Problem-Based Service Learning: Empowering Students to Lead the Way to Success

Format

Individual Presentation

Location

Percival

Strand #1

Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Academic Achievement & School Leadership

Relevance

This presentation relates to two NYARC Strands...(1) “HEAD” ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP—This presentation will highlight the extensive pedagogical benefits and cognitive outcomes of Service Learning for engaging students in meaningful learning activities, motivating students to high academic achievement, and supporting the development of advanced leadership skills. Teacher and students will demonstrate ways that integrating academics and Service Learning Projects have increased their leadership skills, enriched their learning, and improved their academic performance as they assumed more control of their own learning and goal setting processes in a 9th grade Business Education course. And...(2) “HEART” SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SKILLS—This presentation will also highlight the indirect, but extensive social and emotional growth benefits and effects of students’ participation in self-selected Team-based Service Learning projects during completion of the high school course. The students’ emotional engagement in their self-selected Service Learning Projects affected the student’s feelings, interests, values, and reactions towards other team members, project assignments, and community involvements. Social Engagement outcomes include the students’ development of a sense of greater belonging to their class, their school, and their community through the establishment of caring, accepting, and supportive relationships

Brief Program Description

Designed for secondary school educators, a high school Business Education teacher will share the benefits of using student-selected Service Learning projects to align Common Core Standards with academic curriculum for meaningful, relevant learning in the high school context. Students will share their self-selected Service Learning projects. Handouts will include free copies of the Dream of a Nation text and references to Service Learning research, the National Service Learning Standards, and multiple internet resources.

Summary

The first portion of this presentation will be teacher-led…including an introduction to “Curriculum as Problem-Based Service Learning” by a secondary school Business Education teacher who employed Service Learning as a problem-based pedagogical method in her 9th grade Business Education Course (three class sections) during Fall Semester, 2014. (Student demographics included 48% Males; 52 % Females; 50 % Minority, Average Age, 14 years. ) Using the DREAM OF A NATION text, presentation will include explanations of the teaching strategies employed for empowering students to problem-solve school community problems through open, creative, peaceful, just, and unifying decision-making; namely, a) how to build positive self-identity for problem-solving (through dreaming “for-being-the-best-one-can-be” and personal goal setting); b) how to work collaboratively in classroom teams; b) how to develop leadership skills while working in a team; c) how to self-select learning projects that are personally meaningful; and d) how to increase communication and life-skills for working in a business environment where guiding principles for problem solutions must be democratically based on equality, quality of life, and personal growth for all. Also included in this portion of the presentation will be discussion of what are the most common personally-relevant emotional strengths that students develop as they complete Service Learning projects. The second portion of the presentation will be student-led consisting of students’ sharing their outstanding Service Learning projects that they completed during the semester in the Business Education course. Students will explain why they selected the project after reading and studying self-selected topics presented in the text, DREAM OF A NATION, how they researched and organized their cooperative team work required to complete the Service Learning projects, and what were the results of their teams’ efforts. The final portion of this presentation will be university-professor-led as Service Learning is extended to include “Curriculum as Problem-Based Service Learning” to “Research Analysis of The Effects of Service Learning on students’ academic, social, and emotional development. Research studies will be summarized and presented as take-home handouts for participants. In addition, participants will “take home” recommended creative, innovative ways for integrating Problem-based Service Learning with academic curriculum requirements in secondary schools.

