Step 3 Understanding From The Inside

In the assigned article entitled “Why Service Learning” by Bruce W. Speck, it provides great insight as to why we need to engage in service learning. This article focused on the questions that were like the reasoning behind service learning and how does it benefit the student. One definition in the article that stood out to me was service learning being defined as a pedagogy that fosters the development of skills and knowledge needed for participation in public life. This was prevalent because it allows the student to network with others outside of the community while giving back. Service learning was created to get away from the traditional way of learning while implementing a new learning system.

Ayers (2003) provides the present research endeavor with a concise guide for educators on how to design and implement a service-learning curriculum. The article offers some basic steps on how to approach this instructional strategy and links to a number of documents that can be used in support of this endeavor.

Molly Lou Melon has moved to a new school and is being teased by her classmates because she looks different. Molly is the smallest in her grade, has buck teeth, fumble fingered, and has a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. The bully calls her inferior things such as “shrimpo” and a “bucky toothed beaver”(Lovell 9). The character doesn't let the boy’s comments get to her, she only does more of what the bully was teasing her about. Molly shows them that she can balance shiny new pennies on her teeth. Instead of getting down about the classmates bullying her, she is confident enough to show them the good side of all of the shortcomings. She is very confident in herself no matter what other people see.. Her grandmother helps her by telling her to always, “walk as proudly as {she} can...smile big... sing out clear and strong … believe in {her}self and the world will believe in {her} too” and she always did. (Lovell 13) The grandmother helps Molly Melon because they look alike and she probably knows how it feels to get teased. She is family and your supposed to help

Service learning projects can be life changing for students. They learn empathy for others, and may even get the real life experience they need which will inspire them to find a career. Through helping others students may find that they want to go into the human services field or even go more global by joining the Peace

Ever since I began my service learning project I have learned more about myself and social work as a profession. I have also been challenged by being paired with a client that is completely different than me. Dr. Sue Atwood has lived a very different life than me and views the world differently than I do. The diversity between Dr. Sue Atwood and myself is something that I truly enjoy. After realizing how beautiful diversity is, the competency that would best be applied to my service learning project would be engaging diversity and difference in practice. This competency is something that I have had to master since I began my service learning project. Dr. Sue Atwood and her husband Dr. Wesley Atwood lived a wonderful life together. They traveled

In her article entitled " Using service learning to teach classic learning theories ", Sheafer (2014) tells us about a research project of a psychology course at the LeTourneau University which required 19 enrolled students to participate in service learning assignment. Service learning is an educational approach that contributes to the learning of students through involving them in providing an organized voluntary services to the community. The project aims at letting students see empirically verified service learning concepts and related learning theories in actions and reflect on their experience with applying them to real life situations. The project included a three-hour community service followed by a survey of services provided as well

In order to understand Molly’s development from the outside, I took concepts from the text and applied them to Molly based on observations I made during my service learning hours. I saw, during our time working on her homework, that Molly had some developed problem-solving skills and used different methods of thinking in order figure out the problem at hand. Her brain is obviously still developing and has areas that will improve in time with education. That education will come from her school environment, but also from her friends and home environment.

Additionally, it encourages student’s growth, the common good, and for the greater good of one’s self and others. Service learning requires intelligence to solve existing issues within our community. Meanwhile, service learning present students with the opportunity to be actively involved in their learning experience and keeps students aware of problematic concerns on a daily. Because of this advantage, service learning students get to practice social concerns and issues prior to the work force. As a young mother of two boys, I believe knowledge is power and it can change the thinking process and as a result change the ways or actions of being, it did for me. Lastly, service learning deepens the understanding of the complex issues surrounding our society and to do this the students must attain

The goal of service learning was to see teaching from a special educator’s perspective. By visiting Kankakee Valley Middle School, I got to learn a little bit more about what it takes to be a special education teacher. Working with students in special education comes with many unique challenges. The teacher has to communicate with parents daily, monitor behaviors, fill out IEPS, teach self-help skills, and much more. Along with all of that, the teacher has to teach the students the curriculum and make alterations when needed. It takes a calm, patient, and hardworking person to work with students that often need a little more support and assistance than their peers. All these qualities and much more were shown by Mr. Bryant and his three assistant

A very popular Beetles song states “All you need you need is love (Edwards, 2014).” This author contends that showing care and kindness to each other through giving back to our local communities and neighbors around the globe is what we really need for society. “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, 2017).” This paper will discuss this author’s experience with service learning projects, her final nursing school service learning project, and what the service learning project taught the author about

I begin by thanking her for demonstrating a number of strategies for inclusion and achievement among the adult learners in the class. She admits that she did not set out to be an adult educator, but was in fact a manager at a tech firm and only began subbing at the adult school as a fluke. She shares her opinion that in some ways she feels not having had formal training allowed her to experiment and take risks, utilizing some of her managerial skills from her tech days, to tailor a program for students based on what she saw work with her former employees to motivate and accommodate difference. Specifically buy in and goal

Oliver and Angelica Wood, Molly’s parents, are deeply saddened by what their daughter has become. “She’s lost all basic functions. All she ever does is swipe her thumb across her screen and roll her eyes when I speak to her!” Angelica says tearfully. “We just need to have hope that the real Molly is still in there somewhere,” Oliver says, embracing his sobbing wife.

It is paramount as educators to sustain a commitment to service learning, as it has the potential for personalised and professional development (Spencer, Cox-Peterson & Crawford 2005). Spencer, Cox-Peterson & Crawford (2005) highlighted the benefits of integrating service learning into pre-service and current teacher education as prudently planned service learning projects contribute to superior teacher learning and growth of primary aged students.

Working to improve the lives of others is often noted as one of the most remarkable ways to improve one’s own life. It is important to understand that service learning is a not a new method of education, although it has grown and developed quite a bit over the years. The benefits of service learning are countless. It is an undeniably constructive effort for people of all ages to participate in. Exposing these types of activities on youth is particularly helpful to those individuals in myriad ways. Discovering the ability to improve something else while also benefitting yourself and untold amounts of other people can change a person’s entire perspective on life. Implementing this type of learning into more schools would allow these types of

In this essay, I am going to talk about my thoughts about service-learning. I will define what service-learning is, how it can be positive, and how it can be negative. I then will go into depth about my initial thoughts about it. I will also talk about the value of experiencing tutoring, what it can do and what I expect to gain from it. I will additionally talk about personal goals I have set for myself that include making a decision for what I will do with my career, what I hope to achieve for myself, as well as for those I tutor. I will conclude with sharing some challenges I expect to face and some ways to cope with them. My purpose for writing this is so I can look back at this essay at the end of the semester and see what I have learned