What have I been up to? Well trying to teach in a new 21st Century way! What an adventure it has been, with mishaps, unplanned distractions but some successes.
Thank you to the following organization that I have been working with this school year, without this connection none of this would be possible.
Kathy Meyer and Ellen Erlanger
Partnerships Make A Difference
Service-Learning/PBL Project Planning
Notes
By Mrs. McGrath
Theme/Topic; "Becoming Family & Community
Leaders"
Each of my students will have the opportunity to understand
the needs of the community and how to be a leader and/or support leaders.
Team Members will be made up of groups of FCCLA students in
the Early Childhood Education Class, groups of 3 students per team.
ODE defines The Early Childhood Education program; "as
a program that will prepare students for professional careers in both public
and private childcare and educational environments. Careers for which this
pathway prepares students include: Teaching Assistant, Child Care Worker, Child
Care Center Operator, Educational Aide, Student Monitor. Postsecondary majors
for which this pathway prepares students include: Early and Middle Childhood
Studies, Early Childhood Education, Middle Childhood Education, Special
Education, Technical Education and Training, Human Development and Family
Science, Social Work, Elementary Education Administration, Psychology,
Counselor Education." (2016 www.education.ohio.gov)
THE BIG IDEA
Question
Issue/Service Focus: Who needs our help? What issue
needs our attention?
Answer
Last year, 2015-2016, we had 3 projects
1. Cancer Ribbons;
Identify Concern/s: We have
all been impacted by Cancer and we want to celebrate people we have lost and
helped survive. Set a Goal: We want to donate all
of the profit we earn from selling the ribbons and the signed poster of the
people who donated to ‘’Stand up to Cancer” Foundation, which is a foundation
that gives 100% of the money that is donated to them to …?
Forming a Plan Who: Whole student body at
CDHS. What: Ribbons and Donation. Also a pledge memory
banner(s). Where: CDHS. When: Second week of April
4th-8th. Sold during 4th and 5th period.
How: Students in class will cut out and make ribbons
from pre donated items (Ribbons+Safety Pins)
ACT;
We plan on donating all
the profits we receive to the Stand up to Cancer foundation. Which is a program
who donates 100% of funds to cancer patients. FOLLOW UP;
We want to impact the people
impacted by cancer in any possible way. We also want to send out a survey to
the people and ask them what they wanna see more of about cancer.
2. “Lead 2 Feed”;
Doing more than just our school food drive!
Identify Concerns:
Learning how to “Lead 2 Feed” by helping people
get healthy food. Set A Goal:
We need to contact people in our community about
helping get healthy food to children and families. Our school already partners
with a food pantry and in December we donated 1,700 pounds of non-perishable
food items to St. Stephen’s Food Pantry. Our goal is to do something different
than a canned food drive.
Forming a Plan:
Who: L.G.G. (Linden Gardening Group); Mrs.
Coleman and Mrs. Foster-Munnerlyn 1402 Cleveland Ave. Cols., OH 43221 and
H.K.C.L. (Heavenly Kids Center for Learning); Mrs. Norman 404 E. Mound St.
Cols., OH 43215.
What: Helping the centers get the garden ready
for spring planting and also teaching the children about gardening.
When: LGG; 8 students will go on Wednesday
starting March 21, 2016. Then every Wednesday April-May 2016 from 8:30 to
11:30am. HCKL; 6 students will be going but the dates will be announced later.
Where: LGG and HCKL locations and addresses are above.
Cost: Unknown; at this time both programs have grant
money for supplies but they need us to help with the labor.
Act: We plan on donating all the food that is grown to the families
that live within each area.
Follow Up: We want to impact the
families in the Linden, North Columbus and Downtown Columbus areas with our
project. We will survey the garden supervisors about how helpful we were and/or
what we can do better.
This year we will take a look at what
students are passionate about after completing the Entry Events described
below.
Franklin County Children Services
partnered with our school. They asked if we could make products for children in
foster care this winter holiday season. We discussed ideas, like designing
activity pages for young children. This was not an authentic idea from the
students.
The Cosmetology students partnered
with St. Dominic's Catholic Church. The plan was to see what class collected
the most canned food items to donate to families for Thanksgiving. Donations
where collected for 1 month, ending on November 11th and the winning class
earning a Pizza luncheon.
Question;
Learning/Academic Focus: What will we be learning about?
What could our "Driving/Essential Question" be? How will this
service-learning project connect to your curriculum goals/content standards?
What 21st Century Skills (e.g., collaboration, communication, critical
thinking, creativity, etc.) might be addressed?
