| |
Disciplinary Pathways to Service Learning
Developing
Service-Learning in
Developmental Studies
Elizabeth Bryer and
Carol Gish
Santa Fe Community College
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Though the new and exciting field of service-learning
has rapidly expanded to kindergarten through college, very little has been
said about the appropriateness of service-learning for developmental studies
(pre-college) level students. Since developmental studies courses have
in the past been labeled "remedial," perhaps it has been assumed
that these students are not yet ready for the rigors and challenges of
service-learning. This is the story of one developmental studies department
that has found that, on the contrary, service-learning is precisely
what our students need to help them smooth the sometimes intimidating transition
into higher education.
We have chosen to tell this story together because the development of
service-learning in our programs has itself been a process of dialog. Elizabeth
Bryer coordinates the Service-Learning and AmeriCorps programs, and Carol
Gish works with the Literacy Volunteers program. Implementing service-learning
in our department has drawn our programs into closer collaboration. In
addition, because we both teach developmental studies writing courses,
we share a perspective on service-learning that is influenced by both classroom
and administrative experiences. Co-authoring this article gives us the
opportunity to continue our dialog on paper.
We have both become involved in service-learning in large part because
of the supportive environment of the Developmental Studies department where
we work. Under the guidance of Dr. Meredith Machen, the department was
founded with a service/activist orientation that assumes that education
should help students take leadership roles in their community and change
it for the better. Our experiences teaching in developmental studies classrooms
have also drawn us to service-learning. When we teach writing, the often
challenging life situations of our students repeatedly calls us out of
the abstract realm and require us to ground our teaching in the real experiences
of our students. What will make writing skills relevant to students who
are trying to carve out a little time for academic study in the midst of
demanding work and family responsibilities? What can each classroom experience
offer them now, to take home today? These are the questions we consider
as we seek to engage our students in the new world of higher education.
Thus, it has seemed natural to us to include out-of-classroom experience
as part of the curriculum.
One of the biggest hurdles any developmental teacher faces is students'
fears that they are not capable of "making it" in school. Every
teacher of developmental students must be constantly sensitive to the learning
histories which students bring with them into the classroom. Our students
come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are successful business owners
with expensive homes; some are single mothers on welfare; some are recent
high school drop-outs who earned their GED's; some are middle-aged or older
individuals who have not been in a classroom for thirty or more years;
some are recent immigrants. Many had previous experiences with school they
would rather forget. Despite the fact many developmental students have
raised children, held steady jobs, and been responsible members of the
community in a variety of other ways, few seem to recognize they have any
skills at all when they are placed in pre-college level classes. They start
to believe their life experiences and the skills they developed through
them don't "count" Their past experiences of academic underachievment
weigh heavily on their minds.
Every developmental teacher must constantly be looking for ways to inspire
in her students a faith that old patterns of underachievement can be changed
and replaced with new patterns of success. Service-learning speaks eloquently
to these challenges. First, by asking students to look at what they have
to offer instead of what others have to offer them, service-learning
requires that students focus on their strengths. Secondly, our
students are those who dropped out of school, or who did not excel in traditional
skill areas. Thus, they are the most likely candidates for service-learning
activities which focus on learning styles and skills not emphasized
in traditional education. Third, by encouraging students to participate
in service-learning activities, we allow them to build a bridge to
academics from a work setting that may be more familiar and successful
for them.
Over the last ten years, our department's service orientation has grown
from an ideal to an articulated focus that includes credit courses for
volunteer service, a service-learning office, an AmeriCorps
program, a Literacy Volunteers program, and curriculum-based
service-learning. The process of integrating service-learning into
developmental courses and services began six years ago when Dr. Machen
developed a course entitled Human Development 170--Volunteer Service.
Through Volunteer Service, students do 30, 60 or 90 hours of service
and receive 1, 2, or 3 credits for their work. There are no class meetings;
instead, students work independently on service projects and fulfill other
course requirements to receive credit. In those early days, due to lack
of funding, there was only limited support and guidance available for these
volunteers. Students turned in a log of their volunteer hours and a paper
on their experiences at the end of the semester in order to complete the
course.
Despite the lack of infrastructure for the course, many volunteer service
students succeeded memorably. One researched and designed a plan for a
city-wide busy system that was instrumental in getting the city to consider
busses that ran on natural gas. Another student, who wished to study physical
therapy, placed out of introductory physical therapy courses when she transferred
to a 4-year college because of her extensive service work in that field.
Another practiced his Spanish skills by translating for native Spanish
speakers at the municipal court.
It was these success stories that inspired Dr. Machen to write a grant
proposal to the Corporation for National Service in 1994. Santa Fe Community
College applied for Learn and Serve/Higher Ed and AmeriCorps funds and
received both. With support from the Corporation, we were able to set up
a Service-Learning office for the first time and expand the curriculum
and support provided to student volunteers. Volunteer Service students
now keep journals and participate in a number of other reflection opportunities,
sign contracts with the agencies with whom they work in which they define
their learning objectives, and are evaluated by their agency supervisors
at the end of the class. Word-of-mouth and weekly notices about the course
in the student newspaper have increased enrollment in the course over 100%
since the first year of the corporation grant to roughly 50 students a
semester.
