Unit Five/Reflection 

Introduction

1. Student Seminars
2. End-of-the-Year Evaluation

Introduction

Reflective Activities

Today's teenager spends little or no time reflecting about their lives. There are too many distractions, too little time and most don't know how to step back from their own lives and reflect upon them. SSPP program will serve them throughout their adult lives.

In the second semester, students will be coming to class a minimum of twice a week for a seminar that allows for reflective activities such as discussion and journal writing, and to bring each other up to date on what is happening in the projects they are working on, as well as the ones for which they are project directors. During the time you are working on this unit, arrange some visits to a foundation or nonprofit institution in your area. Getting out of the classroom and into the world of work is an important part of the learning experience in SSPP. Establish a timeline for the semester as well. Include end-of-the-year evaluations and celebrations.

There w ill be lots of "business" to tend to, so you will need to be very firm about setting time aside for reflection. If your schedule allows, you might meet a third day each week, but remember the students also need time to do their community service work. The journal entries, which are an important part of their reflective activities, may be shared at this time. English novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley explained that "experience is not what happens to a person; it is what a person does with what happens to him or her."

Faculty members who are or have been involved in community service should be encouraged to share their experience and feelings with the students. We learn best by example.

Derek Bok, the former president of Harvard, said, "We cannot succeed in building community spirit in our young people by merely giving speeches, coining slogans or exhorting them to stand tall. A lasting concern for the community comes from the chance to work with others, see their needs and contribute to something larger than oneself." It is our hope that the SSPP experience will instill in your students that lasting concern for their community and the realization that they can do something to help.

---

Lesson One

Aim:	Reflection and Evaluation
Topic:	Seminar Discussion
Motivation:	What happened this week in your project that made you feel good?

Instructional Objectives

• Have each student participate
• Recognize the rewards of service
• Identify any difficulties students are experiencing
• Learn to share feelings
• Learn to use a journal

Activities

• Class should sit in a circle if possible.
• Have students set guidelines for group discussion, i.e., time and format, so that all will get a chance to participate. Let students facilitate the group after it has developed a rhythm.
• Students can read from their journals if that is easier for them. See page 95 for sample journal entry questions.
• Allow time to do some brainstorming for a student who is having a problem with his community service.

Materials

• Journals: can be a small notebook or a section of a larger notebook

Conclusions

• Many of our feelings and problems are similar.
• Other people can help us solve problems.
  

Note: This is a generic lesson plan for the Seminars. To tailor the Seminar to your particular needs, see "Suggestions for Conducting an SSPP Seminar" (next page)for a discussion of the specific subjects that will need to be covered.

Suggestions for Conducting an SSPP Seminar

1. Opening Roundtable: Each student gives his/her name, identifies the grant project he/she is working on, and relates one anecdote associated with that experience.
2. Journal Writing: Each student has fifteen minutes to reflect in writing on the previous week's grant work. This can include what was actually done, obstacles encountered, satisfactions, progress, the nature of the interaction with other indi-viduals working on the project and with those being served, a sense of how he/she is making change and being changed, goals for the coming week(s). See worksheet for more suggestions.
3. Brainstorming/Problem-solving: Students share difficulties with group to elicit recommendations and alternatives from them to resolve the problems. This encompasses scheduling, budgeting, transportation, bureaucratic, human relations, other types of challenges and suggestions to deal with them.
4. Current Events Update: Students take some time to discuss current tone and events at school, on the project site, in the seminar, community, country, world; explore implications of global perspective for service project and the reverse.
5. Ongoing Evaluation: Students examine timetables for projects; revise deadlines and work to stay on course. Students examine how well the projects are proceeding and what could/should be done differently for subsequent semesters and seminars.
6. Open Agenda: Provide opportunity for students to introduce topics and concerns for discussion.
7. Supervision of Grant Projects: Students report on talks with teachers and students involved in various projects that have been funded; keep track of expenditures, work done, problems encountered, requests made.
8. Ongoing Training: Continue to schedule special activities to provide leadership training that will assist foundation members in their efforts; also involve them in school wide (and beyond) activities that either have a direct service component or that will enhance their skills, knowledge, sensitivity, etc.
9. Final Feedback: Students summarize what was achieved at the seminar, focus on needs or agenda for upcoming seminar(s), and discuss thoughts and feelings about what they and their classmates are doing. 

Worksheet #1

Suggestions for a Daily Journal

Keeping a daily journal not only provides a record of your community service activities, but can be a dialogue with yourself as you evaluate your efforts and their effect on you personally. Here are some questions to consider as you write.

