University of Illinois: Teaching Workshops Pertinent to Community Service Learning

by Ann Abbott


The Center for Teaching Excellence is a wonderful resource for all faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Valeri Werpetinski makes it a top-notch resource for those doing community service learning and public engagement in general. Please take a look at some of the events they are offering this semester:


Specifically about community service learning
1. A workshop on "Case-based Teaching for (International) Service Learning."
2. A poster session titled "Social Entrepreneurship and Service Learning Showcase." Not only is this a good place to promote your own community service learning course, program or research, it is also a great forum for your students to present. I have a student team present here, and they are excited by the energy that surrounds the event and surprised to see how many other students on campus are doing service learning.


Not specifically about community service learning but supportive of the work we do in a CSL course.
1. Making Content Memorable and Transferrable using Narratives. Our students change their hearts and minds about immigration once they are exposed to the "stories" of the individuals they connect with in the community and the stories behind our government's immigration policies and realities. I use stories frequently, but I think this workshop would help me do so in a more deliberate, theory-based way.
2. Using Students' Prior Knowledge to Help Learning. I find this interesting because what we often have to do in a Spanish community service learning is correct students' prior "knowledge" because there is so much misinformation about immigration. I think this approach, however, could help us know--and even publish--what students do bring to a Spanish community service learning course.
3. Building Community in the Classroom - an Intercultural Approach. I think this is great! Our students absolutely need to do this during their CSL work, By talking about it explicitly and reflecting upon it in the classroom we can help them better achieve it in the community.
4. Creating Effective Student Teams and Team Assignments. I took this workshop with Cheelan a few years ago, and it changed the way that I thought about teams in my courses. I highly recommend it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vocabulary for Parent-Teacher Conferences

Image
I'm very happy that so many students responded to our community partner's need for help. Our students' language skills will help Central High School's Latino parents better communicate with the teachers during the parent-teacher conferences next week. Central's secretary will contact the students directly to schedule times with them. Here is some vocabulary help for students. Materias. School subjects are "materias" NOT "sujetos." You should remember subjects from your intro Spanish courses, but here are some reminders: historia, matemáticas, inglés, física, química, biología, educación física, etc. General vocabulary. Notas = grades; aprobar = to pass; suspender = to fail; conducta, comportamiento = behavior. Topics. Ms. Citraro offers the following advice: "The topics and vocabulary that would come up are about the subjects at school. For example: no ha entregado las tareas tiene que tomar el examen otra vez habla mucho en clase falta muc
Read more

How to Correctly File Hispanic Names

Image
I know that community-based learning students don't like it when they are asked to file during their time in the community. However, their learning goals are to improve their Spanish and knowledge of Latino cultures. Filing information on clients with Hispanic names helps them with both. And imagine the impact of mis-filing for the organizations where our students work and and their clients. That's why I was unhappy to learn that many SPAN 232 students did not do well on their exam section asking them to put some Hispanic names in alphabetical order. I can imagine that some students feel that putting names into alphabetical order isn't important. It is! It is especially important in the organizations where they work because they are dealing with clients who may not have "accommodated" to the American system of using only one last name. And it is especially important for clients whose papers are so important for their legal status, medical information and oth
Read more

Interview with Jessica Horn of ACCIÓN Chicago

Image
By Carolyn Kloecker , Span 232 student This past week I completed an assignment for my Business Communications class (SPCM 211) which was to interview someone in a field that I am interested in working for in the future. I asked her many questions about the organization, and lots of information can be found on their website www.accionchicago.org . This organization is a Community Partner with Spanish & Illinois, and has an extensive connection with the Spanish-speaking community in the Chicagoland area. Here are a few of the questions and answers from Jessica: Is ACCIÓN a fairly new organization? How did it begin? ACCIÓN Chicago started in 1994, but the parent organization, ACCIÓN was started in 1961. It is the largest micro-lending organization, and it began in Venezuela, and took root in the U.S. in 1991. How do loan officers communicate with clients? Mostly by phone, as people call in to the office to get a loan for their small business. The website is also a main form o
Read more