I would like to present service learning in the new project
based way. Then I will ask students to reflect upon last year’s work and then
form new groups in areas of concern found from their "Imagine our world
without…."
Students started this on Friday October 7, 2016.
Standards; 21st Century Skills
Outcome 1.2. Leadership and
Communications
Process, maintain, evaluate and
disseminate information in a business. Develop leadership and team building to
promote collaboration. An “X” indicates
that the pathway applies to the outcome.
Competencies
1.2.1.
Extract relevant, valid information from materials and cite sources of
information
1.2.2.
Deliver formal and informal presentations.
1.2.3.
Identify and use verbal, nonverbal and active listening skills to communicate
effectively.
1.2.5.
Communicate information for an intended audience and purpose.
1.2.6.
Use proper grammar and expression in all aspects of communication.
1.2.7.
Use problem-solving and consensus-building techniques to draw conclusions and
determine next steps.
1.2.8.
Identify the strengths, weaknesses and characteristics of leadership styles
that influence internal and external workplace relationships.
1.2.9.
Identify advantages and disadvantages involving digital and/or electronic
communications.
1.2.10.
Use interpersonal skills to provide group leadership, promote collaboration and
work in a team.
1.2.11.
Write professional correspondence, documents, job applications and résumés.
1.2.12.
Use technical writing skills to complete forms and create reports.
1.2.13.
Identify stakeholders and solicit their opinions.
1.2.14. Use motivational
strategies to accomplish goals.
Question
Project Idea: What can we do to address the identified
need/issue? What community partner(s) might be involved? What opportunities
could be provided for student “voice” and “choice”?
Answer
As of, 10/8/16, I have not had time to give this question to
the students, but I am planning to do so the week of October 10, 2016.
I did not receive any proposals from students that completed
the "Imagine a World" assignment, therefore, I moved forward with the
food drive and the Franklin County Children Service's projects that was
presented by our school's community resource coordinator, as explained above
and below.
POTENTIAL
STRATEGIES/IDEAS FOR EACH STAGE OF YOUR SERVICE-LEARNING PROJECT
Entry Event(s)—"sets the stage" and
inspires student engagement in the project.
I held the following Entry Events;
1. September 20, 2016; Four students attended the
"Critical Issues Summit" at Mid-Ohio Foodbank with one of my fellow
Teachers, Mrs. C.
2. The week of Sept. 26, 2016 Students completed a Multiple
Intelligence Survey, FCCLA Webquest to discover what is FCCLA and You tube Video from "The View,"
Whoopi introduces Mr. Ferroni. I passed out pink or blue post-it notes to
divide the class in half. Then, similar to what Mr. Ferroni did, I said that
anyone with a pink note was not allowed to come to school anymore and they had
to move to apartments that I assign to them. Immediately students reacted. We
discussed were this is happening, like in Syria and why America or other
countries take in refugees.
3. The week of October 3, 2016 I presented the following 3 Youtube
videos to students and asked them to "Map out the heartbreak" they
see in the videos compared to their own neighborhood and/or heartbreaking
experiences they have had.
The Youtube Videos watched;
-"Video that will change your life. I have no words
left," by the corpfa
-"Why should we care about others?" by Julianna
Bouwers
-"Half the Sky Empowering Women" by St Stephen
Children's Centre
Students are given a cut out of a child shape to finish the
statement, "Imagine a world with… or without…" thoughts.
4. Week of October 10, 2016; Students will learn about
their Multiple Intelligence area. Also, I compiled a list of common themes used
in "Imagine a world with or without…," I will share this with
students and we will decide if anything is missed, while student who were
absent can create their "Imagine a world with … or without…"
thoughts. Next I will create groups of 3 to decide their top passion/concern
and then each team will come up with a response to the Questions mentioned
above in, Project Idea;
What can we do to address the identified need/issue? What
community partner(s) might be involved?
Lastly, the students and their teams
will be able to move into the Preparation/Planning step.
Question/Task to do
Investigation/Inquiry—"Exploring Possibilities"—helps
kids identify potential topics and become emotionally engaged
Answer
I believe that my Entry Level Events explained above
achieved this. Also, some students felt overwhelmed, how do I know this because
they said so. I tried to reassure them that our efforts, even small will go a
long way.
After reflecting on this, on October 14-2016, I decided to
share a diary entry from the, "Freedom's Writers Diaries," by Erin
Gruwell and her English class. I shared the diary entry about the day one of
the high schoolers Father's killed her Grandmother and she becomes homeless.
