Fostering Lifelong Volunteering -- Start 'em Young

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Fostering Lifelong Volunteering -- Start 'em Young

• Kevin Days, Program Coordinator,
• Learn Serve America
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• Debra Hart, M.S.,
• Director, Education Transition
• Institute for Community Inclusion
• University of Massachusetts Boston
• Debbie Gilmer, M.Ed
• Maine Support Network,
• Western Maine Partnership

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Service Learning Options

• Why Bother?
• Provides students with the opportunity to apply
  what they are learning in the classroom to the
  real world ensuring acquisition of the skill(s)
• Can align with curriculum frameworks state
  standards

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Why?

• More engaging helping to decrease drop-out
• Shows students relevance of curriculum to their
  life

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Special Educators IDEA 2004

• Need to conduct outreach to special educators
• Need to include Service Learning goals
  objectives in a students IEP
• Need to work with special educators on how
  service learning can help enrich a students
  portfolio with evidence of skill acquisition to
  demonstrate competency /mastery of skill if in a
  high stakes testing state

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Community Service

• Sometimes considered a punishment only for
  students who have misbehaved

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Universal Design Strategies for Including
Students
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What have you learned recently?

• Name one thing that you learned last month (a new
  recipe, a yoga pose, how to change a flat tire,
  how to use PowerPoint, etc.)
• What helped to learn it?
• What made learning it more complicated?

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Todays Students

• Who are your students now?
• What are their goals?
• What are their primary learning styles?
• How do is the diversity of students addressed?

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What is Universal Design?

• Consider the needs of the broadest possible range
  of users from the beginning
• Proactive

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Quick Inquiry Write, think of, or draw your
responses quietly

• Who is number one user of captioning?
• Who uses curb cuts?
• Who uses international symbols?

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What is Universal Design?

• Universal Design (UD) is the design of
  culturally responsive service learning
  opportunities including curriculum, instruction,
  assessment and the environment, to be usable by
  all students, to the greatest extent possible,
  without the need for accommodations.

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Universal Design

• Emphasizes meeting individual needs of a broad
  range of students
• Provides alternative ways students can engage in
  the learning process
• Removes barriers to information access
• Provides flexibility without watering down the
  activity and curriculum

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• Varied presentation of content to accommodate all
  learning styles
• Provide multiple means for students to engage
  with the content/activity
• Provides multiple options that allow student to
  demonstrate competency / knowledge of material

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Overall.

• Levels the playing field
• Benefits all students

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Favorites (often low cost)

• natural supports (e.g., assistance from
  classmates)
• reduce distractions whenever possible (e.g.,
  provide space enclosures or a private area, allow
  students to leave return to activity)
• provide notes and/or video clips for each
  activity (e.g., post on class website)

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More.

• provide clear map of the area
• institute use of unscented, non-toxic products
  a no scent policy
• ensure that the environment is clutter free
  that it is wheelchair accessible

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Universally Designed Service Learning Example

• Blackstone Valley Watershed
• Reviewed major elements of the project
• Task analyzed key tasks made available in text,
  pictures, video / podcast
• Braille, large print
• Low tech solutions on-hand

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What are your next steps?
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Inclusive Practice An opportunity to count

• All students learning, growing and playing
  together in their local neighborhood schools
• All students have access to (and support) to
  achieve in a rigorous curriculum (in Maine, the
  Maine Learning Results, our state standards)
• All students are prepared to succeed in college
  and the work place upon graduation
• Personal learning plans guide each students
  individual learning
• Student led conferences showcase their work and
  actively engage parents in school

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Inclusive Practice and Service Learning An
Opportunity to Make a Difference

• Most of these examples come from a leadership
  course at one of our GEAR UP districts (middle
  and high school) that has a strong service
  learning component (and a long history of
  exemplary inclusive practice)....
• A student with multiple disabilities uses a
  switch to read stories to children in a
  Montessori school
• A non verbal student uses her AAC device to
  socialize with elders in a nursing home

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More examples

• The Leadership class has produced a State
  Legislative Forum for local candidates. The
  current class CEO is a student with physical
  and learning disabilities.
• Clean up and trash collection (and analysis is
  then shared with the DEP)

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More examples

• Another student works in a soup kitchen rolling
  and passing silverware to guests
• A student began running a "gift cart" three
  afternoons a week at a nursing home---she and her
  support staff shops for items for the cart, visit
  residents, and makes sales. While this started
  as part of a school class, it became an ongoing
  volunteer opportunity after graduation and she is
  still the cart lady.

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Baxter School for the Deaf

• http//www.maine.gov/education/lsa/stories.htm

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For more information

• Deb Hart debra.hart_at_umb.edu
• Debbie Gilmer gilmer_at_maine.edu
• www.gearupme.org
• http//www.maine.gov/education/lsa/stories.htm