Service Learning Reflection

I have had the opportunity to volunteer for the All Major Career Fair. I have volunteered many times before, but never had the opportunity to do a career fair. I have found through the experience that I need to volunteer more often. Before I volunteered for this career fair, I have not volunteered in a while. Whenever the Kennesaw State has another career fair I will definitely take the time out to volunteer on my own.

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.

My role in my service learning position is at Tri-City Church (also Community Bible Church... as there is currently a merge going on) of Vista, CA. My position is primarily to care for the needs of children while the mothers are able to take a break to meditate on the sermon. This care includes feeding children, playing with them, soothing them, taking care of their toileting needs, and helping sign in and out the children to their parents or family members. While I am already fairly comfortable with this routine (as I have been doing it for some time now) there is still the occasionally apprehensive moment. Occasionally I have trouble connecting with the parent's if their new to the area. Earning parents' trust can be a difficult thing to do.

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.

Each school, because of government mandate, has to provide services for exceptional students. The textbook Human Diversity in Education defines exceptional students as “those eligible for special educational services” (Cushner, McClelland & Safford, 2011). There are several categories for exceptional student but they all fall under the Ability/Disability continuum. Some of the categories for exceptional students are the: intellectually gifted, specific learning disability, emotionally handicapped, hearing impaired, visually impaired, mentally handicapped, and physically handicapped. In this paper the specific type of students that will be discussed, fall under the disabled side of the continuum. As one can see from the list above there

For my Reflective Service Learning Project, I volunteered at Westminster Shores Community Living. Westminster Shores is a community living center, with independent living and assisted living. They hold many events for the residents that lives there, as well as involve the volunteers in discussion groups. In addition, on of the main goals of the volunteer program is to create a connection between the students that volunteer and the residents who Live at Westminster Shores. As a volunteer, I participated in discussion groups, Saturday morning activities, and a “Day of Friendship”. Originally, being introduced to this volunteer opportunity, I though I was going to be sitting and talking to residents while playing games and doing puzzles. Although I love those activities, I was very pleased when I learned that I was going to be involved in discussion groups and projects. One of the main goals of the volunteering program is to connect students with the residents, so being involved in communicating with the residents creates a connection. I was able to connect one on one with some residents, as well as chat in bigger groups. In addition, I participated in the set-up of the Holiday Market, which is held annually, and I met several female residents with tables, selling homemade items. I enjoyed and learned about them talking to them through set-up. Furthermore, during the “Day of Friendship”, I spent the day with one resident and am still in contact with him and his wife. Through

What I did during my service learning was donated 35 book to our Local Impact Club. They are running a children's book drive for the next few weeks to raise books for Princeville Elementary School. Every five age appropriate for grades pre-K, books donated can be counted as one service hour (with no limit on hours earned).

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

Finding an organization for service learning is not hard. There are more than a handful in the Wichita area, the hard part is deciding which one to get involved with. I decided to do my service learning in my hometown of Belle Plaine at the annual Tulip Time Festival.

Coming in this semester this was one of only two classes I decided to take. I had never take any classes with ODU and want to “get my feet wet”. I can honestly say that if all my classes run as smoothly as this class has I will have no problem completing my Human Service degree.

I chose to attend the touring session because I had a class from 11:00 am to 12:15 Pm. It was my first time leading a tour, and it was a good experience for me as a first-year college student because from that event I have learned how to lead a group and give a good information about the building/places we been together with the high school students as a group. That even also made me to consider the places I hadn’t been before, but I heard about them. Participating in that event was a very amazing because I was able to make a connection with the high school students. During the event, I felt like I am getting connected with the community I am living in because

My service learning was based on the campus sustainability. The most important thing that I learned from doing this community service project was that people really do care about our school, our campus, and they do care for others. From the very first meeting, the students that participated during this project had a lot to say about how we, as students and teachers, should always help clean up our school. By helping keep Dillard clean, it shows not only cleanliness, it also shows that we care about this school. Well I cannot speak on everyone's behalf, but I know most student would love to come to a school that is clean and appreciated.

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

In this ten hours’ service learning, I found having instructor involve in the activity help students perform better. Children need demonstration that they can copy and learn from what the instructor do and say. There is no doubt that children would do well via copying. Additionally, children are exciting about the reward and doing well in the activity even though it is only a tattoo.