Service-Learning Training Opportunity in Chicago for Teacher Educators

WHO:  An Educational Institute for Faculty and Pre-Service Teachers in Service-Learning Curriculum Development

WHAT:  As a member school of the Illinois Campus Compact, your registration cost is covered by a grant.

WHERE:  The University Center, 525 S. State St. (second floor conference room) Chicago, Illinois.

WHEN:   Training takes place 9 AM to 4 PM on Thursday, June, 9.  Deadline for registration is Friday, May 20th at www.illinoiscampuscompact.org

WHY:   This Educational Institute will provide the tools to: Integrate service-learning into the curriculum and teacher preparation programs; Work with Faculty Fellow Mentors to guide participants in building their teacher educational models; Help develop service-learning programs for K-16 disadvantaged youth, youth at risk and diverse populations of youth; Utilize opportunities for program reflection.

HOW:   A collaborative project with the Illinois Campus Compact and the Illinois State Board of Education

This training team will share ways in which service learning and community service partnerships, community based research, and community economic development are integrated into the mission K-12 school systems. They will also facilitate a session on curriculum development, with a focus on reflection and authentic learning in the context of community engagement and the civic purposes of education.

Transformational Learning through the Writing Center

Carrie Brecke's LIBS 201 course (Writing Social Justice) is about the politics of literacy and carries the requirement of tutoring in the Writing Center for two hours a week.  Students also have the opportunity to tutor at the Social Justice High School where they are currently organizing an in-house writing center.  In this class and through tutoring, students appreciate how essential having a voice that will be heard is for everyone in a democratic society.   Emphasis here on everyone.   Students in this class come to understand how writing is a political act, and through tutoring, students help others find agency through writing. Every semester, students in this section of LIBS 201 put in over 500 hours of tutoring, which is a truly transformational experience for them, from the help they offer struggling writers to the insights they get in terms of the inequality of educational institutions, they begin to understand how deep a social justice issue writing and learning to write is. Many of the students in this class go on to become staff tutors at the Writing Center.  Learn more through their recent newsletter.  The editors, Jeff Schaller and Katie Kelly, both began as transformational learning students.

Undergraduates Benefit from Transformational Learning: “You Learn So Much”

Undergraduates in Dr. Lisa Lu’s transformational learning class in Human Neuropsychology had the unique opportunity to take the information they were learning in the classroom and apply it in the community by helping people with brain injuries, such as strokes or as a result of accidents. Amina Avion and Melissa Trejo, both seniors at Roosevelt, completed their service learning projects for Psychology 350 at the Midwest Brain Injury Clubhouse and Victory Center, a supportive living community.

Asked whether this service learning class was rewarding, Avion said, “Definitely.” She explained that she has taken a number of transformational service learning classes while at Roosevelt and she finds them to be a “really enjoyable experience.” She said that these courses not only give students the opportunity to integrate activity with knowledge, but they also offer students experiences that help them decide if a field holds promise for a career. Trejo added that transformational learning classes are, “a perfect opportunity to test the waters. It can help you decide what you really want to do.” The service learning component offered them more than the coursework alone; working with people showed them deeper levels of the subject matter and the applications of what they were learning.

This class was more time consuming than their others, but it did not keep Trejo or Avion from finding the experience worthwhile for a number of reasons. First, transformational learning gave them the opportunity to give back to others. Avion said she never would have interacted with the people at her site or those with such difficulties, but this transformational learning class provided her with the opportunity. Trejo found the experience to be eye-opening. She said, “This enhances you as a person.” Both students emphasized that transformational learning classes help develop time management skills, teach responsibility, and promote commitment because people depend on the students to be there. Service learning not only helped these students grow academically, but also professionally and personally.

Transformational learning classes are not without their difficulties, however. Psychology 350 involved a 20-hour service learning component in addition to classroom time. This process involved searching for a site, making sure it was appropriate for the class, and background checks. Despite these challenges, Trejo advises, “Go for it!” Trejo and Avion encouraged others should follow in their footsteps. These types of classes not only apply to psychology, but experience in the world is important regardless of the discipline. Avion closed with her sentiments about how transformational learning should be a part of every college’s curriculum. She did not just spend the semester learning neuropsychology; she learned much more about others and about herself.

Grants to Support Transformational Service-Learning

The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation (MISJT) is pleased to announce its annual grant program to support the development, teaching, and administration of transformational service-learning courses at the university. There are two types of grants that will be awarded for Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 courses: (1) Grants for individual faculty members ($3,500 maximum value), and (2) Block grants for programs and departments ($500 fixed amount).

The brief application, along with an explanation of transformational service-learning and the grant program, can be downloaded as an MS Word document at http://sites.roosevelt.edu/smeyers/files/2011/04/transformationallearning.doc.

We at the Mansfield Institute are ready and able to help faculty as they prepare their grant proposals and use transformational learning. The MISJT has two web pages with useful information about transformational learning as well: http://misjt.blogspot.com/ and http://roosevelt.edu/MISJT/TransformationalLearning.aspx.

Your application should be submitted as an attachment to Steven Meyers at smeyers@roosevelt.edu by Monday, March 28, 2011. Applicants will be notified about the decisions regarding all proposals by Friday, April 8, 2011. This grant program is supported by funding from the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Transformational Learning Courses at Roosevelt University

The Mansfield Institute has created and is happy to share a comprehensive list of transformational learning courses offered at the University during the 2010 - 2011 academic year. These include 22 classes during the Fall 2010 semester (which had a total enrollment of more than 400 students), and 22 class sections that are being offered during Spring 2011.

Click here to download the description of the wide range of transformational learning classes.

