that community of practice enabled them to change their self-perception of themselves as computer nonusers.

In its earliest iterations, Introduction to Networked Systems primarily was a class that taught about technology and its application to information systems. There was no real opportunity for students to engage with others in a community of practice, and as such, little opportunity for students to really enter into a process of learning how to work with networked information systems. With the inclusion of hands-on, active learning exercises, students began to learn how to build and support networked systems. The exercises, in combination with early lecture material, also helped students begin to change their self-perceptions as individuals who didn’t have what it takes to build and support computer networks. With the addition of service-learning final projects, students gained even more confidence that they were capable of implementing technology in real-world settings.

Specific methods implemented to help students change their self-perceptions

• The introductory lecture emphasizes “computers as man-made machines” that can be studied and understood; my belief that ANYONE can learn about computers and networks with sufficient, time, energy, and patience; and that effective implementation of of technology is 1/3rd technical and 2/3rds social, and that as LIS students they bring unique skills that help them to excel at building effective information systems.
• The first hands-on exercise is to disassemble a computer while I, as the instructor, guide them through the process. Students are then told they need to reassemble the computer on their own. Successfully completing this exercise helps break down walls that they cannot do this.
• Students work regularly in pairs or small groups. This provides a support network for students to help each other through problems.
• I regularly bring in real-world problems and step the students through the ways in which I address those problems, helping them to understand the process of working with technology.
• When students run into problems, they are mentored through the process of answering the questions themselves as opposed to being given the answers to the problem. This occurs throughout each of the hands-on, in-class exercises, and also throughout their work on the final projects being performed for their community sites.

Summary

The course Introduction to Networked Systems, has gone through three major iterations. During the first iteration, the course was primarily lecture-oriented. As a result, it primarily taught about technology and its application to information systems. During its second iteration, regular hands-on exercises were used in class to better help students to learn how to build and manage networked information systems. Students also learned somethings about being someone who worked with such systems. But adding a rich service-learning component as a final project truly allowed students to change self-perceptions regarding their ability to work with networked information systems, and their overall value in applying such systems within community. Their community of practice was expanded to not only include student-peers and instructor-facilitators, but also community-users.  Warschauer emphasizes that “by using the computer and the Internet to help learners enter new communities and cultures, tackle meaningful problems, and address situations of social inequity, educators can help students master the broad range of literacies required for the information age” (Warschauer 2003 pg. 125).

Discovery!

In 1998 I added a number of hands-on, active learning activities to the course Introduction to Networked Information Systems. This transition opened a number of doors for students to gain a more practical understanding of the components that make up computers and networks, and to discover some of the challenges in working with the technology. While relatively controlled, the unpredictable nature of working with technology assured that every semester brought its share of “learning moments” in which the students and I would have to work together to solve problems. In the Fall of 2000, a service-learning component was also added to the course in which students refurbished donated computers, set them up into small labs, and delivered these labs to community organizations working within economically distressed communities around Illinois, and especially within East St. Louis, Illinois. The nature of the work meant that students would often strike off in unique, unpredicted directions in order to appropriately setup the computer labs for their commuity partners. This further increased the number of learning moments.

During these learning moments, we would occasionally reach a point where I, as the instructor, would perform a sequence of steps that would resolve the problem. Students would ask me how I knew precisely what to do to address that problem. While many times I could describe what I observed and why I chose to take certain steps, there were times when my very unsatisfactory answer was “gut instinct”. Students didn’t like hearing this answer, and I felt uncomfortable giving it, but I also didn’t have a good explanation for how I seemed to be able to do what others couldn’t readily do. I needed to find a better answer.

At the time, I had been reading “The Dragon Riders of Pern”, fiction that included characters filling roles as apprentice, journeyman, and master. I began to reflect on my own childhood working in my family’s sawmill as a youth. I realized that I had served as an apprentice under my dad during those childhood years, eventually working my way up in status and responsibility at the job. An advantage of being an apprentice is that you are assigned rather menial tasks that provide you with a lot of time to observe. You begin to tune into the rhythm and music of the craft. Certain loud clashes went seemingly unnoticed by the others in the facility, while a slight, almost inaudible change in pitch of a constant sound might bring about great scurrying of everyone available. Over time, I found I began to adopt similar responses, and began to understand the unremarkable noises from the signs of significant problems. Indeed, over time I internalized these responses to the point where I couldn’t tell a friend visiting why I responded as I did. I reasoned this might be what is meant by gut instinct.

