As I’ve mentioned in my previous post about service learning, as students provide a service to others, their motivation has the ability to increase. Students learn to think outside of themselves and develop critical thinking skills and empathy. Next year, we plan on implementing a service learning course for our Junior and Senior class. The breakdown of the plan can be seen below:
- A semester long seminar course for Juniors and Seniors deeply rooted in learning about service learning, volunteer work, and local & global organizations.
- Students will learn how a non-profit organization is started, operated, and carried out to fulfill their mission statements.
- Students will analyze issues/challenges/needs in their own community that have an organization or service group attached.
- Students will work on a semester long research project on an organization of their choice – components will include research, a portfolio, creating propaganda art, interviewing organization members, and a final presentation to explain all components.
- Independent field work – based on their chosen organization, students will volunteer and get hands on field experience with service learning.
- Mission Trip – the student cohort will work together all semester to plan a service learning trip as a class. This will give students a chance to work as a team and produce acts of service learning for a select group of people or an organization.
Of course, our ultimate goal is to have all of our students at Method integrate service learning in their curriculum in some way. We are truly looking forward to working with our students at Method and teaching them about the benefits of service learning through field experience, creation, projects, interviews, and more! Stay tuned for updates!