Reflection on Service-Learning Experience
WRA135:4-F04
John A. Dowell, instructor
Assignment
796 Words
Reflecting on Your Service-Learning Experience
source:
Watters, Ann and Marjorie Ford, A Guide for Change: Resources for Implementing Community Service Writing. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1995. 74-76.
Reflecting on what you learned is one of the most important goals of a service learning experience. You will develop your critical thinking skills as well as your capacity to be resourceful as you define, analyze, and interpret the new social experiences you have had working at a service agency. Your reflection should discuss the way that your placement helped you to learn and to grow both emotionally and intellectually. As in the other stages of this project, develop an organizational framework that helps you to explore and keep track of your own thoughts and feelings about your project. The questions ... below should help you to understand and clarify what you have learned from your project.
1. How did this experience contrast with your previous classroom and writing experiences?
This experience was completely hands on. I have never taken a class which allowed me to perfect my writing skills, while doing something worthwhile. Working with YouVote was truly an unforgettable experience. YouVote motivated me to do my best work because it gave me a reason to write.
2. What did you learn about the importance of communicating with new audiences while completing this project?
It is important to remember who you are writing for when you write for the internet. Many people who read YouVote are students and faculty members. It is important to write in ways that will attract their attention.
3. What did you learn about working collaboratively? What insights have you developed about the value of discussing experiences, ideas, and strategies? If you produced a collaboratively written piece, what did you learn from this particular aspect?
It was nice to be able to work collaboratively with other students and of course Matt Pakula. I felt like there were many people there to bounce ideas off of. If there was an assignment that I found difficult, Matt was always available to assist me and my group members. Working together on projects made the projects that much better because we were able to include six different people's incite into each group essay.
4. What did you learn about yourself - your personal values, your cultural values, your gender assumptions, and your expectations and responsibilities as a member of your campus and community and as a citizen of our country?
I learned that our campus is extremely diverse and when you are encouraging people to vote, you will receive many different reactions, some good, some bad, but each of those people taught me something. I value my right to vote, while others take that right for granted. I found that many teenagers are plain uninformed about voting. I also found it interesting who was voting and who wasn't. There are things that you can't possibly understand until you are involved with a project like this. When it comes to voting, I have a new found importance. Coming into the class, I intended to vote, but I felt a new kind of connection to the presidential election. I felt that I had a real impact. YouVote gave us the opportunity to speak with other students and in doing so I was able to better understand why people feel the way they do about the election and voting in general.
5. Did your understanding of how you learn change through your service experience? Why you value your education? What you expect from an educational experience?
I feel like I learned better in a hands on atmosphere. I would much rather take an active role in my education then just sit in a classroom and be lectured. There was never a dull moment in this class. The workload was intense but everything related to the service learning project went well with the curriculum. I realized that I had always valued my education because my parents basically told me to and I valued their opinions. This class gave me reason to believe that education is important. It is programs like these that can make you realize how lucky you are to be educated. This class definitely raises the bar for any English class I take in the future.
6. What did you learn about the social issues that the agency was working to change and improve?
Being able to talk to other students helped me to realize the importance of YouVote. There are so many educated students at MSU who had no idea about many things that were on the ballot that I can only imagine what they would have done, had we not been able to answer their questions. I think that having students work hand in hand with the agency was a great idea and I hope that the agency continues to work this way. The only thing I would change is that YouVote should be available for other teenagers and not just MSU students. It is such a great resource for young voters.
7. Did the reading and writing you did for your class help you to understand the issues and the people you were working with at your agency? In what ways?
I thought that the reading and writing did help prepare us for our YouVote responsibilities but some of the candidate information was impossible for us to find, so I would revise that assignment for next year, and maybe have YouVote students write or call the representatives early in the year, that way they have some time to get back to YouVote.
8. Would you choose to be involved in a study-service connection in the future? Explain your decision.
Yes, I feel that I was able to learn many things from this organization. My only regret is that we weren't able to communicate with students more often. I would have liked to talk with our online audience a bit more.
9. You were required to visit the Writing Center at least twice during the semester. How many times did you actually go? What was discussed?
I visited the writing center 3 times this semester. The first time I worked on my SLWP paper on the importance of voting. The writing center helped me to write a strong thesis. The second time I went to the writing center, I worked on my individual presentation paper. The writing center helped me to develop my ideas more clearly. Most specifically, they helped me organize my thoughts and clearly end my paper with a concise conclusion. The third time I went to the writing center was to edit my webfolios. They checked spelling and grammar.
10. You were required to speak with the instructor at least once during the semester about your writing progress. How many times did you actually go and what was discussed?
I met with Professor Dowell 3 times this semester. The first time we focused on my Nacirema essay. We worked on making it more concise and less wordy. The second time we did many writing exercises to test the paragraph structure of some of my group's SLWP papers. The third time I met, we discussed the presentation requirements and looked over my current grades.
Last Update:12/3/04