Annabel Grant-Frost

Introduction

For the first two terms of year 11, I engaged in the community service activity of service learning. For my out of school service, I volunteered my time in helping tutor a younger student who attends St Mathews in his home work and general reading, writing and mathematic skills. My in school service consisted of assisting a fellow student in my year organise and establish a musical group who would perform at celebrated school functions and church occasions.

PLANNING OF MY SERVICE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

MY TUTORING EXPERIENCE

• The planning and organising of what my out of school service learning would be was a long process where I had to assess where my talents and skills would be most useful and helpful to others and the community.

WHAT I HAVE GAINED AND GIVEN THROUGH SERVICE LEARNING

TEACHING SKILLS

• When service learning began, and I questioned what I had to give to the community and how I could help others, I viewed my skills in education as my primary source of assistance to which I could help others. This was transferred to the student I tutored in a number of ways;
• The particular person which I was tutoring needed assistance in understanding english and the techniques which are used and applied in the english language. Whilst we did his English homework and looked at what had been assigned in class, we extended this learning to reading books and learning bigger words and their meanings through a number of sources.
• Math was also an area which we focused on, and although I am not taking math as a subject in my year 11 studies, I still felt I had a comprehensive understanding of the components of maths that I could help this student with his mathematic problems. Occasionally we would have a worksheet which we would work through together, but often we would work on the computer through mathletics to which we would view a new component of math each week.
• In addition to learning the fundamentals of English, as apart of his work, we also looked at how to write a speech and how to read it in an understandable manner. Whilst we composed the speech we had to use research skills to find the information and which information was more useful then others. As well as that, we had to look at how to type effectively and the spelling of words, so the speech writing looked at a lot of different aspects of learning.

COMMUNICATION

• Whilst trying to teach the younger student the knowledge I knew, I had to think about how I would transfer my knowledge to him in a way which he would understand and be able to relate. This took a bit of time to master between us, but towards the end we had an effective means of understanding each other.
• While I could tell the younger student what needed to be done, I also needed to listen to what problems he was having and be flexible in how we approached the problems together.
• Some ideas I would have on certain subjects would be harder to pass on or translate for the student, so thinking about his perspective and what he could understand also helped with the communication process between us.

PATIENCE

• In extension to communication, I needed to channel patience into what I did with the younger student as often I had to take some time to understand the problems that he might be having, and take some time away from what we had to do to just helping him get through.

CO-OPERATION

COMMITMENT

COMPASSION

TIME MANAGEMENT

SELFLESSNESS

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