The Freedom Writier's Diary movie and book is a theme in my class because I am
a graduate of a Columbus City High School that was similar to the school in the
book that was turned into a movie. I share this so the students understand what
it was like when I was bussed across the city because I was white; however, I
would never trade the experience it Is part of the reason why I teach in the
urban setting.
That morning we went to the computer lab to create an
activity page, however, due to login errors and printing issues we only got
about 5 pages done.
The following week, the students who had expressed the most
interest was out sick, and then the following week I became very ill and had to
miss 3 days of school. The last week of October 2016, as I gave time for
students to finish projects and some had to take Ohio standardized test, we
watched the "Freedom Writer's Movie." This really was a great bonding
moment; unfortunately due to racial tensions over the current election season, many
students said Mrs. Mc was it really like that at your high school? I shared
stories of how we learned about one another through the book, "Black Like
Me." This really took me back to that time in my life, I shared with them
how my mom was worried but she said good people come in all colors, find the
good in everyone. My phone never drove the freeway and was worried about me
being far from home off the freeway. Again, I will never forget the lessons I
learned about racism and prejudice when I became one of the students who made
up 30% of the population attending a historic African-American school. I really
did learn that we have more in common and issues of poverty affected all in the
same ways.
This moved us into a new grading quarter and November. I had
a busy month planned, 4 observation visits to local Child Care Centers, the non-perishable
food drive for St. Dominic's Church to provide thanksgiving foods for families
as set up by the Cosmetology class and a guest speaker who shared their
foster-care/adoption of a child with severe disabilities caused by an incident
of shaking baby syndrome. All students provided a summary of they learned from
the presentation.
220 families received foods for Thanksgiving
Observations and reflections were getting completed, but I
was at a lost for how to refocus back on the activity pages for the foster-care
children. I said we need to pick experts for the project as well as class FCCLA
officers, but I was not getting applications turned in.
Thus, I moved to the next step, preparation/planning.
Question
Preparation/Planning—"Becoming Experts"—includes
further research, necessary knowledge and skill development,
project
schedule/logistics, and scaffolding (facilitated by the teacher as needed)
Answer
I presented FCCLA officer positions again and shared
examples of alumni students work. I asked students to raise their hand if
interested and created a voting ballot.
Action—"Doing the Work of Real People" . . .
Authentic
Product(s)/Service(s)—identifies “important stuff” that kids
will create and/or
accomplish
Authentic
Audience(s)/Client(s)—identifies who else will be part
of/become aware of/benefit from
the students’ efforts
I asked students to tell me what jobs they thought would be
needed, but I think that was too open ended. Thus, I presented this on the next
day, 11-18-16;
Creating Activity books for Franklin County Children
Services
Project Managers
What is your task;
Coloring Activity Page Designers (winter animals, heroes,
super heroes, places, jobs, avoid family)
For;
Boys
Girls
Ages 3 year to 10 years old
Puzzle pages, word searches, Sudoku math, practicing writing
letters, counting
Immediately, the following students accepted the positions;
Syomay, Fadumo, Dejanaee &
Makenna. They were able to get other students to help and
give feedback. Then we printed pages, sorted and made a stack of the original
books.
Reflection—"Attaching Meaning"—extends
the learning by helping students attach individual and collective meaning to
their experiences. What reflection questions/prompts should we consider? What
reflection strategies/forms of student expression should we consider?
Answer
On 11-28-16, all students reviewed the
2 activity books that were complied. 11-29-16, I returned all students their
"Imagine a World" cut out person with their thoughts. I asked them to
think about these thoughts, what they have learned about an education career so
far as the obligation to helping parents and teaching children, as they watched
the following 3 YouTube videos;
1. "Removed, statistics Foster
Care Break the Cycle, " April 2016 by Kelsey Mayberry.
2. "Removed," by Nathanael
Matanick (watched about 4 mins of the
12 min video)
3. Ann's Story- A Foster Care Story by
DA Blodgett St. Johns
Students answered the following;
- What have I learned so far?
-What has moved me/resonated with me?
-What statement, thought or quote can
you share with a foster care child?
Tips; to give hope and understanding
We can use your Initials and site our
school so the children know that it is high school students that created this
book and do care about them.
It was magical, students who had not
been engaged suddenly wanted to be! I noticed one student, who I know is going through
custody issues seemed disengaged.
Demonstration and Celebration—"Making
Learning Visible"—makes
learning visible, reinforces relationships, and “captures the magic of the
project” by documenting the process, its outcomes, and related next steps;
As of 11-30-16, I feel like some students would like a copy
of the book we created. I have heard a discussion of having a "Secret
Santa" gift exchange so I think plans for a celebration is in the works.
