Reflection On Service Learning

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).

The critical difference of service learning and the traditional learning style is that students are learning and addressing real needs in the community. Which connect students to the community through meaningful interactions with others, safety, and educational needs. This specific course includes readings, discussions, and activities to support

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

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.

The facility I chose to volunteer at to complete my service learning was the CMPD Animal Care and Control. The CMPD Animal Care and Control was a good place to do my service learning because it related to my topic perfectly. The CMPD Animal Care and Control because they take a variety of breeds. They are also very informative about breed discrimination. The organization is part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, but they work with animals. The organization provides safety to citizen and animals in the community. They promote proper pet ownership and loving homes for adoptable pets. Another goal is to decrease the overpopulation with spay and neuter clinics.

I really enjoyed my service learning site because I got to work with kids from different backgrounds and help them with pronunciation and reading. I most significant accomplishment for me was be able to help kids who are struggling with English as a second language. I was pleased to see one of the students that I worked with actually came out of his shell and talked to other kids in the class. When I worked with him, he did not clearly pronounce the words, and his responds to me question were just nodding his head or performing some kind of gestures. For me last few weeks there, I was happy to see him being comfortable to speak out and interacting with other students. The most important thing I learned from my experience is that being patience

According to Kathleen Flecky and Lynn Gitlow, service-learning is defined as, “learning that occurs in experiences, reflection, and civic engagement” (Flecky & Gitlow, 2011). In recent years more universities are implementing service learning into their curriculum. A key concept of service learning is civic responsibility. Civic responsibility can simply be defined as your responsibilities as a citizen. As will be shown later in this paper, service learning can have many benefits not only to a student, but also to the community members

It has been about five weeks since I started my journey to become a great teacher. Before entering the doors of the service learning classroom. I was full of nervousness, uncertainty, and motivation. Although I felt butterflies in my stomach it never hid my goal; I aimed to make a difference. On the first week of my service learning, I was bombarded with questions of uncertainty ranging from math problems to essay structures. As I have mentioned in my previous reflections it was definitely a process trying to get into the rhythm of things. The new environment was definitely something I had to get used to. However, now, not only do I feel more comfortable in the in the classroom but I genuinely feel like I’m actually contributing to the students process of improvement! Of course, by no means did I make them little Einstein’s but the fact that I

For my service learning experience with University of Texas at Tyler, I volunteered with Houston Food Bank. I volunteered at Houston Food Bank distribution center beginning September 29, 2015 ending November 13, 2015. The main goal was to fill boxes and sort can goods, in addition to cooking meals for children. The particular project was in conjunction with British Petroleum (BP) Feed America campaign which support’s the corporate humanitarian initiative. To further extend my service learning experience with Houston Food Bank, I volunteered at the Keechan Kitchen. The project consisted of working in a kitchen and serving healthy meals to children in need.

This volunteer experience has changed my view on service learning. I now realized there different levels of service. Although in class we read about the different kinds of services, I did not quite understand the difference until I analyzed my own service learning. This experience was definitely more of a charity act, since I feel like I helped a bigger organization with their goal, and they essentially made the difference with a bit of my help. I feel like I am just a small part of the big plan to help those with intellectual disabilities. After this experience I was able to compare it with previous volunteer work and this experience felt a lot less personal. Previous to this I volunteered at Sunrise Hospital and there I was able to tend to patient’s needs. I was actually able to connect with them by speaking to them about what they were going through and sharing my thoughts with them.

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.

What is service learning, and why do we have to do it? These are questions I asked myself when given this assignment. To be honest, I always thought of service learning as forced volunteerism, but only because no one ever really told us why we had to do it. With that being said, I decided this paper was going to be a search for the answers to these questions as well as a reflection of the experience. While researching for this paper I established a new-found appreciation for service learning.