BUSINESS ETHICS

Business Ethics: Reflection Essay

When education is disseminated to the students, it becomes their sole responsibility to utilize it fruitfully, especially regarding social welfare. Service-learning has its foundations embedded within this philosophy so that social problems can be addressed with the fresh skills of graduates. To gain true excellence in education, a hands-on experience should be given to students to bring social change and develop a sense of commitment to society. This paper presents a reflective essay on selected articles related to service-learning and its ethics.

When students are engaged in service-learning education, there are two major goals: advantage to the community stakeholders and academic learning consequences (Bringle et al., 2004). The theories learned in the classroom are to be put into practice in the real world, particularly in serving the community to understand how the theory works in real-life applications along with engagement in activities that would benefit the society at large.

Research has suggested that service-learning has contributed to students personal growth and has been effective in the growth of their self-esteem (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999). When students realize that they could be of service to society, their personal and professional development is improved. Instructors have realized that academic achievements are secondary in this context as favored outcomes are truly acknowledged in service-learning programs.

Socially responsive knowledge has three predetermined goals: educating students about society problems, prompting them to gain first-hand experience regarding social issues of the community, and empowering students with service learning education to function for solving social problems (Bringle et al., 2004). It is sometimes deemed by the students that there might be theories applicable in actual real-life settings outside their classroom, let alone for their use. However, service learning indicates that gaining knowledge is enough and should also be deployed to maximize its reach for problem-solving concerns. Gaining expertise and knowledge of how to proceed with real problems would be the activity engagements exercise for community service by staying consistent with the goals.

To fulfill these purposes, the service-learning courses should be structured systematically to gain a positive outcome for the students and the community they would serve afterward. The service-learning course activities should be formulated for creating a connection between course-based learnings and service experience in actuality, activities that frequently occur for keeping steadiness with goals, allowing and incorporating feedback with assessments, and illuminating values and ethics (Bringle et al., 2004). Besides, service learning research is an authentic source of thoroughly gaining expertise in the discipline. Service-learning practitioners also engage in work development through conducting qualitative and quantitative research. The substantiation that comes from the research process signifies the clarity of the subject with reflection, experimental, and correlational types (Bringle et al., 2004). The variation of information provides strengths and weaknesses essential for expanding the horizon of knowledge in this area. The systematic inquiry process is vital for making inferences for appropriate generalization with inductive and deductive techniques.

Service-learning programs are not formulated in one definite manner. They could be different based on the population they aim to service, type of service, length of service, opportunities available for real learning, and coordination of organization with societys welfare for reflection, etc. (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999). Also, it depends on the type of service the students want to get involved in. the more the type of service they would be interested in, the more commitment they would exhibit to serving the target population with a higher frequency of activities and greater duration of the learning courses (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999).

The methods that are useful for translating service learning in classrooms to the actual application within the community include reflection...

…of these contributions toward the students and the society. To instill a goodness element inti service-learning courses to make students more ethical, the potential to reinforce the classroom theories into practical applications is the liaison support given by the teaching staff (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999). Career advancement is a type of future protection that the teachers of serviced learning give to the graduating students that impart motivation to portray a positive image within the society they would be serving in. It could be assumed that students undertaking more intense social activities would reflect higher ethical behavior. It has been restated that the more service-learning practitioners or students participate in diverse community projects, their perspectives of diverse communities would magnify continuously as different social levels and power are explored (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999). Social hierarchies would be inspected and create a positive impact on the community by making ethical decisions for problem-solving, even for underserved population segments like African Americans.

Promotion of shared responsibility is the due process under service-learning which means that if any inefficiency is witnessed, it should be handled by the students, teachers, and society with a collaboration- teamwork (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999). Since the benefits of service-learning are based on the reciprocation model, the benefits are gained by all. However, it is hard to distinguish who gets the most benefit; still, the process should not stop the service-learning practitioners from becoming service partners. The common good is largely the aim of all recipients and beneficiaries (Stukas Jr. et al., 1999).

The human minds natural tendency to interpret what is happening around it is psychological awareness in a social context. To maintain social order, serving in the community we live in is the communication of vision into actions. Serviced learning is considered a crucial way of using psychological astuteness and…