Service-Learning Project Part 1 – Family, School and Community Analysis
(Online Research & Community Tour) (20 points)
Due date: see course schedule and BB site
Purpose: Service-Learning Project is a major assignment of the course that is designed to help teacher candidates to apply theory into practice, gain new skills, and develop ethical, practical, and culturally competent strategies to foster family engagement in children’s learning and schools. The online information and community tour (SLP 1) will help you to understand the population of children and families your school is serving.
Skills: The purpose of this assignment is to help you to practice the following skills that are essential to your success in school and your professional life beyond school. In this assignment you will:
• Access and collect needed information from appropriate primary and secondary sources.
• Synthesize information to develop informed views
• Compose a well-organized, clear, concise report to expand your knowledge on the subject family-school-community relations.
Knowledge:
• Explain how local diverse social, economic, and cultural contexts shape development and learning opportunities for young children.
• Evaluate the ecology of the child by examining accessibility of community services, agencies, and resources available to children and families and their impact upon children
Task:
Step 1: For SLP Part 1, you will take a community tour using a variety of data sources (e.g. city-data.com, evansvillegov.org, etc.) to gather demographic data, average income/salary/education, and other relevant information pertaining to Carver Center community (See below. Ilfa will provide some more data after the synchronous meeting on 9/10. You do need to attend!). Feel free to include other various parameters which you believe best describe the school as a whole.
Step 2: Once you have a good sense of the neighborhood in which the majority of the children live, take a community tour using Google Earth (you may use street-view) and explore community (within a 2 to 3-mile radius). Pay attention to the types of grocery stores, restaurants, churches, neighborhood centers, community gardens, etc., that are located within the community. Also, pay attention to services available to families and children.
Step 3. Write a 2-3-page reflection about what you have learned through your online research and virtual community tour considering following questions:
1. What did you notice about the Carver Center school & community (racial, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family types, educational level, etc.)?
2. Describe how the local circumstances/factors might be reflected in the school environment. How the local context may influence parents and children as well as the quality of teaching and learning at Carver? You need to include 3-5 images that you believe best characterize the community around the school.
