Upon completion of this first module, you will have an understanding in:
- What engaged learning is and what you gain from it.
- How you can apply your academic lessons in a practical setting.
- How you can get the most out of your experience.
- How successful projects are developed.
Approximate completion time: 30 minutes
Service learning is a pedagogical model that provides students with the opportunity to earn academic credit by actively participating in and learning from scholarly activities undertaken to serve community needs."
-Plymouth State University Service Learning Task Force, Spring 2011
Service learning is one type of high impact experiential learning practice, which we refer to as engaged learning.
Other examples of engaged learning include:
- Assistantship
- Capstone Projects
- Externship
- Internship
- Practicum
- Student Research
Engaged learning...
- meets community needs.
- builds relationships and partnerships.
- increases community partner organizational capacity.
- gives students the opportunity to apply academic lessons.
- gives students the opportunity to gain experience and affirm career goals.
- gives students the opportunity to learn about themselves.
- gives students the opportunity to be a part of solving complex societal issues.
Service is all about achieving your highest potential through engaging in relationship. When done with intention, service can be transformational for everyone involved. Reflect on this as you view Emma Hartung speaking about her service experiences in the following video.
The following video features Elizabeth Galbreath, a Virgina Tech student, who speaks about her institution's motto, Ut Prosim (That I may serve). This is the same motto of Plymouth State University. Elizabeth notes that service is synonymous with love and is about the impact that you make, rather than a task you complete. Reflect on this while you view the video.
Goal Setting
The first step in being successful in your experience is to set your personal goals.
What are your strengths, interests, passions?
What are your hopes, dreams, and goals for your experience?
What do you want to change or improve?
What are some of the goals and priorities for your partnering organization?
What kinds of things could you learn from your off campus mentors?
How will you ensure that you build capacities for organizational partners?
Reflection
Developing your goals helps you to start the reflection process. Reflecting on your work is integral to service learning and engaged learning. It helps to reinforce academic lessons and gives you the opportunity to think critically. As a result, your experience will be more meaningful and contribute to your personal growth.
The 4
C’s of Critical Reflection
Adapted from Eyler,
Giles and Schmiede
(1996) A Practitioners Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning: Student Voices
and Reflections. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP.
Continuous-
ongoing
process
throughout the duration of the project
Connected-
linked
to coursework and academic outcomes
Challenging-
rigorous
academic standards, which develop critical
thinking skills
and reinforce student competencies
Contextual-
meaningful
for students and supports personal
development
What could this experience mean for you? Reflect on this while you view the following video.
What could this experience mean for you? Reflect on this while you view the following video.
Please click the Module 2 tab to continue this training.
What are your strengths, interests, passions?
ReplyDeleteMy strengths are compassion, critical thinking,and organization. My interests and Passions are helping others in need through resources and other ways to help them succeed. Allowing individuals to live their lives to a full capacity while meeting the needs.
What are your hopes, dreams, and goals for your experience?
I hope that I am able to help others in my service by providing the extra need and help that they may be needing to live. My dreams are to provide families and their children the necessary means to live in today's times. My goal in my experience is to gain the proper skills to help give resources to others.
What do you want to change or improve?
I want to change or improve my professional skills in communicating with others and have more information on ways to help as many as possible.
What are some of the goals and priorities for your partnering organization?
I am not sure where my partnering orginzation will be yet, but I hope they have the goals of providing resources to families that may need the extra help and assittance.
What kinds of things could you learn from your off campus mentors?
I would be able to learn the skills that they have gained while in their positions and taking them and using their methods in practice when I may need them.
How will you ensure that you build capacities for organizational partners?
Keeping a good connection with different organizations is highly important that you stay in touch with them and keep a good relationship with them even when you may not be working with them in that moment.
While watching the video the experiences that he spoke about showed myself that no matter what you end up doing for a career, volunteerism can become an key aspect in your life to help with many different skills. Even while just creating a small event for an important cause to you, you may find it more rewarding seeing the impact that it can make. Making connections with other professionals to help with your cause or career can be found when participating in volunteerism. Integrating volunteering to everyday careers can help gain different skills to help you and others learn. Creating events that can benefit the community that you live in is very important because it shows that giving back to where you live and work means a lot to you as well as supporting others that may need that extra push.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest strength is being determined and strong willed so when I have a task to complete I solely focus on that and get it done with the best of my ability. The first passion that comes to my mind is my drive to help others. This doesn't just mean giving people advice, it may be to donate to toys for tots or mentoring people through life experiences. My goal for this experience is to have a full understanding of each situation I may run into in my future career as a social worker. I want to know how to take on each situation and help others in whatever bind they may be in. The only thing that comes to mind to improve is my experience level and not having experienced many things in life so I want to gain more knowledge with personal situations. My partnering organization hopes to give full support to the youth of our town. I could learn from my mentors how to handle certain situations, and different tactics to keep my personal feelings and thoughts out of the situation. One tactic that ensures to build capacity for organizational partners is community events, or donations that help the organization.
ReplyDeleteI like when Emma points out how awkwardness can be just important as the feeling of fulfillment. Most people can’t handle awkward moments, which forces them to leave the situation without any conclusion. We need to accept awkward moments and fight through them in order to create conclusion and ultimately, comfortability.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth touched on important points of how different cultures engage in different ways and meanings of service. It’s not something that we need to do, it is just something that we want to be a part of. We choose to serve communities out of knowing the impact that we have and want on others.
I think it’s amazing how Twan used his business degree to leverage himself within volunteerism. This gives me motivation as a business student to find out how to gain business connections to raise money for charities, while also bringing a lot of people together to have some fun! I really enjoyed his story about the man who went from nothing to something through his experience volunteering, and how it all started from one small event.
With the Hartung talk she speaks about the midnight run and how it made her feel and other feel. Form this I leaned that service is about making yourself feel good and to help others that are in need. This will help students step out of their comfort zone and become included in something that means much more to the world then just focusing on yourself. For the second video from Elizabeth Galbreath, she shares how service is not something that you just do that it’s something more like being a part of a group and learning new experiences while you help the greater good. She goes on to discuss how these different opportunities are able to bring her new friends (including a dairy cow) and how she is able to travel and see different parts of the world. Overall she states that “service is not a task or something we do but it is inclusion”. This statement really seemed to impact me the most in the sense that being included is a great feeling and many people strive for that so maybe service is the key to finding happiness and inclusion. In the final Ted Talk about volunteerism it goes on to discuss how business should be responsible and how they reflect to the community. With using good business skills and the good person you are you are able to make things happen and can bring a community together and help each other out. With using different motivations people are more opt in to volunteer and want to gain the experience of doing it. It reflects to show that volunteerism makes the individual stronger and acting more professional. This video was the most impactful for me because I personally believe that no business will truly stride unless they give back to the community that gave them their success. Volunteerism deserves more attention in order to create a stronger business world and even connect us more to each other.
ReplyDelete