TE+250+Service+Learning+Project

All TE 250 students are required to participate in a minimum of 20 hours of service learning experience—typically a tutoring experience in which TE 250 students tutor K-12 students who have different social identities. Through my work at the Lansing Area Refugee Development Center (RDC), I’ve learned about various unmet needs due to a limited staff. My sections of TE 250 have been able to partner with the RDC to meet some of their needs, primarily the needs for summer camp curriculum, and educational activities for volunteers to use with the refugee students. Initially, I found this to be helpful for the RDC, but I now see how vital it is for students to be involved in the community. This experience provides students with the opportunity to learn and to recognize their work as integral to a community’s well-being. Two of my TE 250 sections have been involved in writing curriculum for the summer school readiness program for newly arrived refugees, and another has developed tutor activity manuals with educational games, language learning exercises, etc. While students do tutor every other week for six weeks, they also attend service learning labs where we work together to design a curriculum overview, goals, activities, field trips, worksheets, educational activities, etc. These informal lab times, while very time consuming for me, allow me to get to know students outside of the classroom, and for them to get to know me and each other. Their collaborative work leads to community building and collaborative learning—each student is allowed to bring their strengths into the work. For example, some students have more experience working with elementary or secondary students, some have experience planning field trips, others know how to use technology efficiently to aid in the creation of worksheets, etc. Of interest to me has been the degree to which students engaged in these types of service learning projects invest over and above the required service learning time in comparison to the students who tutor all semester. Additionally, it seems the students engaged in creating curriculum for the RDC seem to return in following semesters to continue their volunteer work and see the product they created in use. The students work with refugee students, recognize their need for basic English and skills for navigating US schools, and they are able to take what they see as a need, and DO something to contribute to meeting these needs in a very concrete way—it empowers them. Current service learning research recommends the mediation of multi-cultural service learning tasks in teacher education programs (Baise-Boyle & Sleeter, 2000; O’Grady et al, 2000). In addition to the reflection required to mediate these experiences, students who begin to function in the role of a trusted “teacher” invest in their experiences differently than those who see themselves as a “tutor”. These alternative forms of service learning begin the process of helping students shift toward a teaching mindset. Included in this are a description and the requirements of the service learning project, the lesson plan template, and time sheets students are required to turn in at the end of the semester.

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