Service Learning Projects and their benefits

Special Projects for Special People: Students with Disabilities Serve Others through Service-Learning Projects

As I browsed through many of the Service Learning Projects on (http://www.servicelearning.org/), the project above stood out more than others. The organizer, Lisa Olnes, teaches a 6th grade class that includes 5 disabled students. They all have a specific condition, but they all have a learning disability. She points out that at the beginning of the semester, they suffered from a severe lack of confidence in their knowledge and abilities, and did not see a connection between the real-world and what they learn in class. She believed that getting her students involved in service learning was a way to change all of that, and help their community all at the same time.

This stood out to me because the class was divided into different groups. Each group preformed a different service project. These varied from writing letters to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, adopting a grandparent, a pet food drive at the animal shelter, and bake sales/food drives for the homeless. She monitored the disabled students' progress and noted their improvements.

The benefits for this Service Learning are many. The most important benefit is what the students are able to accomplish in their own community. They make a difference by assisting the elderly or by providing food to a local homeless shelter. The great thing about this service learning project is that these benefits are byproducts. The true benefit is for the students, specifically, those in the classroom who are disabled. Many of them suffer from speech impairment. By getting involved, they are able to move beyond it and gain confidence that they would have otherwise lacked. According to Lisa Olnes, "As a result of the service learning projects, my students displayed increased motivation, showed they cared for each other, were eager to help, made connections of what they were learning in school to the real world, and improved their social skills and self-confidence. The projects benefitted everyone involved, including all the students as they realized that they have something to give."

The best practices and methods associated with this lesson plan are similar to what is listed on the inquiry-based learning research we conducted as a class. Students learn the value of working together to achieve a goal that benefits the community. When they report their monthly progress to the instructor, they are proud of the work they have done and are eager to continue doing it. Above all, the students that previously failed to see a connection between the classroom and the outside world had changed after doing the Service Learning Project. Everything they worked for had a real-life, tangible result.

The main challenge the author faced was that they were not able to implement all the service learning projects due to time constraints. That isn't a very bad thing, because the students will just have to choose wisely on what project they would like. The fact that they do have a choice will allow them a more personal connection to the work they are doing.

~MjG

Olnes, L. (2008). Special projects for special people: Students with disabilities serve othersthrough service-learning projects. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 5(2) Article 4. Retrieved[9/27/2009] from http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/vol5/iss2/art4

Supporting Inquiry Learning in the Modern Classroom

Inquiry learning isn't a new concept, but finding ways to support it using technology can be a challenge. This teaching method provides many benefits to students because of the different combinations of skills they require. When it is used correctly, students must critically investigate open-ended questions. This is especially important when teaching history because they will question traditional concepts and ideas. Comprehension and overall learning are assisted because students will often come across information they may not expect.

Use of the Internet is the best way to promote inquiry learning, and a great vehicle for this is the WebQuest. Zhara found a great article on its use within the classroom. It evaluated the benefits to using the WebQuest compared to traditional teaching methods. It concluded that students were much more motivated to participate in the activities, and they strengthened their critical thinking skills, among other things, as a result.

The Webquest teaches students to use the internet as a tool to help them answer important questions. They can be very unique and are available on a wide variety of topics. As educators, it is very important that we can teach students how to find what they need on the internet. Some of the drawbacks of the WebQuest are that students can be frustrated or confused by the amount of information on the internet. While this may hinder participation in the activity, it is important that we challenge our students to this sort of research because the amount of information on the internet is constantly increasing. The more research they do, the faster they will be able to access the information they are looking for.

Does anyone have any experience using Webquests in a classroom? Did it work well?

If not, do you think you will implement them into your lesson plans? How?

Blogs, Podcasts, & Wikis for the classroom

Podcasts, Blogs, and Wikis used in the Classroom?

When you hear those terms, you would normally think that they are just for entertainment. I didn't think they would be useful (even after the reading) until I saw some examples for myself. Apparently, they are not only new, but they are already being actively used in classrooms all over. It did take me a while to find something that I wanted to post here, which I think suggests that there is no standard formula for creating them yet.


