It's Midterm: How Are Your Students Doing in the Community?

Orgullosa de mis estudiantes que trabajan en la comunidad.
by Ann Abbott

My students do a self-evaluation about their participation in the community at the midpoint of the semester and at the end. (You can find the Community Participation rubric in my "Spanish in the Community" syllabus.) As I read them last week, I looked for trends.

Trend 1. A positive experience. Students are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about their work in the community, their community partner and the effort they put forth. That is very re-assuring.

Trend 2. Down-time is a problem. For students who work in the grade schools, there is almost no down-time. They help the teacher, help the kids, have almost constant contact with someone. They might get tired, but they don't get bored. Students who work in an office, however, have unpredictable periods of down-time combined with bursts of intense activity. This is not news to me. I have known this is a problem since I began doing this in 2004. Honestly, though, I'm no closer to figuring out a solution. Here are some issues and attempts at solutions:

  • Students know that they should be proactive, but that often translates into actively asking their (busy and distracted) supervisors for more work.
  • Instead, I would like students to get to the point where they propose tasks to their supervisors.
  • Using technology during down-time is my best idea so far. Post on the community partner's Facebook page. Make a short welcome video to post on their website. Look up some links with information in Spanish that could go on their website. 
I'll talk about this with students today.

Trend 3. Use students' talents. One of my students and her supervisor toyed with the idea of my students giving a short workshop to students about the basics of journalism. The problem: some Latina middle-school students think "small" when imagining careers for themselves. The solution: my Latina student is a blogger and citizen journalist. The other talent that almost all my students have that gets taken for granted is their sociability. They are good conversationalists who enjoy interacting with people.

Trend 4. Supervisors really appreciate stand-out students. One student wrote about how the teacher she works with sent an e-mail to the volunteer coordinator about the students' outstanding work. Way to go students! Your impact can be huge.

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