1. Engaging Basic Skills Students through Service Learning
Introduce ourselves
Arlene Kemmerer, Lecturer, Basic Skills reading
Mary Bandziukas, Work based learning coordinator
Jo Pantaleo, Director Basic Skills Learning Center and Director Service Learning
Introduce you to the project and
Jo will discuss what service learning is and why service learning works well for basic skills students

2. Look Around for NYC Audubon
Basic Skills students created an issue of
Look Around for NYC Audubon

3. Look Around New York City
Gets city kids involved in their environment by promoting
appreciation and preservation of nature. Look Around is…
for 4th through 6th grade
distributed to 850 classrooms and nature centers in NYC
in print for over 20 years; 3 issues annually
full of articles by professionals and kids; fun facts,
mini-quizzes, interviews, and resources for nature activities
The theme of our newsletter was:
Forests of New York City - past, present and future
According to NYC Audubon’s website:
Look Around New York City is NYC Audubon’s publication for children in 4th through 6th grade.
It is distributed to about 850 classrooms and nature centers throughout the City.
Look Around has been published for over 20 years under the leadership of Naola Gersten-Woolf and the support of a volunteer staff.
It features articles by professionals as well as kids. There are fun facts, mini-quizzes, interviews, plus resources for adults to get ideas for fun, City-based nature activities.
Look Around aims to get City kids involved in their environment by promoting nature appreciation and preservation.

4. WHAT IS SERVICE LEARNING?
“Service learning combines community service, academic instruction, focusing on critical, reflective thinking and personal and civic responsibility.
Service learning programs involve students in activities that address community-identified needs, while developing their academic skills and commitment to their community.” –American Association of Community Colleges

5. Service Learning at Queensborough/CUNY
Curriculum based
SL Activity must align with course and gen ed objectives
Reciprocity
Faculty and community based organization plan SL collaboratively
Reflection
Student transfers classroom /content knowledge to an authentic task

6. Service Learning and Basic Skills
Students are actively engaged in a real world project
Students use reading strategies to complete their project
Here you see some of our students at work on the project…

7. Erik Karff, Manager, Education and Outreach NYC Audubon
Introduce Eric, the person we worked with at NYC Audubon
We have his comments on the project, to show you that it was successful from his perspective. 7

8. Reciprocity of Service Learning
NYC Audubon
Produced a newsletter
Created a partnership for future projects
BE122 Basic Skills
Achieved :
reading course objectives
general education objectives
Currently in Spring 2010, have kiosk project with business class

9. Improving basic skills of reading:
BE 122 Course Objectives
Improving basic skills of reading:
Identifying main ideas, supporting details
Outlining and summarizing
Drawing conclusions
Enhancing research skills
Developing vocabulary
Improving study skills
You will see when we do the activity, how this project teaches these skills.
Civic
Connections to community
Learning how to help people
Vocabulary Skills
using context and word structure
Study Skills
time management,
organizational skills,
listening skills,
Reading and Critical Thinking Skills
Identifying
main ideas,
supporting details,
implied main ideas,
patterns of organization,
Distinguishing between fact and opinion
Making inferences
Recognizing purpose and tone
Recognizing elements of an argument.
test-taking strategies, and
following directions
time management
organizational skills
listening skills
following directions

10. Queensborough Gen Ed Objectives
through reading, writing, listening and speaking
Communicating effectively
to identify issues or problems and evaluate evidence in order to make informed decisions
Using analytical reasoning
effectively for academic research and lifelong learning
Using information management and technology skills
directed at accomplishing learning objectives
Working collaboratively in diverse groups
Integrating knowledge and skills in their program of study

11. Starting the Newsletter BE122 students
“In the beginning of this project, I wasn't sure what we had to do. After a few weeks of doing some research, I found it very interesting to know about. I was getting more aware of New York’s surroundings. It has helped me improve my research skills, point out major and minor details. …The history on parks was fun to research on, there was so many details in a forest to learn about. “
We also were using the epsilon environment, as you will see on the next slide,
See from the quote, when they started, they weren’t sure what to do
Then they started to learn more about their community and the City’s parks
Starting the Newsletter BE122 students

12. Working on the Newsletter
“…. After a week or so, I started to put my mind into this and started finding this project very interesting.”

13. First round of articles in Wiki
Bring up the Wiki to show the actual comments
Real-world project, real world experience
Explain how they did the project:
We started by giving the students some articles and websites to read
They found other websites to research
“I learned how to use an ePortfolio which I had never used before.”

14. “I'm learning a lot of different things in doing this project that I never knew before…”
Tell story about how Mary worked with the Mannahatta group on how to organize the information: chronologically vs. by subject matter
They had to decide how to present the info., and realize that when they read, the writer had to make the same kinds of decisions
Reading skills – patterns of organization, using transition words,
Had to work with students on identifying the point of their articles…

15. Audubon and BE122: Final Meeting and Thoughts
“…you need only a couple of sentences so that has helped me to summarize, which was hard at first. Then I caught on to how it has to be.”
Erik visited again at the end of the semester. The students presented their articles, and Erik thanked them and gave them some final thoughts. The students were presented with cerificates, and they felt proud of their accomplishments.
“So far, in doing this project it has taught me how to work with people, research, and pick out the main points.”

16. “This project was a really great idea for us to help knowledge fourth graders about the history of parks in New York. I'm really excited on how this newsletter will eventually come out.”
BE 122 NYC Audubon

17. Look Around
Lead-in to the activity…
Notice the recognition of Queensborough students on the back of the newsletter. We will be sending the final product to each student…
“….knowing how Manhattan has changed in the last 400 years is amazing…”

18. Observations
Demonstrate the relationship between reading and writing; use process of writing to learn reading
Primary point is to teach the basic skills; secondary outcome is increased content knowledge
Scaffold project; narrow search; carefully select materials
Attend library research class
Enable students to virtually work in groups through ePortfolio; instructor can comment at anytime; students learn technology
We covered most of this already,
Important to scaffold project…
–too broad keeps lowest level interested understand how writing is put together gives you knowledge to comprehend reading

19. Next Service Learning Project: Healthy Eating, Healthy Living
Students enrolled in a basic skills reading course and a speech communication course will promote healthy eating habits to the QCC community and elementary school students. Students will:
Research, summarize and present healthy eating habits
Prepare a healthy recipe
Read aloud children’s books about nutrition
Develop and perform second advertisements for nutritious snacks
Jo talk about the new grant that is funding this