Community Service Placement

According to the statutory framework for the early year’s foundation stage, the seven areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected, the three areas ‘communication and language, physical development, and personal, social and emotional development’ are particularly crucial for igniting children’s curiosity. So when their individual needs are met they can build their capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive.

After spending the day observing a fourth grade inclusive class and attending a fourth grade PLC meeting focused on testing, I began my community service at the after school program. I was quite curious to see what the after school program is like as I work as a supervisor at an after school program in Sussex County. At dismissal, all the students came to the cafeteria and began their homework. They were very talkative and sitting in close proximity as there were only a few tables left down for the students. Once everyone had arrived, the teachers called out that all students were to quietly work on homework.

I did my community service at Dr. Porter and Clark in Flat Rock during November 2016. They were doing their annual food drive for families that couldn’t afford thanksgiving in neighboring cities. The food drive needed help dividing up food for the families and organizing/making the drive route. I chosed this service because as someone who actively uses food banks on month to month basis, even week to week sometimes it's nice to give

It is also a “boundary spanning” activity in that it requires active involvement from people both within and outside of the classroom context, often resulting in participant contributors who represent a variety of generations, ethnicities, social groups, and experience levels (Billig and Furco, 2002, p.vii). Service-learning is designed to reduce the boundaries between an institutional campus environment and the community around it. It is designed to connect learning to real experience through service and reflection (Ball and Schilling, 2006; Becker, 2000). As a baseline to facilitate this development, service-learning is distinct from other types of community service and civic engagement experiences in that the service-learning experience must not only have a service and reflective component but also be clearly tied to the curriculum through learning objectives and theoretical underpinnings (Bloomquist, 2015; Pritchard, 2001). As Barbara Holland, former Director of the U.S. National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, shared, “Service-learning is all in the hyphen. It is the enrichment of specific learning goals through structured community service opportunities that respond to community-identified needs and opportunities.” (Kenworthy-U’Ren, Taylor, and Petri, 2006: 121).

I participated in service learning at Fraser school in Richfield. Starting in September I helped out in a toddler age classroom every Thursday. Fraser school is a preschool setting for infants and toddlers. Besides getting the children kindergarten ready and offering a somewhat typical day of daycare/school, Fraser offers occupational, physical, and speech therapy. Some of the children have disabilities and some do not, Fraser is not discriminatory and they provide care for anyone. Some of the things I did in the classroom were prepare snack and lunch for the children, play games, participate in art projects, music, and reading, and play games with the children. The two teachers really appreciated my help, as I was provided an extra hand for them while they prepared daily activities. Playtime was usually hectic for the group and it needed to be closely monitored. I was also able to keep the children safe and keep a close eye on the total of twelve toddlers during playtime. My experiences at Fraser helped me understand many topics we talked about in our Intro to Sociology class. A few topics that stood out to me the most were the idea of social integration and many of the functions of the education system, the three stages in the development of self, institutional discrimination with minority and group divisions.

The aim of primary school is to build the knowledge and the skills children need for further cognitive development (Biedinger, N. 2010). This period is marked by several types of learning and understanding. Children acquire the fundamental skills such as reading and numeracy. Skills of self-awareness also develop dramatically. For instance, children discover how to go about learning and develop strategies such as studying and practicing.

“Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities” (Learn and Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse). This assignment gave students the opportunity to go outside of their comfort zone, which is typically the classroom and see what the “real world” is like. As Gandhi would say “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” (Gandhi). I believe that this project really allowed us to appreciate what we have because many people are not as fortunate. During this service learning project I had certain expectations going into the project, but in the end, my results were not exactly as I expected.

During my first two years’ community service was a part of our curriculum, in our Personal Development Portfolio. This portfolio consisted of two classes, one freshman year and the other senior year which includes an internship or practicum. We also must complete a portfolio paper of our work at Bridgewater over the past four years, showing our development as students and professionals. The community service aspect of our curriculum was supplied by the requirement of students to complete at least ten hours of community service each semester. Along with this, the school required sports teams to do an additional two hours of community service together to build relationships between the team and community. During the years that I was competing on the swim team we would go to the nursing home and help serve brunch for the residence. This was such a positive experience because the retirement community is about as old as our college so the residences are always very interested in the events of our school. Many of the residence either went to Bridgewater themselves or had children or grandchildren who attended the

My service learning experience opened my eyes to many new ideas and supported the information that I have been learning in class. For my service learning, I went to West Elementary school and worked in an all girls first grade classroom. West is located in a very urban neighborhood right outside of East Lansing. In the beginning of my service learning, I was in culture shock due to the size of the school, make up of the students/teachers, and the social economic status of the students. All of these components were drastically different from the school I came from. At first, I didn’t know what to think of the school or students, but I eventually realized that their goals and priorities were different from the elementary school I went to. The three main concepts that stuck out to me during my service learning experience include, the social construction of gender, special and gifted education, and funding.

the average teacher workday is much longer than that. In addition to a full day in front of the classroom (the graphic pegs the average school day at eight hours)”

I acquired my service learning hours by participating in a group that volunteered at Tulsa County Youth Services. My group encountered many difficulties and challenges before finally securing a project at Tulsa County Youth Services that would allow for us to fulfill our eight-hour requirement for the service-learning project. Initially, we had planned to volunteer at Rogers County Youth Services, but these plans dissipated as we learned that it was extremely difficult to simply set up a meeting between our group and their organization’s director. Luckily, I came across group volunteer opportunities at Tulsa County Youth Services while contemplating how we would be able to fulfill our community service hours with the difficulties that were then experiencing with Rogers County Youth Services. Looking back, I think it was easier to set up a group project with Tulsa County Youth Services because they are a much larger-scale organization when being compared to Rogers County Youth Services. Tulsa County Youth Service’s communications coordinator was easily able to set our group up with date, time, and project that would fulfill the requirements for the group project. Collectively speaking, our entire group felt privileged to share this experience at Tulsa County Youth Services and we all were very impressed by the tremendous amount of services that were offered by Tulsa County Youth Services.

It is important to support the development of language, literacy and numeracy at this early stage as it forms the basis for each child’s future learning needs and ability and will also allow you to observe and understand if there is a need for additional support. It will also help children to grow and to become confident, educated individuals and succeed in their life goals.

How much each child has improved over time, gives the educators an opportunity to recognize what modifications are needed to improve the student’s achievement. e.g. if a child knows the uppercase and lowercase alphabets very well then the teacher can move on to sounds of the alphabet. On the other hand if the child is struggling to identify the alphabets then the teacher has to come up with alternate ideas to modify her lesson plans. The school carries out assessment twice a year. The mid year and end of the year assessment shows that the expectations from the kindergarteners are slowly raised keeping in mind the consistency of the curriculum and the objectives. An end of the year assessment clearly shows the child’s expected familiarity and independency in the subject.

Every builder knows "A house is only as strong as its foundation". They also know that they have to evaluate and become familiar the land before beginning to work. This rationale can be used as a guideline for teachers across the world, especially with the children in the early childhood stage, ages 2-6, because how teachers assist children in this stage will serve as the foundation for the life ahead of them. A child develops physically, cognitively and socially. It is important for the teachers to know how the child is developing in order for them to effectively teach the students because they lack of understanding can lead problems for the child. Additionally, if the teacher is aware of how the

The term ‘‘service-learning’’ means a method (A) under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that (i) is conducted in and meets the needs of a community; (ii) is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program, and with the community; and (iii) helps foster civic responsibility; and (B) that (i) is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students, or the educational components of the community service program in which the