The added support and reflection available to Volunteer Service
students has noticeably improved the quality of their experiences. Having
a service-learning office means there is a staff person available to call
students during the semester to see how their service is going and to help
them troubleshoot when problems come up. Often, it is the most challenging
circumstances which are the most educational, but without the one-on-one
support of service-learning staff, many volunteers prefer to ignore frustrations
they are experiencing at their worksite rather than work them through.
With support staff on hand, students often have the courage to practice
problem-solving and communication skills at their worksites.
Like the Volunteer Service course, the AmeriCorps program was
designed with developmental students in mind. What Dr. Machen envisioned
was a leadership training program in which adults who were once at-risk
themselves tutored and mentored at-risk youth at three public schools.
We focused our recruitment of 20 part-time AmeriCorps members on students
in Developmental Studies. We told applicants concerned about the level
of their academic skills not to worry; they did not need college degrees
in order to be effective tutors and mentors.
Developmental students were much more difficult to recruit than other
more highly skilled community members. Many developmental students have
limited financial resources and could not afford to work part-time for
a living allowance that comes out to $5 an hour. Nevertheless, at least
one third of the first 40 AmeriCorps members have been students in developmental
studies programs.
Through AmeriCorps we have learned much about the power of enlisting
students in developmental studies programs to do service work. First of
all, we have learned that college students with low English and math skills
can be exceptionally effective tutors and mentors. Though these members
did not achieve exceptional success in school, the fact that they nevertheless
made it to the community college means they are developing resiliency and
the skills they need to motivate themselves--skills that they readily model
for the children they serve. When one tutor was confronted with helping
a child with math problems she herself did not know how to do, she realized
that "if I face my own fears about math and ask another tutor for
help in front of the kids, maybe they'll understand that it's okay not
to know things and that you never really stop learning and needing to ask
for help." These mentors naturally identify with their mentees. When
introduced to the low-achieving students with whom they will work, they
reject any conventional notions that those students are "lazy"
or "bad" and immediately concern themselves with how they can
help the student learn. What these tutors understand is, as one AmeriCorps
member wrote in her journal, "every student wants to do well."
The mentoring relationships that formed in AmeriCorps were as profound
for the mentors as they were for the mentees. AmeriCorps members in developmental
studies programs were particularly changed by their experience of providing
900 hours of tutoring and mentoring. What we saw these AmeriCorps members
experience is a pattern that is becoming increasingly familiar to us as
we recruit more and more of these students to perform service.
When a student who believes he doesn't know anything about writing is
asked to tutor a third grader in English, at first he may express fear
and doubt that he has anything to teach. He thinks, "I don't understand
the difference between an independent and dependent clause, so how can
I help a third-grader?" When he is reminded that most third graders
are still learning to read and spell and that many who need tutoring don't
even speak English, the college student's confidence is increased. He starts
to remember what he does know: how to read, how to write a simple book
report, how to speak. The tutor begins to focus on the skills that he has
to build on. While helping other, younger students develop the confidence
and skill they need to succeed, he will develop the skills he needs to
succeed himself: the ability to see what's going right in the learning
environment instead of what's going wrong, the ability to note even small
signs of progress, the ability to believe absolutely that learning will
take place even if not at the pace originally expected. He will also see
first-hand the factors that endanger the learning process: becoming overwhelmed
by the learning tasks at hand, becoming discouraged by mistakes, the fear
of failure that can become so powerful that a student resists learning.
Seeing these dynamics in another learner teaches the college student much
about how learning does and does not happen and resonates powerfully with
his own experience in developmental classes. As one AmeriCorps member put
it, "The students are my mentors as much as I am theirs."
What we saw with both the improvement of the Volunteer Service course
and the establishment of the AmeriCorps Program that came with our Corporation
grant was that students who might be unexceptional in the classroom could
be exceptional at a volunteer site, and that success in the latter could
spread to success in the former. By placing these students in situations
where they feel powerful and effective, we remind them of the skills they
have to build on in a classroom setting. In addition, by requiring that
they keep journals and write papers about their service, we allow them
to use their strengths as volunteers as bridges to the development of more
traditional academic skills. One AmeriCorps member, who had spent 12 years
working on an associate's degree, made the dean's list for the first time
during her AmeriCorps year of service. She credits the program with making
her a stronger student. "It wasn't until AmeriCorps," she said,
"that my education made sense."
Now that we have a service-learning office, the department has been
able to take what we have learned from the AmeriCorps program and begin
to incorporate service-learning directly into other course curricula. Dr.