About your work

• What do you do on a typical day at your placement?
• How has this changed since you first began there (different activities, more or less responsibility, etc.)?
• Tell about the best thing that happened this week something someone said or did, something you said or did, an insight, a goal accomplished.
• What's the most difficult part of your work?
• What thing (or things) did you dislike most this week? Why?
• If you w ere in charge of the place where you volunteer, what would you do to improve it?
• If you were the supervisor, would you have the volunteers do anything different from what you are doing? Would you treat them differently?
• Tell about a person there who you find interesting or challenging to be with. Explain why.
• What do you feel is your main contribution?
• If a time warp placed you back at the first day of this program, what would you do differently the second time around?

About you

• How do people see you there? As a staff member? a friend? a student or what? What do you feel like when you're there?
• What did someone say to you that surprised you? Why?
• What compliments have been given and what did they mean to you? How did you react? What about criticisms and your reaction to them?
• Did you take (or avoid) some risk this week? Were there things you wanted to say or do that you didn't say or do?
• What happened that made you feel you would (or would not) like to do this as a career?
• What did you do this week that made you proud? Why?
• What feeling or idea about yourself seemed especially strong today?
• What insights have you gained into people (and what makes them happy or sad, successful or failures, pleasant or unpleasant, healthy or sick, etc.)?
• How similar is your impression of yourself to the impression others seem to have of you?
• Think back on a moment when you felt especially happy or satisfied. What does that tell you about yourself?

From Youth Service: A Guide book for Developing and Operating Effective Programs. Reprinted with permission from Independent Sector, 1828 L Street N.W., Washington, D.C.

Closure

Ceremonies are wonderful milestones on our personal timeline. From birthdays to graduations and weddings, it is important to celebrate these moments. The end of the year for the students involved in SSPP is no exception. Because many other students outside of the foundation class have been involved in service, they should all be included in the day of celebration. The following is a possible outline for a day.

9:00 to 9:30 a.m.	Registration
9:30 to 10:50 a.m.	Reflective workshop. Groups of 8 students with a leader do paired interviews and then discuss the following: 1. What projects did you think were successful and why? 2. What did you learn about how a foundation works and how might this experience help you in the future? 3. What did you get from the experience? What did you learn about yourselves? 4. How do you evaluate SSPP?
11:00 a.m. to noon	Presentation of service projects by different groups. For example, one group might demonstrate an AIDS education project, another might show a video that they produced. Students plan the program.
12:00 to 12:30 p.m.	Speeches. Invite school or community officials to speak in addition to student leaders. All introductions should be made by students. They are in charge of the day! Presentation of certificates. Closing video taken of students and their projects.

A checklist for planning an end-of-the-year celebration follows.

Certificates: One of your students will be able to design a certificate. What will makes it special is including a small photo of the group as part of the certificate. One of the things students have learned to do this year is to work as a group, and a picture of that group will bring back many good memories. Foundations are really about people helping people.

Student Service and Philanthropy Project
Checklist for Planning End-of-the-year Celebration

__ 1. Students write about and share experience in party-giving, and compile list of tasks involved in planning and carrying out the event.

__ 2. Students establish purpose of celebration (to introduce the foundation's existence to school, recognize winning proposals, provide a public speaking forum, share projects and celebrate achievements of projects).

__ 3. Select masters of ceremonies, delegate students (or ask for volunteers)to be in charge of tasks brainstormed in #1.

__ 4. Arrange for logistics (site, travel, participants, seating, sound equipment, etc.)

__ 5. Arrange for refreshments.

__ 6. Prepare budget for celebration.

__ 7. Notify participants and honorees.

__ 8. Prepare list of speakers/performers/presenters.

__ 9. Prepare invitations and/or programs.

__ 10. Set up agenda, time frame, etc.

__ 11. Acknowledge assistance with thank-you notes.

__ 12. Evaluate past receptions and student programs and rev ise model and format as desired.

__13. Arrange for clean-up detail.

__14. Evaluate event upon completion.

__15. Consider educational value of program (inspiration, recognition, information, team-building, motivation, networking, etc.) at follow-up seminar meeting.

---

Lesson Two
End-of-the-year Evaluation

Directions: Please complete this evaluation. Fee lfree to attach additional pages as necessary for a full explanation. This is important feed back because it will help plan for next year's foundation. Use essay, full-sentence format.

1. How well did the course work done during the first semester prepare you for the projects during the second semester?
2. Tell about the projects you were involved in during the spring.
3. What obstacles did you encounter? How did you deal with them?
4. What did you learn about yourself as a result of this experience?
5. To what extent did you observe changes in your fellow students who were members of the foundation?
6. How did participation in a project contribute to your self-esteem?

skills?

career awareness?

value placed on education?

concept of service?

communication skills?

7. How do you assess the scheduling of the weekly seminar for the second semester? What problems did it create, solve?
8. How do you recommend the program be changed next year to prepare students and run service projects more effectively?

Send your comments about SSPP to the Learning to Give Webmaster