Service learning in an undergraduate adulthood and aging course: using life stories to connect students, content, and community

ABSTRACT

The project described in this paper was designed for an undergraduate course titled the “Psychology of Adulthood and Aging”. This course, capped at 20 students, is typically comprised of psychology, pre-nursing, and family studies students. The student learning objectives (SLO’s) for the course are: 1) to understand and apply current theory and research techniques in the interdisciplinary field of gerontology, 2) to demonstrate effective written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills, 3) to learn about ways to provide services to aging adults by interacting with a local community service provider, 4) to identify and give examples of sociocultural forces that shape adult development. The goal of the service-learning project described in this paper is to facilitate these learning objectives through the lens of life stories from older adults (65+) in the local community. Student teams (typically 2–3 students) were paired with non-cognitively impaired older adults aged from a local adult day health facility. The outputs of this class project were a professionally published life story of the adult interviewee, student reflections throughout the semester documenting experiences with the project, and a term paper exploring a comprehensive theory of aging through the lens of the life story they wrote.

Acknowledgments

This service-learning project was supported by the Berry College Bonner Center for Community Engagement. We are especially grateful to the staff and clients at Mercy Senior Care Rome for their partnership with us in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).