PREPARATION | ACTION | REFLECTION | CELEBRATION
I PREPARATION
A successful Service Learning project requires some planning. These steps include Needs assessment, Proposal development, Learning to Serve, and Alignment with standards. The information on this page will help you accomplish these steps. You may need to download a helper application to view documents if you do not already have one.
Needs Assessment
Proposal
Learning to Serve
Meeting Academic Standards
Other Resources
Lesson Plans
A. Needs Assessment
A successful and meaningful service learning project requires some thinking in advance. Goals are set based on assessment of student and agency needs. In our model, the students were required to do a leadership project, and the community agency needed assistance in their pool and therapeutic play programs. Our project was initiated with a specific set of goals and partners in mind. Yours may come together somewhat differently. This is great! Please use our model to adapt in any fashion that suits your needs. Let us know about it so we can share with others.
1. Students
Student needs can be assessed in many ways. Academic or curricular needs may be a priority. For instance, students can earn mathematics credits in collaboration with math teachers by researching the demographics or statistics of disability in your community or state. They can almost universally earn language arts credits through written, photographic, artistic or portfolio documentation of their activities. See Curricular Connections for some other possible academic ties.
2.Community agencies
Building Partnerships - This model utilized some existing professional connections to begin, but needed to develop new relationships as we brought more students into the program. You may need to present a short proposal to a community agency in order to enlist them as a partner. The individual involvement of the students in this first overture, and the personal experience of the agency with the student are priceless. The student goes to the agency site and represents his/her fellow students to the agency personnel. The agency gets to meet one of the teens that may come and provide service. They communicate and realize the potential of each other. This cannot be accomplished by a coordinator by phone, and secures a buy-in on the parts of each partner (agency and student).
Partner Needs Assessment - Agency needs vary depending on the services they provide in the community. Facilitated interviews with key contacts serve to introduce the availability of youth energy as a resource. Once agency administration understands the service learning concept, we have found that in-depth interviews with clinicians or direct support staff assists in clarifying and focusing the direction of preparation of students for actual service delivery. In this way service can have a direct effect on not only agency programs, but also improve student engagement and satisfaction.
Preparing Agency Staff:
AGENCY STAFF IN-SERVICE- PDF 
Job Descriptions:
ACTIVITY ASSISTANT - PDF
SPEECH ASSISTANT - PDF
POOL ASSISTANT - PDF
Building Partnerships in Service Learning
back to top
B. Proposal
The proposal is the next step in the process. In the proposal, the teacher and students work together to create a plan that addresses the identified needs. This may take some generalization, stepping back and looking at a broad picture of the community needs assessment. A formal proposal helps capture the project, and serves as a reference. It can also focus teams and delineate needed resources for administrative and planning purposes. Such a process elevates the status of the project on a school-wide basis, and assists students in realizing the value of careful planning and economic statement of rationale (language arts standards).
SAMPLE PROPOSAL - PDF
TEMPLATE - PDF
back to top
C. Learning to Serve
This step is where service learning and community service are differentiated. Learning to serve entails comprehensive preparation in the classroom, with educational ties. To ease adoption/adaptation of this model, included here are lesson plans, with objectives, for an overview and your use in presenting the core classroom learning modules.
Lesson Plans
In this section you will find individual lesson plans and documents for the core learning of this project. Click here for individual lesson details.
Lesson 1: Introduction to Portfolios
Lesson 2: Community, Attitude/Values Clarification
Lesson 3: Gross and fine motor development
Lesson 4: Communication development
Lesson 5: Mental health development
Lesson 6: Swim modules
Lesson 7: Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
Lesson 8: Books and Games
Lesson 9: Play
Lesson 10: Confidentiality
CORE INFORMATION
Our lesson plans provide ready-made academic modules addressing preparation needs for this model.
The Power Point Shows provided also serve as models. We recommend that you enlist the physical or occupational therapist, the speech therapist and the school psychologist for your school or district to deliver them. These professionals have the best background to both present information and answer questions from students. They can also give a short talk about their professions, and tell how they came to work in the schools. Students appreciate this insight, and can re-visit the career option conversation most readily with professionals who are nearby. “Family and Friends” TM CPR was offered through community resources.
D. Meeting Academic Standards
In these activities, students can gain academic credits in a wide range of academic subjects. If your project still has not yet considered its academic value, now is the time to look at this aspect. See Curricular Connections and Evaluating Service Learning.
back to top
E. Other Resources
Make the Model Your Own
This model can be adopted or adapted to fit your student and community agency needs. It has already been modified to be used as an adjunct to a special education internship program and conceptualized for elementary to middle school students by using local developmental advocacy agencies and nationally available health and safety promotion programs. E-mail us to brainstorm!
A. Special Olympics
Special Olympics Get Into It (SO Get Into It™) is a free service-learning curriculum that celebrates the diverse gifts of every student whatever his or her ability.
AWARENESS - DOWN WITH STEROTYPES PDF
B. Animal Assisted Therapy
While we did not do an animal unit, you may find use for some of these links.
