scholarly journals Impact of Service-Learning on Hispanic College Students: Building Multi-cultural Competence

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Janice Smith Warshaw ◽  
Peter Crume ◽  
Hilda Pinzon-Perez

This article explores the experiences of Spanish-speaking heritage language university students in a sign language interpreting program who were enrolled in service-learning classes. In the service-learning classes, the students partnered with a community service-agency for the deaf that provided intervention services to Spanish-speaking families with deaf children. The findings indicate that the students developed a deeper awareness of their own multicultural and multilingual identity. Moreover, the students gained authentic experiences in brokering linguistic and cultural differences between the American deaf and Hispanic communities in an effort to enhance intervention services for the deaf Hispanic children. 

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-314
Author(s):  
Jennifer Leeman ◽  
Lisa Rabin ◽  
Esperanza Román-Mendoza

This article describes a critical service-learning initiative in which college students of Spanish taught in an after-school Spanish class for young heritage language (HL) speakers at a local elementary school. We contextualize the program within broad curricular revisions made to the undergraduate Spanish program in recent years, explaining how critical pedagogy and our students’ experiences motivated the design of the program. After describing the program, we analyze reflections from participants that show how the experience helped them take their critical language agency beyond the classroom walls and integrate university, school and community knowledges, as both the college students and the children they taught came to view their cultural and linguistic heritages to be of educational and public importance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shashank Sandu ◽  
Siva Sreedhar ◽  
Linda Chang ◽  
Lindsay Cohen ◽  
Andrea Cruz ◽  
...  

Aim: In this once-in-a-lifetime humanitarian crisis, what does it mean to be a good neighbor? It means that as a community, we must address loneliness and barriers to care faced by vulnerable populations such as older adults. We share an inexpensive longitudinal experiential service-learning program implemented by health professions and undergraduate student volunteers that aims to help alleviate loneliness in older adults while imparting meaningful experiences to volunteers.Intervention Design and Setting: The 21st Century Good Neighbor Program is an observational cohort study of an experiential service-learning program started in May 2020, and this article shares the results collected after 1 year. This longitudinal, weekly phone call program was conducted in a single community setting in the Midwestern part of the United States. Older adults over the age of 60 served by a local community service agency (CSA) were invited to participate. Volunteers consisted of students 18 or older. Student volunteers made regular phone calls to a pair of older adults throughout the course of 1 year following standardized call scripts. The loneliness of the older adults was measured by volunteers using the 3-item UCLA Loneliness Assessment.Results: 261 older adults were engaged in conversations with a volunteer. A total of 1,391 calls were accepted by older adults and the median length of a welcomed call was 11 min. The average baseline loneliness score was 4.156 ± 1.41 and the prevalence of social isolation was 19.5%. There was no significant change in the UCLA loneliness score in the first year of follow up. However, a majority of volunteers (88%) agreed or strongly agreed that the program had a positive impact on them. In addition, the program identified 257 issues older adults faced that required follow-up. The most prevalent concerns referred to the community service agency by volunteers were issues related to utilities, food and transportation access.Conclusion: The 21st Century Good Neighbor Program is a unique intervention in which student volunteers and older adults paired by a community service agency forge relationships though a longitudinal phone call-based program. This easy-to-implement program provides another layer of support to identify and refer issues that impact social determinants of health. The added benefit of volunteer satisfaction in the setting of COVID 19 pandemic is heartening. We hope to continue to study the impact of this intervention on social isolation in this vulnerable population.


NASPA Journal ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Persons ◽  
David Lisman

This is an optimistic, and useful, book written at a pessimistic time. In an era when the nation faces many social problems - including alienation from the government and work, the fragmentation of the family, and an expanding materialism - this book promoting civic literacy approaches to service learning and seeks to help educators in their efforts to redefine the role of civics in contemporary society. The civic literacy approach to service learning is defined as pedagogy that combines community service and academic instruction and that focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsiblity. The editors challenge community colleges to act as catalysts for a national movement of community renewal, suggesting that they may be our best hope for finding ways to solve our social problems.


Author(s):  
Brydie-Leigh Bartleet ◽  
Dawn Bennett ◽  
Anne Power ◽  
Naomi Sunderland

Community music educators worldwide face the challenge of preparing their students for working in increasingly diverse cultural contexts. These diverse contexts require distinctive approaches to community music-making that are respectful of, and responsive to, the customs and traditions of that cultural setting. The challenge for community music educators then becomes finding pedagogical approaches and strategies that both facilitate these sorts of intercultural learning experiences for their students and that engage with communities in culturally appropriate ways. This chapter unpacks these challenges and possibilities, and explores how the pedagogical strategy of community service learning can facilitate these sorts of dynamic intercultural learning opportunities. Specifically, it focuses on engaging with Australian First Peoples, and draws on eight years of community service learning in this field to inform the insights shared.


Author(s):  
Karen Ho ◽  
Boris S. Svidinskiy ◽  
Sahara R. Smith ◽  
Christopher C. Lovallo ◽  
Douglas B. Clark

Community Service Learning (CSL) is an experiential learning approach that integrates community service into student projects and provides diverse learning opportunities to reduce interdisciplinary barriers. A semester-long chemistry curriculum with an integrated CSL intervention was implemented in a Canadian university to analyze the potential for engagement and positive attitudes toward chemistry as a meaningful undertaking for 14 post-secondary students in the laboratory as well as for their 400 K-12 student partners in the community. Traditionally, introductory science experiments typically involve repeating a cookbook recipe from a lab book, but this CSL project allowed the post-secondary and K-12 students to work collaboratively to determine the physical and chemical properties and total dissolved solids in the water fountains from the K-12 students' schools. Post-instructional surveys were completed by all learners and were analyzed using a mixed methodological approach with both quantitative and qualitative methods. The expected audience that may be interested in this study are those involved in teaching chemistry in higher education and at the K-12 level as well as those interested in service learning, community and civic engagement, experiential learning, and development of transferable skills in chemistry. The results demonstrate that both groups of students report favorable engagement and attitudes towards learning chemistry and higher self-confidence levels on performing lab skills after the activity. Furthermore, both groups of students expressed interest in exploring future projects, which is indicative of the positive impact of CSL and the mutual benefits of the partnership.


WARTA ARDHIA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-163
Author(s):  
Tiarto Tiarto

Currently, the STPI is in stagnant condition or status quo to be a Public Service Agency. This paper is intended for those who feel disturbed by this fact, and have concern for the STPI.Some problems: achievement cadets who decline, low quality but the quantity of excess human resources, education systems, curricula, low reward / low salaries, expenditures per student is high, crowded dormitories, degree requirements, marketing graduates, competency standards / certification, accreditation, Research and Community Service (PPM) which does not fit with the mission, training co-operation contracts with third parties, outsourcing and so on.It all resulted in efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and low yields, thus the need for reform toward a more entrepreneurial way STPI bureaucracy, and fortunately with a strong new leadership of the Chairman with the spirit of high entrepreneur, STPI want to build a center for human flight (center of excellence human resources development for aviation), including the urgent need to change the status of a Pattern of Financial Management of Public Service Agency.


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