Collaborations: Boys and Girls

This course focuses on the importance of service learning in our community. As a class, we will have the opportunity to discover, evaluate, and reflect on the needs of our community by creating and facilitating educational workshops, mentoring, and exploring fundraising opportunities for the Boys and Girls Club. Students will learn respect for themselves and others as part of a community and will promote teamwork, leadership and problem solving skills. Community issues to be addressed include: listening, intercultural communication, leadership, mediation, and cooperative learning skills. Each student will have the opportunity to mentor at the club site (Meyers Boys and Girls Club). As we are working with youth, students will need to pass a background check in order to fulfill the requirements of the course (to be completed on the first day of class).

Students who have successfully completed this course should be able to:

  • Identify and analyze the basic assumptions of leadership and facilitation.
  • Identify and analyze effective leadership roles.
  • Identify and analyze the various learning styles and their importance to learning outcomes.
  • Recognize the importance of listening as a facilitation tool and effectively demonstrate listening techniques within leadership roles.
  • Identify and analyze issues of diversity and recognize the importance to communication processes.
  • Identify and analyze the basic assumptions of cooperative learning and the positive effect it has on working outcomes and productivity.

Project

Collaborations: Boys and Girls

The goal of service learning in this course is to provide a laboratory in which learning experiences address human and community needs and provides the necessary time for reflection on those experiences. Service opportunities will be structured to promote student learning and development. Desired learning outcomes include: acquiring a sense of civic and social responsibility, gaining exposure to cultural and socioeconomic differences, applying classroom learning and learning new skills.

You and your group members will be responsible for completing a portfolio or "final product." The final product will include a list of your goals for the educational workshop, your lesson plan, the workshop flyer, and other miscellaneous materials. You will need to hand in a total of three copies. One copy will be turned in for course files, one copy will be provided for the agency and one copy will be given to University Studies. Examples and guidelines will be provided in class.