Reflection On Service Learning

Service Learning is an educational strategy set in place to enlighten students with instruction and experience, in addition to improve learning , teach responsibility, and support the community. Service learning is vital to the development of the student, given that it intertwines academic and personal development together. It is aimed to enhance a student’s learning in all aspects of life.

Before deciding where I wanted to do my service learning, I knew I wanted to do something that had some relevance to my degree that I will be receiving in healthcare management. I was eager to gain more experience and become more knowledgeable of how an organization operates as it relates to healthcare management. I was able to secure an opportunity to volunteer at the Dallas Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital. After completing the required VA forms, I got partnered with Mr. Alonzo Price Jr. who is a Management Analyst in Ambulatory Care, which is the department that oversees the Primary Care Providers.

Before commencing service learning, I had a number of misconceptions towards people with disabilities. Before volunteering, I had a lack of understanding, viewing people with disabilities as dependent and in need of constant help. Another misconception towards people with disabilities was focusing on the person’s lack of ability rather than the individual which consequently resulted in a one-dimensional outlook towards people with disabilities. Reflecting upon these views, I am appalled with these naive and prejudice

For my service learning hours, I decided to assistant coach at Four Corners Charter Upper School. When I took on this task, being tremendously excited to work with the girls there and give back to this school. My role consisted of being the assistant coach to my sister Amanda Ramirez, helping her to guide and train the girls to learn the sport of lacrosse. Having experience in coaching high school girl’s lacrosse, I came in with drills and strategies to be the most effective assistant coach. The girls that decided to come out for the team haven’t ever heard of the sport, which became a good thing for coaching, giving us the upper hand for coaching and teaching the sport to the girls.

Today I met with Teri to present my service learning project to her. I explained to her that I had made a brochure to present all the information about depression to her and that she could keep it. I felt nervous and anxious about presenting. In my brochure I included a brief definition of what depression is, predisposing factors, signs/symptoms, complications, treatments, medications, prognosis, ways to relieve stress/anxiety, and resources to gather more information on depression. As I was presenting my project I began to feel more relaxed and at ease. I tried to make my brochure as brief as possible, so that it was easy to understand, but include all the information needed as well. I feel that I did a pretty job of meeting this goal. I went

The purpose of the service learning activity is to experience community service and feel more connected to the community, Edgewater. When I am able to reach out to my community members, specifically older adults, I believe I will be able to address their needs as well as contribute myself to provide them the essential services they want/need in their surroundings. Also, as a part of the course “Aging in America,” my goal is to be familiar with the different aspects of Aging in America such as demographics, aging and ageism, gerontology, and healthcare workforce. Upon completion of this service learning as well as this course, I want to be able to demonstrate the aging process, describe the theories of aging, and appreciate the multidisciplinary

During the spring semester of 2015, I took the Service-Learning course in psychology (Psych 410). The general structure of this course included attending a 70 minutes long class on Mondays and Wednesdays to learn about service learning from the psychology field perspectives, reading scientific articles, conducting literature reviews to broaden my understanding of the subject, and in class constructive discussions with my colleagues. The course required 50 hours of community service at any local organizations or schools. From February 24 to May 8, I volunteered at the Arc of southern Maryland, an organization that provides residential services for individuals with intellectual disability. This organization has several homes in the Leonardtown area. Each home has four to five residents that are grouped based on the developmental disability conditions. As part of the class, I was required to write eight reflection papers about my volunteer site visits that were minimum of one page. Additionally, the class required me to develop a hypothetical program that would be beneficial for the individuals that I worked with.

For my Community Service Learning placement, I am volunteering for PAAL, which is a program for children and youth with physical and intellectual impairments. Their vision is to offer individuals who otherwise may not get the chance, an opportunity to participate in a wide variety of physical activities.

For my service learning project hours, I was in a fourth grade classroom at Sandy Elementary School. My mentor was Mrs. Hunt, who has taught for three years. There were 20 students in the classroom I was in, but in the school itself there were 4 fourth grade classes. I have never observed or helped in a classroom with older children so it was definitely a new learning experience for me. I learned many new things from the students and Mrs. Hunt during my hours in the classroom.

Initially, it was my understanding the article would discuss the positive impacts on a student after completing a service learning outside one’s home country. In regard to “hard questions,” I assumed the author would address challenges that arise while working with individuals that live in a different culture from our own, speak a different language from our own, etc. I thought the “impact” mentioned in the title was dealing with the student who was venturing out to complete the service work, and not the recipient of the service learning.

The service learning project that I participated in made me realize so many things about other people and myself. I gained skills in some areas that I would never expect myself to improve on and it motivated me to continue to improve on those skills. It has taught me that trying something new isn’t always a bad thing. It can actually open many opportunities and make you have new hobbies. This service learning was a huge success to my community and myself. Before I started the service I wasn’t so sure about it because it wasn’t something that I imagined myself doing. As I participated in the service and realized how fun it actually was, it made me change my whole opinion on it. I don’t regret taking part in this service because I feel more motivated, people were able to fight for what they wanted.

I would implement a service learning project for my third grade class based on the learning and performance objectives centered on culture (TEK §113.14.3.14). To begin, I would facilitate a classroom discussion to create an anchor chart of the heroic deeds of individuals, including military and first responders provides for our community. At this point we would begin to collect names of military families and first responders in our class. Next, I would have students work in groups to research examples of heroic deeds of the military and first responders. Then, I would have students brainstorm and create a class list of ways we can support the military and first responders. If students have a family member

After reading the notes that people left for me after receiving kind notes from the children of 3rd grade and the staff, I feel that my action was successful because, according to the cards, I made a difference on how they students treated each other. My actual action is very close to my action plan. I completed every that I planned and even did more, like visiting autistic children that attend my old elementary school. I researched, interviewed, made a presentation, and presented to the school. After completing the project, my knowledge and understanding of service learning improved by seeing the difference between autistic and non autistic children in between the ages of 5-10, and how tease the special needs kids. If I could make any sort

During this class, I heard a phrase more this semester than in my entire undergrad career majoring in special education at The University of Alabama. Service learning is the name of the term. Define service learning. The professor asked at the beginning of class and we looked uniformed. According to Wikipedia, “Service-learning is an educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs.” Through- out three months, I have deliberated on this expression as well as practiced some acts of service learning. As a result, I have acquired knowledge about community based service and I will continually look at the special effects of service learning thru the rest of my educational career as a future teacher. Based upon my knowledge in this course, I learned that service learning is community work being done by students to give needed service back to their community in a way that everyone benefits. By doing so, it furthers

The University of Houston-Downtown along with the Houston Food Bank have given the opportunity for students to participate in a service learning experience by volunteering and engaging in community service in order for students to gain personal and academic development. Students volunteered at the Houston Food Bank as they made the choice to spend unpaid time completing numerous tasks that will benefit their community by feeding thousands of people each year. Such actions also qualify as community service as students volunteered through the Marilyn Davies College of Business which provided services to benefit the Houston Food Bank and the communities it serves. This experience made students be involve in service learning as they applied skills learned in classes such as communication, networking, and team work. As a result, students saw ideas and theories from the classroom being applied and explained further while reflecting on how they can apply such concepts to their learning objectives. Community service, volunteering, and service learning may be different in the manner they are accomplished; however, they are similar as the end goal is to learn from and help communities and people in need.