On the other hand, several studies report significant academic gains. But learning doesn't happen automatically by doing. It doesn't happen unless you have reflection on what it all means - unless you write about it, debate it, analyze it. It's not good enough just to serve other people soup in a soup kitchen - that doesn't teach anything. Enhancing academics Sitting in their regular classroom at the end of the term, Bosak, Fallon, and other students in Bond's community psychology course reflect on their new understanding of community - and the meat their experiences have put on textbook theory.
Bond writes terms on the chalkboard.
Hands shoot up. One young woman talks about how the survey data showed the need for more citizen participation in the North End. Afterward, standing in the shadow of the Dewey academic building, Lauren Merritt, a junior and a psychology major, ponders how this class is unlike any she has taken. It was extremely challenging to learn the terms and then go out in the community. Working in the North End, I could see how theories in our textbook really made sense.