Reflective Artmaking Coupled with Service-Learning| Making Community Visible

• Main Author: Donald, Bridgett Faith
• Language: EN
• Published: University of Pittsburgh 2017
• Subjects: Art education|Instructional design|Education
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10645780

<p> Practitioners have agreed that service-learning programs or curricula guide students into developing a more robust connection to the community in which they live as well as amongst other members of that community (Eyler, Giles, Stenson, &amp; Gray, 2001). However, what isn&rsquo;t known extensively is <i>how</i> these outcomes have been generated (Kiely, 2005a). Based upon Milne&rsquo;s (2000) <i>reflective artmaking</i>, this arts-based ethnographic study introduces the terminology <i>reflective artmaking service-learning</i>, demonstrating how the coupled learning processes of reflective artmaking and service-learning respond to the call for research. The Capacities for Imaginative Learning (Holzer, 2009) facilitated my ethnographic analysis, providing specificity towards deconstructing the underlying mechanisms of processing and filtering. Conducted in Texas among Christian homeschool students, this study inquires, how does reflective artmaking coupled with service-learning help to make the underlying concept of &ldquo;community&rdquo; visible? This ethnographic study focuses on the educative (Dewey, 1938) value of an arts-infused program with Christian homeschooled youth (ages 11-17) in Texas. Significant findings include the ways in which experiential learning based on a constructivist epistemology and a focus on the self was a suitable, but yet limiting, theoretical framework. Suggestions include ways to use reflective artmaking coupled with service-learning to enhance the authenticity and applicability of projects and thus to enhance student interest and ownership. This study provides a broad set practitioners in educational programs and public, private, and home schools with practical, innovative, substantive, and customizable methods of incorporating arts-based reflection on civic engagement within their teaching practices.</p><p>