This course was our upper-division service learning course. As the service portion of the course we worked with students in a local after-school program, teaching them about Japanese language and culture. For the first lesson with the students, we first assessed their knowledge of both Japanese and Japan, as well as teaching them a little bit of overview. Afterwards, we asked them what they were excited to learn about. From there we designed many lesson plans, focusing on mostly different areas of culture, but also parts of the language. Some examples of topics we taught about were: basic greetings, Japanese games, chopsticks, calligraphy and kanji, kimono.
This class was taught in Japanese and English and satisfied MLO1: Language and Communication. MLO1 requires that we demonstrate an intermediate-high level of language proficiency which we did through various means. All of our site reflections were written in Japanese, as well as our final essay, and we had to give many long presentations in Japanese. One of these was our community scan presentation that we did. In it we had to conduct research to discover both the strengths and weaknesses of the community we were serving. We did so through a variety of methods, including interviewing community members, looking at census data, as well as walking and driving around the community to get a feel for the needs of the community, plus other methods. Then we gave a presentation on our findings in Japanese that took about a half hour to complete. I have included that presentation below. I have also included my final essay, as well as our midterm and final presentation, and our action plan.
This course however, by virtue of being a service learning course has its own service learning outcomes or SLOs. These are as follows:
1. Self and Social Awareness: Explain the relationship of diverse dimensions of social, cultural, and professional identities to systems of power, privilege, and oppression
2. Service and Social Responsibility (Part 1): Analyze how the field/profession has perpetuated inequity/injustice and/or contributed to equity/justice at the individual, group, and societal levels.
3. Service and Social Responsibility (Part 2): Engage in responsive, reciprocal service that is informed by knowledge of the multicultural histories, demographics, socio-cultural dynamics, and assets of a specific community.
4. Action towards Systemic Change: Develop and implement personal and professional strategies, policies, and/or practices that work towards creating greater equity and social justice in our communities, workplaces, and/or institutions.
We satisfied these SLOs through various means. We satisfied SLO1 through our community scan project and then by also examining our own identities to see where the privilege and power laid in our relationship with the community. For SLO2 we learned about various topics in-class that assisted us in being better teachers towards the students. In particular, we learned about globally competent teaching, which strives to prepare students to live in our increasingly interconnected world and how to respond to the problems it faces. We applied that this concept by teaching a lesson about onigiri and tying it to the UN's Sustainable Development Goal "Zero Hunger," which works to address world hunger, through the Onigiri Action Campaign. For SLO3 we took what we had learned for SLO1 so that we could best teach the children in the way that suited them best as well as serving their needs. As many of the community are in the lower to middle class bracket and all the students we taught were attending a public school, the education they received did not include any second language lessons, as it is not required by the state. This is despite the research that has shown the value of second language learning, which helps students improve in other areas of their academics as well. For SLO4 we created an Action Plan to help change the students mindsets towards waste. We had often see students being rough with both their own as well as the shared supplies they had. Landfills are also one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gases, and thus climate change, and studies have shown that the communities most affected by climate change, and worsening extreme weather, tend to be poorer communities. As such we wanted to impress upon them why creating trash is bad, so they could be both kinder to the planet and gentler to their supplies. We created a presentation for all the students in the afterschool programs in grades 3 and up, and afterwards had them fill out a survey to see how their opinions had changed and to reinforce the messages that we had taught them. My final essay below reflects on these SLOs in more depth, however it is in Japanese.
This class was taught in Japanese and English and satisfied MLO1: Language and Communication. MLO1 requires that we demonstrate an intermediate-high level of language proficiency which we did through various means. All of our site reflections were written in Japanese, as well as our final essay, and we had to give many long presentations in Japanese. One of these was our community scan presentation that we did. In it we had to conduct research to discover both the strengths and weaknesses of the community we were serving. We did so through a variety of methods, including interviewing community members, looking at census data, as well as walking and driving around the community to get a feel for the needs of the community, plus other methods. Then we gave a presentation on our findings in Japanese that took about a half hour to complete. I have included that presentation below. I have also included my final essay, as well as our midterm and final presentation, and our action plan.
This course however, by virtue of being a service learning course has its own service learning outcomes or SLOs. These are as follows:
1. Self and Social Awareness: Explain the relationship of diverse dimensions of social, cultural, and professional identities to systems of power, privilege, and oppression
2. Service and Social Responsibility (Part 1): Analyze how the field/profession has perpetuated inequity/injustice and/or contributed to equity/justice at the individual, group, and societal levels.
3. Service and Social Responsibility (Part 2): Engage in responsive, reciprocal service that is informed by knowledge of the multicultural histories, demographics, socio-cultural dynamics, and assets of a specific community.
4. Action towards Systemic Change: Develop and implement personal and professional strategies, policies, and/or practices that work towards creating greater equity and social justice in our communities, workplaces, and/or institutions.
We satisfied these SLOs through various means. We satisfied SLO1 through our community scan project and then by also examining our own identities to see where the privilege and power laid in our relationship with the community. For SLO2 we learned about various topics in-class that assisted us in being better teachers towards the students. In particular, we learned about globally competent teaching, which strives to prepare students to live in our increasingly interconnected world and how to respond to the problems it faces. We applied that this concept by teaching a lesson about onigiri and tying it to the UN's Sustainable Development Goal "Zero Hunger," which works to address world hunger, through the Onigiri Action Campaign. For SLO3 we took what we had learned for SLO1 so that we could best teach the children in the way that suited them best as well as serving their needs. As many of the community are in the lower to middle class bracket and all the students we taught were attending a public school, the education they received did not include any second language lessons, as it is not required by the state. This is despite the research that has shown the value of second language learning, which helps students improve in other areas of their academics as well. For SLO4 we created an Action Plan to help change the students mindsets towards waste. We had often see students being rough with both their own as well as the shared supplies they had. Landfills are also one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gases, and thus climate change, and studies have shown that the communities most affected by climate change, and worsening extreme weather, tend to be poorer communities. As such we wanted to impress upon them why creating trash is bad, so they could be both kinder to the planet and gentler to their supplies. We created a presentation for all the students in the afterschool programs in grades 3 and up, and afterwards had them fill out a survey to see how their opinions had changed and to reinforce the messages that we had taught them. My final essay below reflects on these SLOs in more depth, however it is in Japanese.
community_scan_problem.pdf |
midterm_presentation.pdf |
final_presentation.pdf |
最後のエッセイ.docx |
action_plan_presentation.pdf |