Reflection Service Learning Assignemt

SERVICE LEARNING ASSIGNMENT
We (Sarah Taylor and Debra Ward) completed our field work at Ridgeline Elementary in Highland, Utah. Our cooperating teacher was Miss Reinhart. There are 34 students in the class and the majority of them come from families who are from the middle to upper class.

We had a really good relationship with our cooperating teacher. She was willing to share her knowledge and resources with us. She helped us in getting involved with her students by inviting us to play games, letting us tutor her students as they completed writing projects, and giving us the opportunity create a bulletin board in the hall. She let us teach her students without interference and instructed her students to be on their best behavior for us. She also helped boost our confidence in teaching.

Miss Reinhart liked our digital story (I-Movie) on “The Lewis and Clark Expedition”. We used the digital story as a review on the second day of our lesson. She really liked our lesson and we were successful in teaching our students about Lewis and Clark. The students enjoyed watching the movie, also, and were able to learn some important facts about Lewis and Clark’s Expedition.

Miss Reinhart uses a MacIntosh and actually had a digital story of a relative’s wedding on her computer. She has never taken the time to learn how to use I-Movie. Sarah taught her the basics of the program as Debra observed. We think Miss Reinhart might create a digital story in the future, providing she finds the time to do so. Sarah told her that she could do a story on anything she wants, such as an end of year video of her class.

This was a good opportunity for us to help our cooperating teacher learn in a more convenient way. Teachers don’t have much time to spare, so service-learning lessons are very helpful. We don’t think that Miss Reinhart had the desire to create digital stories before we taught her, and now she might find the time to do so. We think it was worth the effort, even if she doesn’t create digital stories, because at least we were able to teach her something to help her in her profession, just like she did for us.