SERVICE-LEARNING REFLECTION

Reflecting on my 'Dare to Care' project

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Consider the effectiveness of the project, considering each component and reflecting on your learning experience as well as the impact on the school or community.

I believe my Social Action Project was extremely effective in creating awareness, educating learners, uniting learners and involving parents and the community to the problem known as deforestation. My social action project was effective in creating awareness in The Kings School Linbro Park as PowerPoint presentations and videos were used as visual and auditory aids for the problem. Through these visual and auditory aids, the environmental issue was defined, the causes were explained and solutions were shown. Additionally, the videos and PowerPoint Presentations created awareness in how this problem is affecting the community. During my social action project known as ‘Dare to Care’, I created a letter for all of the Foundation Phase learners’ parents to explain what my social action project was about. In this letter, I included a seed with instructions on how to plant the seed. The letter explained to the parents and the learners that it is important to plant trees and seeds in order to prevent the problem of deforestation. This created awareness within the school, united all the learners to be involved in the social action project and educated the learners and parents. If the learners planted their seed at home and their parents were instructed to sign the letter and if their parents signed the letter, these learners could be involved in the ‘Dare to Care’ Fingerprint tree. This fingerprint tree was displayed for the whole school to see during their concert night, which meant that the parents and community were involved as they were able to see the tree with their learners’ fingerprints. My social action project was also effective in educating the learners as there were multiple experiments conducted in order for them to learn about deforestation, soil erosion and mudslides. Once the learners were educated through the use of videos, presentations and experiments, they had the opportunity to create posters about what deforestation is, the causes of deforestation, how it affects the community and how it can be prevented. These posters were displayed for the whole schools to see during the concert night, which created awareness in the school and united learners as they worked together to create these posters. This also involved the parents and the community as they were able to see these posters and become even more educated on the problem through reading through the informative posters. My social action project was extremely effective in involving and educating the parents and community as the posters and fingerprint tree was displayed on the King School Linbro Park Facebook page, which ensured that the wider community could also be involved. This impacted the school and community as many seeds were planted and many individuals now understand the importance of planting trees and seeds in order to prevent deforestation, which in turn, prevents soil erosion and mudslides from occurring within the community. Additionally, this Social Action Project impacted me as a preservice teacher as I have learned the value of community service and how it helps the community in growing positively.

The successes and challenges of the project.

Successes:

I believe that there were many successes in my Social Action Project known as ‘Dare to Care’. The learners were always excited to learn more about deforestation and how we can prevent it. Every day during my teaching experience, the learners were excited to water their seed that was planted at school. The learners also planted a seed at home, the parents sent pictures to their teachers showing the progress of their plants. Every day, the learners would run up to me and enthusiastically tell me about how much their plant has grown. I believe that this was the greatest success for me as the learners weren’t just learning the importance of growing plants and trees, they were excited and happy to do it. Whenever we had discussions, watched videos, went through presentations, conducted experiments, the learners were extremely involved and actively participated. This educated the learners and created awareness which allowed for a huge success in my project. The day in which the fingerprint tree took place was a success and the learners who did not plant their seeds wanted to be a part of the fingerprint tree once they had seen it in action, thus, the next few days, more learners had planted seeds and could be a part of the fingerprint tree. The parent and community involvement was a success as the fingerprint tree and the posters were displayed during their concert night. The fingerprint tree and posters were also displayed on the schools’ Facebook page which ensured that the whole community was informed and involved. The school had a robotics competition and brought the fingerprint tree with to display at the competition, which involved the wider community.

Challenges:

I believe that there were also a few challenges in my project. I believe that there was not enough time in a day to get through this project as the learners had many assessments that they were required to complete. This made it difficult for me to find time to complete the Dare to Care project, however, through the use of having a timeframe planned out I managed to complete my project. Another challenge that I experienced is that I was concerned that some learners’ parents would not have time to help their child plant the seed at home. This was a concern for me as the learners could only add their fingerprint to the tree if they planted their seed.

How has service-learning changed you personally?

Service-learning has changed me personally as this project brought me such pleasure and happiness knowing that I was impacting the community in such a positive way. Being able to involve the whole school and community changed me personally as it showed me how important it is to unite learners and the community in this project that helped prevent the environmental problem known as deforestation. It has changed me for the better and I strive to implement more initiatives for schools in the future.

How has service-learning developed you professionally? What new knowledge, skills and/or attributes have you gained?

Service-learning has developed me professionally as I have developed the skills of being able to research the problem, plan the initiative and set goals on when I would like to implement the project. I have developed the skills of being able to communicate effectively in order to implement the initiative. In addition, I have learned how to communicate with parents and involve the community. I have also developed new knowledge of the environmental problem known as deforestation. Through this social action project, I have developed pedagogical knowledge when I educated the learners through videos, presentations and experiments. Thus, I also developed new skills of using technology within the classroom. Additionally, I have developed sound subject knowledge as this project was integrated into the subject known as Life Skills. Through service-learning, I developed attributes which included communication due to the constant communication I had to have with the teachers, schools representative, parents and community during my social action project. I developed the attribute known as adaptability, as a result of having to adapt my social action project schedule due to continuous assessments, assemblies and fun days taking place throughout my teaching experience. I developed the attribute known as collaboration, the reason for this is because it was important for me to collaborate with the school in order for this social action project to be successful in each and every component of the project. The most important skill and attribute that I developed was preparation, the reason for this is because if I was not prepared and did not plan effectively, the social action project would not have been completed in time and it would not have been successful. Another skill that I developed which developed me professionally was classroom management. Through my social action project, it was important for me to manage the classroom effectively during discussions, videos, presentations and experiments, in addition, when completing the fingerprint tree. I developed the skill of positively managing the learners behaviour.

Describe the benefit of this initiative to the school and comment on its sustainability.

My social action project benefitted the school as it provided the whole school with awareness on the problem known as deforestation. Deforestation causes soil erosion and mudslides which could affect the school and community if more trees get cut down. Further development is occurring in the community, which is causing more trees to get cut down. Therefore, soil erosion and mudslides could occur within the community which will have an impact on the school and the learners. Thus, creating awareness, educating learners, uniting learners, and involving the parents in this problem is beneficial to the whole community and the school. Through the use of my social action project, learners, the school, parents, and the community are aware of the problem and are aware of how we can solve the problem. My social action project is sustainable as learners, parents and the community have knowledge on the problem and have knowledge on how to prevent the problem. They also have knowledge on how to plant a seed or tree and what a seed or tree needs to grow and flourish. It is sustainable as the whole of foundation phase planted a seed which will keep growing. Each term, the learners will receive a new seed to plant to add to the fingerprint tree, therefore, ensuring that my social action project is sustainable within the school.