Service Learning Reflective Blog

Service Learning Reflective Essay

Introduction

With this podcast series we hoped to provide additional support to educators across all grade levels and areas of music education. We had hoped to provide this resource on an easy to access platform, and allowed individual pacing through episodes. Each topic was to provide teachers resources to counteract the effects of the pandemic. We focused on social emotional learning and following a universal design of learning format. My colleague and I had no prior knowledge on how to create podcasts but we were able to figure it out quickly, with some laughs along the way.

We surveyed several teachers and interviewed one teacher before and after the first two podcasts. This helped us see the needs of our community and how effective we were with each podcast. I must admit when service learning projects were first presented to me I drew a blank. I think it took about three to four readings of the material to fully understand the assignment. When I fully understood the project I was ecstatic. My colleague and I had been planning a podcast for months and didn’t know where to start. This project helped us organize and start our project. We are very excited to see where our podcast takes us and to watch it grow. 

Outcomes About Myself

My colleague and I were able to start a project we had only dreamed about. That was to build a series of helpful information that are often struggles in our field of work. We were able to edit and compose information in an easily digestible format for teachers who, like us, are always on the go. I was surprised and quickly grew tired of how many times I say “ummm….” The editor hat was not my area of expertise but we made it work. I also learn how well rehearsed one must become when putting together a podcast. Knowledge is key but actually presenting knowledge within a podcast is just like teaching. You MUST practice.

From this experience my colleague and I feel confident that we can continue this project by covering a variety of subjects. We definitely could have rehearsed more before recording. I also think that even though our topics were needed, they were not necessarily intriguing to the average educator. I wished we would have talked to our district colleagues and really sorted out our biggest deficits. This is something we are planning on doing before officially releasing our first season on Spotify and Apple Podcast.

Outcomes Regarding the Community Partner

I do not feel as if I had assumptions to the people involved with our surveys or interviews. Our main goal was to see what our needs were and tried to remain as neutral as possible. I do feel however, that we were weaker in assessing the true needs our community. I think that was mostly due to lack of time and implementing this project. Hyper simile hold on to the belief that universal design for learning and social emotional learning are very much needed in schools today. I have learned so much from this course by the use of universal design for learning and plan to implement it in all my classes in the following years. I think that that may have clouded my judgment. But in all, I believe that this will find a way to those who will benefit from this knowledge.

My effectiveness could’ve been better if I was more rehearsed before recording. This caused a lot of editing and time consumed that I could’ve used for better reflection and gathering information. My community partners response was thoughtful and critique but I don’t think that she was able to effectively apply this to her classroom. The way we presented the content was through examples in our own experiences. Our community partner that we sought for reflection was an elementary teacher and our experiences reflected a performing ensemble of the high school middle school level. I think we should have reached out to a high school or middle school band, orchestra, or choral director to get an accurate assessment on how effective this segment of our podcast was. I also wish that we had brought in an elementary music teacher as a guest to explain how they had implemented the universal design for learning in their classes.

Outcomes Regarding my Knowledge and Skills 

Throughout this course I realized a lot of gaps in my knowledge of teaching to all students. This was something that I had always struggled with but now feel confident in providing needs for every student. This course taught me more about the universal design for learning and social emotional learning to build skills crucial to everyday life. I am “hungry to learn more about” how to support a variety of needs in my classroom. I understand how to educate my students but how do we provide coping skills from the effects the pandemic has caused?

I chose to present knowledge of the universal design for learning and social emotional learning in the podcast episodes. I also included examples that could be used inside the classroom. This knowledge helps myself and other educators to reach our students in a variety of ways. I hope to include both, the universal design for learning and social emotional learning skills in my classroom next year. These topics were very fun to cover because of the variety of ways you can incorporate them in a classroom setting. It was i’m comfortable to lead a meditation during the first podcast because you’re not talking to a lot of people in the moment of recording. The logistics of this became a mind over matter issue and it was interesting to complete.

Outcomes About my Values

I don’t think my preconceived notions changed after taking this course. However, I do feel that I have gained further reflection and perspectives on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. I believe the service learning project help me to be a better educator and allow me to do more reflection on myself and my experiences. I’m still learning how to better engage the world around me and promote others who do not have a strong voice as I do. The most important thing I learned in this course and will take with me to grow my personal philosophy is to keep Learning, keep hearing his perspective is different from my own, and continue to be inclusive in my personal life and occupation.

Conclusion

The topics covered in this class and experience through the service learning project has expanded my knowledge. The UDL principles help teachers to reach all students. By implementing this already in my classroom I see students wanting to engage more in lessons. This project helped me to identify how to better reach marginalized students. With the universal design for learning and social emotional learning I hope to reach these students and aid in supporting them. This class has strengthened my knowledge of how to be a voice for all students. My hope is that my students see this and know that they have a safe space in my classroom.