Service-Learning and Interior Design: A Case Study

Abstract

The case study approach was used to analyze experiential learning through its three components: knowledge, action, and reflection. Two interior design courses were integrated through a university service-learning project. The restoration/adaptive reuse of a 95-year-old library building was to serve as a prototype for future off-campus discipline-based service-learning activities. In two experiential learning courses, interior design students provided their consulting services throughout the last seven weeks of the semester and reflected upon their experiences using course content as the basis of analysis. Experiential learning can take students out of their academic shelter to help them begin to develop a sense of place. Challenges noted in making discipline-based service-learning education standard practice included: balancing knowledge, action, and reflection, time management issues, fortitude to risk not knowing and testing ideas, disorganization, diverse team performances, favoring emotion over logic, and lack of experience in observation, reflection, and verbal communication.