The Learning

Daily Activities

Day One

On the first day, I had my students come into the room and utilize a stick note that was on their desk to write down anything they knew about service-learning. If students were unsure about what it was I asked them what they knew about service and then what they knew about learning and how they might work together. I began the class with asking what students believed a service-learning and one of my students suggested that it is "learning while helping someone," and I was excited to see how he combined the meanings of both words to arrive at a correct, simplistic definition. After each student shared their ideas, I began the whole group class with a chalk talk which was a new idea to my students, and reminded me of the importance of not assuming all students have done an activity before. My students were very eager to get up to the board and write down their ideas, but one student was doodling at her desk and chose not to participate. I went over to the student and let her know that I think it would be helpful if she could provide a visual representation on the board relating to service-learning. She looked at me and said, "really? I can draw?" This was one of my proud teacher moments during this placement because she felt she could not draw because that would be counted as a demerit for being off task, but I linked her skills to the task to promote her engagement. She went up to the board and drew a fabulous drawing of a person reading a text and learning from it. Service-learning, and other instructional strategies that promote engagement and student talent, are what I have found during my practicum to be the most beneficial for all students.

After the completion of the chalk talk, I explained to my students that we would be creating short stories for Ms. Thomas' class who shops each week for grocery items that they use to cook lunch for the teachers. About half of the class was unsure what a special education classroom meant, so we discussed as a class what kind of disabilities exist and how someone’s inability should not take away from all their valued abilities. One student said, "just because one thing isn't right does not make them less than us," and because of my involvement with Extra Special People at UGA, I was thankful to see my students understand the value a human has regardless of what they can or cannot do. I then informed my students the requirements of this task which was to include the following:

• Main character
• Shopping and use grocery item (one from shopping list for Ms. Thomas' class) that has two different packages with different quantities in each. Use your knowledge of unit pricing to calculate the price per unit for each item. Example:
  • A pack of 10 carrots is $5 (One carrot is $.50)
  • A pack of 5 carrots is $1 (One carrot is $.20)
• Brainstorm a rough draft & show me
• At least 6 pages (2 sentences each) or 12 pages (1 sentence each) with hand drawn pictures

The students then chose their partners to work with and had one minute to write down their top 3 food items from a list that they wanted to write about. Students chose to write about onions, sticks of butter, vanilla pudding, dish soap and cool whip. We then used the remainder of class to consider the pricing for two different amounts of the item and what the unit prices were for each.

Reflection & Assessment

Because I am still working towards my certification to teach in a Middle Grades classroom, I completed this service-learning initiative in my placement classroom. I attended my practicum every Monday and Wednesday for twenty days full time. Because of the limited days I had with my students and my placement in a classroom that was not my own, I was allotted three days for this initiative which led to me having to prioritize the classroom activities. I chose to initiate the activities with a reflection on what is service-learning on a sticky note and then followed by a chalk talk about how these ideas build off each other. My students had never seen this time of collaboration using just a white board and a silent room, but they enjoyed the ability to each handwrite, or even draw their ideas to be displayed on the board. I saw great value in using the first day of our initiative to invest in what service-learning is and expose my students to other communities that exist in the school they attend every day. The remaining two days were used to draft and finalize their short stories relating to unit pricing. Because of this limited time, I was unable to celebrate or publicize our progress with my students, but I know that Ms. Thomas spoke highly of our activity and its ability to help her students as they were introduced to unit rates before shopping for the items included in the stories.

Unfortunately, I did not have the ability to have my students complete a reflection after the initiative was completed because I was only allotted three days to focus primarily on service-learning. The survey I planned to have my students complete involved aspects of assessment of my students understanding of what service-learning is and how we implemented it. I did assess my students use of unit pricing and their accuracy of math calculations to have the character chose which item quantity had the better unit price. I formatively assessed my students understanding as I observed their drafts and math conversations with their partners. My students gave an immense amount of positive feedback to the lesson because they felt that they learned better by using their creativity and collaboration to develop a real-life context to unit prices.

Georgia Standards of Excellence

MGSE6.RP.1 Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities.

MGSE6.RP.2 Understand the concept of a unit rate a/b associated with a ratio a:b with b ≠ 0 (b not equal to zero), and use rate language in the context of a ratio relationship.

MGSE6.RP.3b Solve unit rate problems including those involving unit pricing and constant speed.