defining terms

I guess there are a couple of terms that I should attempt to define and/or put into my own words. I need to get this done because I will be away for a couple of weeks (starting Sun) without internet access.

Physical therapy: Physical therapy is a health care profession that provides services to people to develop, maintain and restore movement and functional ability throughout the lifespan. They treat problems resulting from aging, injury, disease and other factors. The central premise of physical therapy is that function and movement are key to health and quality of life, and treatment keeps this in mind. There are many specialty areas within the field of physical therapy (cardiopulmonary, geriatrics, neurologic, orthopaedic, pediatric, etc.) and because of this therapists practice in many types of settings (outpatient clinics, inpatient hospitals or rehab facilities, nursing homes, private homes, public schools, etc.). Currently in the United States all programs are at least at the Masters level. There is a national initiative for all programs to be at the Clinical Doctorate level (DPT) by the year 2020.

Service-learning: Service-learning is a pedagogical model that has three major critical components;
1. Students participate in pre-service activities to learn about the community/people they will be serving. Ultimately this pre-service work includes a needs and assets assessment of those who will be served. This pre-work has several purposes. Among them are enhanced student learning and understanding about those they will assist and learn from and to prevent the "servers" from setting their own agenda and imposing their values and ideas of what the recipient needs. For service-learning carried out in developing countries this understanding on the students part is sometimes difficult to achieve and coursework should take into consideration these purposes and include activities that increase awareness understanding and respect.
2. There should be mutual learning. Students should understand that they will learn as much from the service-learning activity as the recipient will learn from them. This mutual relationship and benefit should be innate to what goes on in the classroom and during the service activity. Some current practices include having students do mini biographies to learn more about the people they serve and community strengths assessments (rather than needs assessments) to view the recipient "community" as an entity that possess strengths in addition to their needs. These activities help students to see the recipients as human beings rather than people in need.
3. Reflection must be included as a follow-up to the service activity. One organization Community Campus Partnerships for Health) calls reflection "the hyphen between service and learning". Following service participation, students "reflect" and think about the experience and what it meant to them, how it affected them, and how it might affect what they do going forward. Reflective activities can be formal or informal, and can take various forms. Written reflections, verbal reflections and/or presentations can be reflective.
Service-learning differs from volunteering because of these components.

International: When I use the term international in my work I am specifically referring to developing countries. These are countries that do not have a completely undeveloped industrial base, but are still developing and in a phase of economic development. Developing countries are further defined by human development indicators such as life expectancy, literacy and educational level attainment, and per capita GDP.
I believe that service-learing expereinces in such settings have unique benefits and challenges for students in terms of cultural competence, global citizenship, clinical skills, humanistic world view, and life experience.


Please let me know if there are other terms that I should define and/or explain.
Cheers!