Machen and Elizabeth are promoting the idea of curriculum-based service-learning
throughout the college by meeting with instructors and setting up faculty
in-service presentations. Along with the Nursing, Education, Human Services,
and Business faculty, Developmental Studies teachers and staff have been
particularly responsive to service-learning as a pedagogy. The Adult Basic
Education program, as part of its five-year goal-setting process, has adopted
the goal of integrating service-learning into GED (high school equivalency)
courses, with a special focus on service-learning projects for younger
students who may not yet be able to take the GED test, but who need to
be involved in a stimulating school program that treats them like adults.
Adult Basic Education students are also encouraged to engage in volunteer
work that helps them explore a certain career interest, or to work as tutors
or volunteer office staff within the Developmental Studies program. Even
though they do not yet have their high school or GED diploma, they can
enroll in the volunteer service course and start building college credit.
Curriculum-based service-learning is also becoming a compelling way
to encourage the college student body to participate as tutors in the Literacy
Volunteers program. Carol is developing a course which combines the developmental
studies writing course, English Review, with volunteer tutoring
of students learning English as a Second Language. Students can earn 1,
2, or 3 additional credits through Human Development 282--English
as a Second Language Tutor Field Experience.
In this combined course, the focus of the tutoring experience is to
empower the English Review students as learners. Students will be
encouraged to examine their own learning process and consider different
learning styles in order to discover the most effective way to tutor their
students. By placing students in teaching roles, Carol hopes to help them
discover that teachers don't have to know all the answers. Students who
view teachers as experts instead of facilitators of learning often have
a hard time being active, questioning learners. Breaking out of this pattern
will help students become more responsible for their own educational choices.
Because the service agency, Literacy Volunteers, is housed on campus,
the logistics of arranging service opportunities will be simplified. English
Review students will attend a four-part workshop on tutoring techniques.
They will be matched with ESL students who are on campus for ESL classes,
and who want to put in extra time studying. For the hour before the English
Review class, the classroom will be turned into a tutoring center where
tutors can meet with tutees in a supportive environment where others are
doing similar work, and where the instructor is available for guidance.
English Review papers and journal topics, as well as classroom discussion,
will provide a space to discuss and reflect on the tutoring experience.
We have learned that flexibility is key in providing service-learning
experiences to students in developmental studies. Most community college
students have jobs or children which are understandably higher priorities
for them than their classes. The self-paced nature of the Volunteer
Service class has been ideal for students who want to squeeze in 3
extra credits by volunteering weekends or evenings. At times, however,
the self-paced nature of the class has made it hard for student volunteers
to see themselves as part of a larger movement on campus of students taking
leadership roles in the community. The resulting isolation can sometimes
undermine the motivation of volunteers facing particularly challenging
situations at work sites. Carol's English Review/Tutoring Field Experience
class and a new requirement that Volunteer Service students attend
at least one two-hour reflection session with other volunteers during the
semester will address this problem. Following the model of the Praxis Program
at TVI in Albuquerque, the Volunteer Service reflection sessions
will be offered at several points during the semester at varying times.
Curriculum-based service-learning may need to be defined differently
in developmental studies than in other departments. Because Volunteer
Service students can design their own service project and because we
do not require that their projects be directly related to their more traditional
studies, only about half of the Volunteer Service students can design
their own service project and because we do not require that their projects
be directly related to their more traditional studies, only about half
of the Volunteer Service students end up doing "service-learning"
projects in the strict sense of the term. It is for this reason the course
title "Volunteer Service" was not changed when the Service-Learning
Office was established. However, since developmental studies classes require
so much confidence, courage and perseverance of students, these issues
are an explicit part of developmental studies course curriculum. Every
type of volunteer work that enhances these qualities can be seen as an
effective teaching tool and therefore tied closely to the developmental
studies curriculum. Whatever the correct terms for the work these students
are doing, its power to remind them of the skills they have to build on
and the achievements they've already attained may be just enough to inspire
them to persevere in the classrooms where success has, in the past, been
more elusive. Even the suggestion that they have skills to offer is enough
to give students a completely new way to see themselves, as this student
journal so vividly illustrates:
I don't know if I should really be saying this since I've never actually
taught anyone English. Maybe I feel the way I do about it because I feel
that I should be more qualified for the task like than what I am now...
My family has never really been involved in any type of community service.
This could be why I have never considered volunteering myself. I think
that it would be nice to give it a try sometime. The biggest obstacle I
face in doing this is not being too sure of myself. I suppose that it would
all depend on what it is I would be volunteering for. Manual labor would
be fine, but teaching someone English or math would make me feel uncomfortable.
Teaching English would definitely be a challenge for me. When I stop and
think about it, I begin to wonder what it would be like and all of the
challenges that it would be composed of. I suppose that it would also be
a question of how badly you would like to aid someone. Now that I think
of it, maybe it is time to break with tradition and start anew.
|
|
Sociology