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SERVICE-LEARNING COURSES

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A Sampling of Past and Present Service-Learning Courses
at Castleton State College

SOC 1010 – Bill Kuehn – Students partnered with the Nature Conservancy to eliminate the illegal dumping problem on their Helen W. Buckner Preserve in West Haven, VT. They also assist in clayplain restoration.

SWK 4010 – Lillian Jackson – Students worked with the Rutland Housing Coalition to create a “Dialogue on Poverty”. The goal of this project was to educate the community and Legislature about poverty in Rutland County, as well as help inform and shape social welfare policy concerning poverty. The students conducted focus groups with a variety of community residents affected by poverty, summarized the results, and presented their findings in both oral and written formats to groups/organizations relevant to the project. They also worked with Bob Gershon’s Documentary Class to create a series of documentaries, based on their focus groups, which accompanied their presentations and showed the real faces of poverty in Rutland County.

PSY 2210 – Terry Bergen – Students are developing skills as Behavior Management Specialists by applying the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis to school related behavior problems in the Poultney School System. The students began designing and implementing programs to address the identified problems and began creating presentations to discuss their programs with all community constituents. The identified problems included: bullying, pro- and anti-social behaviors, lack of communication skills and a negative school climate. Under the supervision of Prof. Bergen and high school personnel, the students have developed an understanding of the problems, reviewed social-science literature related to these problems, wrote a program description addressing the problems, cleared the concept of each program with school personnel (to insure that everyone was on the same page), implemented the program at the school (spending many hours there each week), measured the programs effects, and wrote reports on the programs outcomes.

ENG 1061 – Elizabeth Ashworth –To facilitate the experience of connecting learning with life, this course requires students to become involved in service to the community. Students are presented with opportunities to provide service and use that service as a theme for research and writing topics in the course. The service component is also reflected upon in their Critical Incident Journal.

ANT 2210-C01 – Paul Derby – Students participated in a Mapping Project of the campuses Recycling Operation. They worked very closely with the entire campus to create a better recycling plan for the college. The plan calls for crews of First Year Seminar(FYS) students to help implement the Green Campus Initiative. This service to the college will introduce FYS students to the Green Campus Initiative and the importance of civic engagement in the educational mission of Castleton State College.

NUR 2112 - Maryann McDonough – Community Health Nursing instructs nursing students on how to approach health issues from the communities’ perspective rather then from the traditional hospital (or acute care) perspective.  Students spend time in a single community and become familiar with the complex health challenges and opportunities of that community. When they work with the community, a trust is developed, then they can work together on the health problems that affect the community. Several new community partners they are working with this year are Christ of King Elementary School, Sheldon Towers (home for the elderly), The Old Homestead’s Community Wellness Center, and Castleton Family Health.

PED 3140 – Lisa Pleban – This course examines theory and implementation of the secondary physical education curriculum. All students will participate in two service opportunities. The first will include participating in Castleton Village School’s Afterschool Program. The second will be conducted at an approved local high school.

COM 1050 – Sanjukta Ghosh – Students explored some of the ways media exert influences on our lives, how the media institution interacts with other power institutions, and how this impacts issues of race, gender, and class. After compiling their findings, the students presented them to 9th – 12th graders who were part of our Upward Bound Program.

COM 3050 – Sanjukta Ghosh – Students educated potential voters in our campus community about the complex, complicated and contradictory relationship between the media and politics. They did this by producing a series of newsletters, entitled “We the People”, over the course of the fall 2004 semester.

MAT 3820 – C02 – Dale Kreisler – Students in this course participated in service-learning components that included working with in-service teachers in area schools to develop needed materials that demonstrate meaningful mathematical content for the classroom. They also became math tutors and assisting children in need of extra help.

PSY 2110 – John Klein – Students in this course partnered with Castleton Village School to assist them with their afterschool enrichment program. College students were coaches in their intramural program, participated as mentors and tutors, and worked one-on-one with student with special needs.

SOC 2130 –C01 – Phil Lamy – This class pursed the sociological concept of the “third place” by continuing work on the campus’ Coffee Cottage and Peace Garden, as well as exploring other potential third places on campus.

SWK 4010 – Lillian Jackson – Students assisted the Agency of Human Services with their reorganization project. The Agency needed feedback from residents of Rutland County on what services were working and what areas within the Agency needed improvement. The students did this by distributing surveys to area residents and by conducting focus groups to get information. They also worked as scribes for the Rutland County Community Partnership meetings. They summarized all of the collected data, made presentations on their findings, and sent the entire packet of information to the Agency, which utilized most of the information in their reorganization.

SPAN 3010 C01 – Ana Maria Alfaro-Alexander – Students in this course became acquainted with the basic methods and techniques used in mentoring Spanish by working with students at Castleton Village School. Throughout the course, students were asked to create original activities, lesson plans and units, which promote the integration of the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Along with the mentoring practices, the students submitted a written description of each activity they were planning to use. After their presentation, the students received feedback on their performance, which helped them develop a portfolio of mentoring techniques. This class also provides experience in material evaluation, lesson planning and human learning. Reflecting on each mentoring session was a crucial part of the learning process.

SOC 2130-C01 – Paul Derby – This class actively participated in Rutland’s United Neighborhoods program “Crime and Substance Abuse: A Community Dialogue.” This program brought together concerned residents from Rutland neighborhoods in organized discussions to produce an “action plan” to help understand and lessen the problems of crime and substance abuse in the Rutland region. Students participated in various capacities including recorders for each focus group, data gathers and organizers, facilitators, community participants, etc.

COM 2150-C01 - Thomas Conroy – Students in this course worked with Currier Elementary School (K-6) to improve communication between the school and the local community. Currier is an under resourced school struggling to meet the challenges posed by a constituency that does not value education. The students helped Currier with the school’s newspaper, web site and other communication activities designed to enhance community relations and improve the young students self esteem. They also planned a college visit for the Currier students, so they could experience college life, meet other college students, utilize the technology housed on campus and have lunch in the campus dining hall.