Here Come the Headaches

Who knew I could post from my blackberry?! I didn't but I'm excited I can! Anyway,

Everything seems so good on paper. Students have some great ideas to raise additional funds for the course. However, there are a ton of ideas and only so much time. I could choose the ideas that seem most lucrative or germane to the course objective of improving writing skills, but this concept seems rather totalitarian and to fly in the face of my student-centered learning pedagogy. I could have the students vote on which to pursue, but I'm concerned about hurt feelings and students withdrawling from participation as a result. This would really hurt us since the 17 of us are trying to do the work of 25-35 people. I am really stuck here because we need the funds to accomplish some of our class objectives: honorariums, symposium promotion, etc.

Second, and equally important, the research topics I assigned are overly broad and overlap heavily. Students are assigned to write a group research paper on either rural, urban, youth, elderly, developed country, or less developed country hunger. The papers are supposed to address what complications/road blocks to hunger relief exist within a given category, what steps have been taken to overcome these roadblocks and what changes could improve the current attempts. (Simple enough right?) However these topics have tons of reseach to read, and all of the topics contain some aspect of another, e.g. The group on rural hunger finds themselves overlapping with the developed and less developed as well as the elderly and youth groups. We tried to narrow the scope of each today in class, but nothing came up that was incredibly satisfactory.

Overall, I still LOVE the class. Students are motivated; every assignment has a real purpose and audience; the topic allows us to have an impact on society. However, if I was concerned that all my great ideas might come to fruition as mediocre representations of my platonic ideals, I am now terrified that they might fail alltogether.

I've got some serious reflection to do. Hopefully, it all works out well and doesn't slide down the slippery slope into mediocrity at a break-neck pace!

Till Thursday,
Neal

The Only Way to Teach

My, oh my! The days in this service learning course just keep getting better. I find I am teaching less and less and the students are learning more and more. This course is covering everything from academic writing to professional behavior.

Students are finishing up their narrative essays, and our peer reviews were great! I overheard numerous groups problem-solving how to use personal experience to prove their assertions (analysis and synthesis). They are also starting their major research projects and have been gathering research before I ever discussed it in class. The level of self-motivation in this course is amazing. One of my community partners, who met with his student group, said that students attributed their desire to work so hard to their commiment to the course topic: Hunger in America and Abroad. Finally, on the academic front, students are writing newsletter stories for Conscious Alliance. They have begun to see how hard it can be to write 75-150 words instead of 20 pages.

Onto professional writing, Students, as mentioned in my previous post, are writing grants, donor letters, and SOP manuals. In addtion to this, they are learning how to effectively email different types of coworkers, from superiors to peers. These are skills that I find most of my students lack, and these students weren't much better to start (forgetting to use subject lines; writing long, rambling messages, etc.) However, with a small amount of feedback, each email is better than the last.

Finally, professional behavior is a huge part of this course. Students must schedule meetings, arrive prepared, preface the goals of the meeting for those who will attend, write minutes of the meeting and the progress made. All things I had to learn on the fly when I started working.

Alright, I gotta get back to reading, writing assignment sheets, and (of course) grading. But really, I needed to put down all of the great aspects this course incorporates. I really feel most of this is either absent from my other courses or not as well addressed without the service aspects.

One final note, everyday I am in this course, we are never short on things to do, we almost always have to cut discussions short due to time, the students always arrived prepared, and I leave exhausted but feeling like I really am apart of something great!

All for now,
Neal

Progress

Things are starting to really pick-up. We have our community partner groups established. One group is finding donors and writing a donation request letter. Another is locating, researching, and writing a grant proposal. A third group is writing an intership handbook. And, our final group is creating and implementing an internet marketing strategy.

We have also established our symposium groups. Students will be researching the unique qualities related to elderly, youth, rural, urban, developed nation, and developing nation hunger. There findings will include roadblocks and solutions to hunger in these communities and will be presented to the Boulder community in December.

Finally, we are finishing writing our narrative essays on previous experience with hunger as well as writing the fall newsletter for our community partner Conscious Alliance. This email newletter will give the students their first shot at publication!

Overall, students seem excited about the work and haven't become burnt out by all the due dates. I feel that I have a number of students who really love to help others, sometimes at their own expense. Thus, my main goal for now is to ensure that they take care of themselves while also caring for others. A bit parental, but I think it is important for someone to look out for this. I would hate for a semester of service to give students a bad taste for community involvement.

Student Involvement

This weekend marked my first big breakthrough. Even though one of my community partners dropped us 'cause they have too much work to do in this terribe economy, I was able to witness how involved SL students can be in their topic. I posted 7 words associated with hunger on our class blog. I also asked students to add and define any other words they found germane. When I checked the blog on Monday, 8 new words had appeared and been defined in addition to the 7 I posted. I have never had students create and finish work for themselves like this group has, at least not in undergrad studies. I am beginning to think this SL thing has some real advantages.


NM