Study abroad has resulted in cultural learning, personal growth and professional development in nursing students (Kelleher, 2013; Kokko, 2011). However, the full potential of service learning has not been achieved due to inadequate use of guided reflection (Brown & Schmidt, 2016). Based on their research, Hatcher, Bringle, and Muthiah (2004) recommended integration of course content with service learning and that this integration should be clearly communicated to students. Service learning should include participation in an activity that meets community needs and guided reflection on the connection of that service activity to course content. Guided reflection learning activities are accepted as the best strategy to assist students to make these connections. Rather than occasional, free-flowing writing, daily journaling that follows prompts or structured questions is recommended (Amerson, 2014; Hatcher et al., 2004). The structure of journaling should be guided by a rubric and prompts to help students describe their experiences, connect them to course content, and integrate experiences, course content and personal values (Hatcher, et al. 2004). This structure was very similar to the framework promoted by Schmidt and Brown (2016) that included the “What?”, “So what?”, and “What now?” with specific guided reflection prompts that we chose to use in development of a faculty-led study abroad course.
The study abroad course included a preparation phase that was provided with distance technologies to students at three sites and was followed by two weeks of study abroad in Ghana. We partnered with staff from an international health system to develop a service learning activity (a medication safety course) with the nursing staff. In addition, we had a short service learning experience at a residential home for children with disabilities. We visited many cultural and historic sites with our guide who provided educational background information for our students.
We began the two weeks by encouraging students to reflect every day with journals that contained the prompts provided by Schmidt and Brown (2016) pasted on the inside of the cover. The first week of journaling focused on describing their experiences as the “What?”. We discussed course content and experiences during the second week to cover the “So what?”. A few weeks after students returned home, they wrote and submitted a summary paper that covered all the prompts, including “What now?” to incorporate their own personal values in the context of the study abroad experience. This summary paper was evaluated with an analytic rubric that included these prompts and was adapted from Dennison, Rosselli, and Dempsey (2015). In this presentation we provide some short examples of student reflections to illustrate the guided reflection process and evaluation of student learning outcomes. In summary, guided reflection with daily journaling and group discussions during the study abroad phase prepared students to write a summary guided reflection paper to achieve cultural learning.