Podcasts:
http://talkinghistory.oah.org/
This website hosts an impressive archive of history podcasts on interesting subjects. Prominent historians discuss topics such as assasination plots, race and gender in sports, and truths behind historical myths. One episode discusses the origins of the myths surrounding George Washington while another does the same for Pocahontas. They also talk about controversial topics that students are interested in. One is called "Confederate Emancipation", which is about the Confederate army's plan to free and arm their slaves. I would recommend that a teacher play certain excerpts from such podcasts for class discussion. Since they bring up many different historical issues, it can certainly spur some discussion.

I was surprised to find many podcasts created by students. Student Podcasts @ the Warhol ( http://edu.warhol.org/podcasts/) is a group of high school students involved at the The Andy Warhol Museum. They talk about a wide range of topics and issues. Students can definatly improve their speaking skills by creating these podcasts. They can record them wherever they feel comfortable, and have a very large audience at the same time. That way, they can have more confidence talking about what they know instead of feeling nervous about talking in front of a group. Also, I think students will pay more attention to the issues being debated if it is created by and for their peers.

Blog:
I found a great example of a history class blog here: http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/. The reason I like this is because it is created by the teacher, but it relies on student comments and input for its content. They can post pictures of their work and videos of them putting them together. This is a great way for students to take more pride in their work, because they have a much larger audience. Other students make comments, discuss their assignments, and see what others students think about their work. Students from all class periods come together to form a community outside of the classroom.

Wiki:
At first, I was unsure about how a class wiki can be helpful to students. Since information is so readily available on the internet, After seeing some examples of Wikispaces, it is much more clear. They are basically a way students and teachers can share important assignments, notes, and also host discussion forums about the class. http://bergmannscience.wikispaces.com is a good example of how it can be beneficial to the class. The teacher posts information about upcoming events, resources for their current units, videos and pictures. The benefits are similar to that of a blog, but everything is much more categorized (for .doc) and easy to find. I found a lot of different class wikis, but this seems to be among the best.

I hope to use these in my future classes, but I need to learn how to design these so that my students will want to use my website. These are potentially great assets to use in the coming years.

Thoughts on new technology in the traditional classroom

Why should technology be integrated into social studies classrooms? How has the learning from our first session influenced your answer?

Technology has always been slow to make it into the classroom. This is mainly due to the high cost that usually accompanies it. However, I am discovering new ways to integrate newer technology into traditional teaching methods using free and existing technologies. Blogs, Web Quests, and social networking software are a few examples of free technology that has many possibilities within the social studies classroom. The key is learning how to use them effectively.

It's a necessity to integrate these all kinds of new software into my curriculum. Students are becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet for all kinds of information they want outside the classroom. They can use the Internet to find information to supplement what they learn inside the classroom, too, but it's up to the instructor to provide them with the right resources to find it.

The first session did change how I feel about this integration, because I never considered having a home page for my students. From there, I can direct them to informative and reputable websites for their reference. The Netvibes website for our homepage (EME5432) will serve as a great model for something I will soon create. Such a website will be the starting point for students' homework assignments and other necessary research they will need. Also, merging the Internet with my classroom will teach my students to make better use of the wealth of information on the Internet. According to NCSS, integrating medial literacy with social studies can "prepare our students to critically question the information and media they are seeing, hearing, and using, the more likely they are to make informed decisions and to participate as citizens who can shape democracy for the public good. (http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/medialiteracy)

This week's reading provides several examples of how teachers can use this sort of technology in their classrooms. Blogging and wikis are tools I have seen before, but never considered using them for educational purposes. I gathered from our first session that both hardware and software are being developed at a very rapid pace. In a few years, blogs, podcasts, and RSS will not only be commonplace, but could easily be outdated technology.

As a future educator, I must consider that in the future my students will have a high media literacy rate despite their age. Understanding how to connect with them outside of the physical classroom will be vital to their success. Because of the volume of information on the Internet, both reliable and unreliable, I will need to be able to direct them to the best Internet resources.

-MjG