Collectively, these courses are taught at the downtown and Schaumburg campuses across a range of disciplines, such as education, psychology, criminal justice, history, sociology, art, economics, and journalism. Regardless of the discipline, these transformational learning courses serve as the capstone course for the Certificate in Social Justice Studies, which provides students with conceptual and evaluative tools for examining many social injustices.

Finding Community Sites for Transformational Learning

One important ingredient to successful transformational service-learning is finding community partners with whom you can collaborate. Some instructors have contacts that they can use, but others feel like they are starting from scratch in this process.

We understand that reaching out into the community without a plan or assistance can be intimidating, and faculty members should realize that there are resources available to help. Fortunately, there are many ways to make this step in transformational learning easier.

Before exploring potential sites for your students, be sure to consider what sort of experiences or service work makes sense given the focus of your class. Service-learning is most beneficial when students clearly can see the connections between the course on the one hand (in terms of topics, lecture material, readings, or skills that the professor wants to develop) and the field work on the other. Admittedly, some disciplines will have community sites that are relatively self-evident, whereas others may require some creativity (i.e., instructors in fields that are less applied may have to consider how community members could potentially use the skills that the discipline has to offer).

Instructors also have to decide whether they will allow students to perform their transformational service-learning with a primary partner (such that all students will work at the same site), or if a range of sites will be preferable. There are advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. Collaborating with a single community partner provides a greater amount of coherence and focus for transformational learning, and can deepen the connection between Roosevelt and the site. However, it can pose logistical or scheduling problems for those students who have difficulty reaching the site because of geographic or time issues. Allowing the students to chose their sites has the advantage of greater flexibility. Students can ask the instructor to approve a placement that reflects their particular area of interest relative to the course focus and that meets their scheduling needs. However, this option requires students to be more active in the search process, and it can be more cumbersome for instructors to ensure that all students are at appropriate sites and are performing their duties well.

How can professors find sites after these decisions are made? Here are concrete resources offered by the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation (MISJT) and beyond:

1. There are easy-to-access databases of sites. The first one is Volunteermatch.org. This is an extensive listing of community agencies, grouped by theme and location. Each is actively seeking volunteers. This is perhaps the most frequently used database nation-wide for professors to find service-learning placements.

There are also databases of sites that provide services that are arranged by location and service type. My personal favorite is Community Resources Online. Professors can easily generate a list of sites that assist populations that connect in with their course themes listed on the pull-down menus (e.g., illness, abuse, financial planning, citizenship preparation, crime prevention). Keep in mind that this site lists agencies rather than volunteer opportunities; however, a follow-up call may allow you to determine partnership potential.

2. Contact the Mansfield Institute or our in-house colleagues for assistance! You can email Steve Meyers (Mansfield Professor of Social Justice) at smeyers@roosevelt.edu or call at 312-341-6363 directly.

We have two main channels for assisting faculty in finding placements. First, the Mansfield Institute launched its initiative to disrupt the "cradle to prison pipeline." This refers to how many social factors contribute to the disproportional incarceration of minority youth. We have formed a range of partnerships with community organizations around this theme in areas such as education, juvenile justice/corrections, social services, neighborhood development, and more. Nancy Michaels (nmichaels@roosevelt.edu or 312-341-2150), Program Coordinator at the Mansfield Institute, would be happy to see if there are connections between your class and our partners.

Second, we are fortunate to welcome Jennifer Tani as the university's new Director of Community Engagement. Jennifer has a wealth of experience collaborating with community organizations and agencies, and she is willing to assist faculty in finding potential service-learning placements as well. She can be reached at jtani@roosevelt.edu or 312-341-2375.

Transformational Learning at Ruiz School

Undergraduate students from Roosevelt University have had the unique opportunity to continue their quest to become the teacher leaders of the future in the south and west side neighborhoods of Chicago. These areas of the city are culturally diverse in many positive ways, but also experience difficult challenges, such as elevated crime rates, high student mobility rates, issues regarding immigration, student violence, and in some cases socio-economic despair.

These urban settings are not reminiscent of where many Roosevelt University undergraduates have grown up or attended schools. However, there is something about the experiences they have had as part of a transformational learning course at Roosevelt that has compelled them to stay and become a part of these communities.

In the College of Education, Dr. Elizabeth Meadows has incorporated transformational service-learning into her pre-student teaching class to help solidify her students’ knowledge and teaching skills. Her students attend her seminar and spend one day a week in a kindergarten through 6th grade classroom in a public school on the south side of Chicago. In the field, Roosevelt students initially provide small group and one-on-one instruction; they progress to teaching a specific subject area each week. This process requires careful planning and coordination with the mentor teachers in the classroom. Dr. Meadows visits each elementary classroom throughout the semester and uses her observations to enrich her students’ learning during the seminar discussions. In the spirit of reciprocity, the principal of Irma C. Ruiz Elementary School, Mr. Dana Butler, co-teaches several seminar sessions that are held at Ruiz and shares his invaluable knowledge and experience with the undergraduate students.

One way that students are typically evaluated in a transformational learning class is through journaling. In their journals, Dr. Meadows’ students think critically about their experiences. They consider why teachers do things in certain ways, examine their own assumptions, and speculate about how they would handle certain situations if they were the teacher.

Transformational learning has allowed these undergraduates to serve in communities that many had not visited. This powerful experience has also motivated them to work in urban education, and several have requested additional teacher preparation experiences at Ruiz School. Several of these students will be doing their student teaching at Ruiz. After two years of hosting Roosevelt University undergraduates at his school, Mr. Butler has seen the positive effects for his young students’ learning and for his school as well.

For more information, contact Prof. Elizabeth Meadows at emeadows@roosevelt.edu or Mr. Dana Butler at dabutler1@cps.k12.il.us. Mr. Butler is a Roosevelt Alumnus (Master of Arts in Educational Administration and Supervision, Class of 1998).