The question then became, short of an extended apprenticeship, how could such lessons be taught. Over time, I came to realize that a core skill students needed was one they already possessed, that of troubleshooting. Or that of the scientific method. Or that of the inquiry process. Or as one student who had served in the military once remarked, the OODA-loop — the military equivalent. For purposes of my class, I distilled it down to four basic steps:

• Observe — use all your senses to take in as much information as you can;
• Think — consider the various possible causes;
• Plan — consider how you might test each possible cause considered, as well as which tests might be easiest to run or most likely to succeed; and
• Act — perform the selected test, then observe, think, plan, and act.

It seems rather obvious now that gut instinct is really just a very rapid application of the above four steps, combined with an historical perspective that allows a person to rule out many of the possible causes as unlikely and narrow in on the most likely causes. Still, for me this was a discovery that helped transform my teaching in a way that allowed me to empower the students very early on in the semester.

I can say that students don’t always appreciate the empowerment — at times they would be much happier to receive simple cheatsheets that they can carry with them and that would fix the problems. And in truth there is a fine balance between strongly encouraging them to practice the troubleshooting skills vs. pushing them over the edge and into unrecoverable frustration. Identifying when to step in and provide more guidance, vs. when to help them ask salient questions and think through the process is a key part of the art of teaching in my mind. But when practiced well, I find I now am able to help encourage the development of gourmet chefs who can walk into a situation, identify the needs and resources, and combine them to produce a meal worthy of a fine restaurant, as opposed to someone who reads the box every time they make spaghetti.

My Teaching Influences

In a recent meeting, I was asked about my background as a teacher and the specific influences that led me to apply service-learning as a pedagogical tool. While my mom was the first to encourage me to continually use reflection as a means for personal improvement, much of the mentoring that contributes directly to my current pedagogical techniques occurred during my undergraduate training at Anderson University. Anderson is a small Christian liberal arts University in central Indiana. The school emphasizes discovery and service throughout its various programs.

While many courses emphasized discovery, one course in particular served especially as a model for my service learning coursework. In 1986 I took an Urban Ministries course at Anderson. During week 1 of the course, we spent 8 hours a day in the classroom discussing various related scholarly works. During week 2, we spent our time in New York City meeting various community leaders and activists, and assisting various services projects for the underserved in New York City. During week 3, we spent our time in Washington, D.C. doing much the same. This course served as a valuable case study on the integration of study and action, service learning, and applied reflection, to build a rich learning environment.

But many of the other aspects of my teaching style and techniques come directly from my mentors in the psychology department at Anderson.

From Curt Leech I learned not only how to methodically approach a problem using the scientific method, but also the value of an open door policy that invites students to come and share both their academic and personal problems. As he became involved in our lives in school and play he used a holistic approach to foster a richer learning environment for the students. Students felt Curt cared not only about them as students, but as individuals. He adapted his techniques to meet students where they were at, learning their interests and sometimes joining them outside the academe to further strengthen those relationships. Curt also helped me to gain a healthy respect for the scientific method, and technology more generally, as a tool and not a solution.

From Bill Farmen I learned the value of teaching concepts and addressing the root of a given problem. Whether in learning ANOVAs by writing a spreadsheet template to do the calculations or by handing me a book to learn how to read philosophy texts when I struggled in his Philosophy of Psychology course, his training methods helped me to develop skills that have served me well whatever duties I’m assigned. Bill also helped me gain an appreciation for philosophy as another tool to study questions
that face us daily.

From Lee Griffith I have modeled many of my teaching techniques, such as the use of outlines provided to the students prior to class and then presented on overhead to help facilitate the learning process when many
new concepts and terms are introduced each week. But I also learned the value of mentoring students to think logically and clearly about problems and then to strategically work to address those problems. Lee helped me to understand that the scientific method could be a valuable tool for personal and social change, that this is a skill to be learned, and that it is more effective to teach these skills than it is to criticize
students for being undisciplined.

Beyond the above influences, self-reflection and student evaluations have been important factors guiding the development of my courses over the years. Further, during the fall, 2007, I participated in a reading group on service-learning. I have also found the dissertation by Junghyun An, a recent doctoral graduate from the Curriculum and Intruction department at the University of Illinois, helpful as I redesigned my primary course, Introduction to Networked Systems. Dr. An’s dissertation was an ethnographic study of that course performed primarily in 2004. It has helped me significantly to apply a more formal framework for my service-learning activities.