Evidence

Qualitative analysis of student data will be shared in addition to national research that demonstrates that high-quality service-learning has positive effects on K-12 students’ academic performance and school engagement. Many of the service-learning initiatives included in the following studies evaluated federally funded Learn and Serve America programs. These national studies on Service-Learning and academic achievement indicate that students who participate in service-learning make significantly greater gains in reading, mathematics, history, and science areas than those who do not participate. NOTE: In 2008, the service-learning field released evidence-based standards and accompanying indicators that K-12 practitioners can use to ensure high-quality service-learning practice. Standards are organized under the following key indicators of Service-Learning: Meaningful Service, Youth Voice, Link to Curriculum, Partnerships, Reflection, Progress Monitoring, Diversity, Duration and Intensity. See evidence-based K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice for a downloadable copy of the eight standards with indicators, http://www.nylc.org/k-12-service-learning-standards-quality-practice Davila, A. & Mora, M. (2007) Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress: An Analysis Using NELS Data. College Park, MD: University of Maryland School of Public Policy, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Low socio-economic status students who participate in service learning scored higher in achievement, motivation, grades, bonding to school, and attendance than similar students who did not participate in service learning. See… Scales, P.C., Blyth, D.A., Berkas, T.H., & Kielsmeier, J.C. (2000). The effects of service-learning on middle school students’ social responsibility and academic success. Journal of Early Adolescence, 20(3), 332-358. Surveys of Learn and Serve America participants in Wisconsin found that approximately 98 percent of teachers who offered service-learning said that students learned more than what they could have learned through regular instruction….Students grades improved while 42 percent reported a decrease in disciplinary referrals and 36 percent, a decline in absenteeism during service-learning. See… Potts, S. Kirkham, M., Monsour, F., Grinde, J., & Planner, M. (2001). Sustaining service learning in Wisconsin: What principals, teachers and students say about service-learning. Madison, WI” Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. (NOTE: Other research studies, initiatives, organizations, and resources, including free downloadable PDFs for learning more about service-learning in the schools will be summarized and referenced in handouts. Also to be introduced, will be the Dream of a Nation initiative (www.dreamofanation.org), the SEE Innovation Project (www.seeinnovation.org), and the National Youth Leadership Council.

Biographical Sketch

Penny Teachey-Gary, M. Ed., Educational Leadership, is a Business Education Teacher at Statesboro High School, in Statesboro, Georgia. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Georgia Southern University in 2004, and for ten years has taught high school Business Education (Economics, Business Essentials, Career Preparation, Introduction to Business and Technology, Multi-Media, Computer Applications I and II Business Law, and Entrepreneurship). Ms. Teachey-Gary’s professional service activities include Lay Minister, St. Mary’s Missionary Baptist Church; SHS Student Mentor; Teacher Mentor--Student-Led Bible Study; and Club Advisor for the SHS Anti-Bullying Club.

Rosemarie Stallworth-Clark, Ph.D., Educational Psychology, is a retired Professor, Emerita, Georgia Southern University. She completed her PH.D. at the University of Georgia with emphasis on Cognitive Development and Applied Cognition. After having taught 27 years at Georgia Southern University, she retired in 2008 from the Georgia Southern College of Education. Dr. Stallworth-Clark continues to serve at Georgia Southern as member of Advisory Council, Zach Henderson Library, and as Emerita-Facilitator of the Peace and Justice Studies Faculty Learning Community. In addition, she continues to be actively involved in speaking, writing, and consulting for national and international issues of Peace Building, Human Rights, and Ecological Sustainability. She is co-author of a forthcoming book to be published, July, 2015 titled, “Social Sustainability: The Grassroots Guide to a World that Works.”

Keyword Descriptors

Service Learning, Problem-Based Learning, Educational Psychology, Secondary Education and Teaching, Common Core Standards

Presentation Year

2015

Start Date

3-3-2015 8:30 AM

End Date

3-3-2015 9:45 AM

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Mar 3rd, 8:30 AM Mar 3rd, 9:45 AM

Problem-Based Service Learning: Empowering Students to Lead the Way to Success

Percival

Designed for secondary school educators, a high school Business Education teacher will share the benefits of using student-selected Service Learning projects to align Common Core Standards with academic curriculum for meaningful, relevant learning in the high school context. Students will share their self-selected Service Learning projects. Handouts will include free copies of the Dream of a Nation text and references to Service Learning research, the National Service Learning Standards, and multiple internet resources.