The Kennedy's

The partnership with Deerwood Elementary has been truly amazing for UCF students and for the students at Deerwood. I get chills as I watch these preservice teachers interact with young people at Deerwood. My philosophy is 'teach them all like they are the Kennedy's".  Too often we tend to 'major' in the 'minor' and focus too much on what the students don't have, rather than focusing on the things we can control from 7am to 3pm, during school hours. Sure, some of the UCF students were hesitant to walk into a title one school, primarily because of all the misconceptions regarding low income schools and communities. But it's amazing how much teacher expectation can impact academic progress. And, it's even more amazing how much we could accomplish during the school day if we didn't give so much weight to external variables such as homelife, background, and/or ability- the tone of my classroom and the culture at Deerwood. The service learning hours for this course only impact me to the extent that student's in my own course are impacted by working in diverse settings. Here are some reflections from my students regarding our volunteer hours at Deerwood Elem.

Reflection #1
I volunteered at Deerwood Elementary school with my group. I wasn't nervous until i found out that we would be teaching the students new lessons that they have never seen before instead of just tutoring them on what they need extra help with. After the first group came in and we saw what we would be teaching them I wasn't nervous about it anymore. All the students we worked with were very kind. They were definitely a diverse group of kids. One group that we had, were all Spanish and told us they were in ESOL together so we applied ESOL strategies in the lesson. The school over all was very nice and well maintained. They had smart boards in every classroom. Being a title 1 school I assumed they wouldn't have such great technology as they did. Everyone who was at Deerwood that day was very nice and helpful. I wouldn't mind going back for other classes in the future.

Reflection #2

Besides commuting to the school itself, my service learning experience with my group members was a good experience. I was nervous when I showed up and they told us we would actually be teaching to a lesson plan. Either I forgot about that or I didn't fully understand what was expected of us. I thought we were going to be tutoring at the Saturday school, but luckily, everything worked out. We had a basic lesson plan, some work sheets and taught the students about the mean, median, mode, and range for the math portion, and helped them answer multiple choice reading questions using evidence from the passages. After the first group we taught, the assistant principal pulled us aside and said we were doing great, but reminded us to really get the students more involved by having them come up to the board and do the problems, or make suggestions. This was different from what I was accustomed to when I was in primary school. Deerwood has a really hands on approach for the students, which I think is a good thing. The school seemed pretty mixed as far as the different demographics, and though it was classified as a title 1 school, it seemed pretty nice to me (they even had a smart board, which my high school didn't even have except for one or two classes). Overall, I enjoyed my volunteering time with my group at Deerwood Elementary. It took me out of my comfort zone, and gave me more experience with getting up in front of the class and teaching.

Reflection#3
My service learning experience was at Deerwood Elementary with some of my group members. We were assigned with Mrs. Santiago's 4th and 5th grade math and reading students. I was kind of nervous going into the school at first because I haven't worked with elementary students in quite a while, but I became quickly acclimated to the children and my surroundings. The students' ethnicity was pretty diverse, and I didn't have any preconceived ideas held towards a specific ethnic group because they are all just students' there for extra help. There shouldn't be any stereotypes held against a child. Since we were volunteering at the elementary on a Saturday, the students involved in the school program were those that needed a bit more help in certain areas of study. It was helpful with the program leaders there to inform us of which students were struggling with certain subjects. The students that were confident in math for instance, were eager to shout out answers. So in order to make sure that the students who were having difficulty with a problem got the help that they needed instead of just hearing another student call out the answer, we had the students write down their answers on a white board and cover them up when they were finished. It was nice to be able to talk to Mrs. Santiago and get some of her insight about teaching and what to expect. I also happened to know one of the girls working in the program, so I got to pick at her brain too about the "dos and donts" of teaching. Service learning not only helps you to be able to work with students more efficiently once you become a professional, but also helps you to network.