The Service-Learner
The Voice of Students, Faculty and Community
V O L U M E
Looking Back and
Looking Forward
The Office of Academic Service-Learning
(OASL) would like to thank the new servicelearning faculty who implemented the service-learning pedagogy during the Fall
2013 semester. This past semester, 56 faculty provided an academic service-learning
experience to 998 students who were enrolled in 71 different classes spanning 12
academic departments! With the faculty’s
continued dedication to the servicelearning pedagogy, this initiative continues
to thrive.
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This year the OASL is piloting enhanced
reflection and orientation activities in several
service-learning classes. As part of this effort,
more community partners have been encouraged to meet with students to discuss
both their organizations’ missions and how
the service-learning projects meet their
needs. Read about the partners who met
with service-learning classes in Fall 2013 on
page 2. The OASL thanks the 27 community
partners that participated in service-learning
projects this past Fall.
During Spring 2014, the OASL is expanding the use of guided reflection activities to
help increase students’ ability to reflect on
their impact in the community and on their
Reflection: An Essential Component of Service-Learning
Faculty Experiences and Research—Part Two
Perspectives on Reflection: The Contribution of
Generating Prosocial Agency Reflections on ServiceBy: Prof. Lynn Temenski, Department
Learning Protocol
of Health, Physical Education and
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project’s connection to their coursework.
(Read more on page 3.)
New Approach to Project Planning
In Spring 2014, the Center for Excellence
in Teaching & Learning (CETL) launched
new professional development for the
High Impact Practices (HIPs). HIP faculty
now participate in two professional development workshops offered by CETL. The
Course Design workshop guides faculty in
designing projects that meet learning outcomes. The Reflection workshop addresses
pedagogical strategies for designing and
assessing reflection activities.
QCC Awarded Teagle Grant
QCC has been selected as one of seven
community colleges participating in the
Student Learning for Civic Capacity: Stimulating Moral, Ethical, and Civic Engagement for Learning that Lasts grant funded
by the prestigious Teagle Foundation. This
project is administered by the Community
College National Center for Community
Engagement and led by Kapi’olani Community College. This grant will support
partnering institutions in their efforts to
help students develop their commitment
to civic and moral responsibility for diverse,
equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities.
Dance
By: Prof. Eva Goldhammer, Department
of Social Sciences
Student reflection is essentially selfreflection, a process that contributes to the
individual’s sense of self-knowing, including goals and the ability to think and act
effectively. Reflective practices at their best
help students develop a sense of prosocial
agency.
According to social cognition theory,
self-reflection involves four modes of
thought verification in which individuals
may: a) compare their thoughts to actual
results, b) observe others’ behavior and
compare it to their own, c) compare their
self views to others’ views, and, d) compare
their thinking to rules of logic. In this way,
reflection is a process that helps students
develop more effective thinking and, in
turn, greater prosocial agency.
Recent years have shepherded in the
addition and improvement of various high
impact practices into psychology classrooms,
and, in fact, most college classrooms. Servicelearning has been identified as one of these
beneficial high impact strategies. As such, it
has come to be heralded as a valuable adjunct strategy to classroom instruction.
The study of psychology is heavily
weighted to theories. In an effort to gain a
deeper level of processing of complex theoretical material, many of my classes are
taught as writing-intensive (a high-impact
strategy in its own right). Research in the
field indicates that the process of thinking
about, organizing and presenting material in
writing is more active than reading about
the same material and recognizing terms on Senior citizen and student take time to connect
a multiple choice exam. Continued on page 4 at the Bayside Senior Center.
Continued on page 4
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Community Partners Expand
Student Understanding of Issues
Service-learning students meet real needs of organizations
in the community and on campus. This past fall, 12 classes had
the opportunity to hear directly from their community partner.
This helped students gain a better understanding of what the
organizations and campus offices do and how the servicelearning projects will benefit the community partner.
Abby Burke, Food Pantry Director
at Hour Children, enlightened
students in Prof. Wendy Ford’s
business class about hunger in
New York City and how the students’ food drive would benefit
the Pantry. At the conclusion of
the semester, 10 large boxes and
nine bags of non-perishable
foods were sent to the Pantry.
The Xi chapter of Alpha Beta Gamma (ABG), the National Business Honor Society, and the Lambda Sigma chapter of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society also collaborated on the
Food Drive. We thank the ABG advisors, Profs. Shele Bannon
and Kelly Ford, and PTK advisor Prof. Emily Tai, for their participation.
Susan Shafer, Program Manager at the Bayside Senior Center,
hosted an informational session at
the Center for students in Prof.
Susan Gonzalez’s Introduction to
Art Therapy class. Students
learned about the role and need
for senior centers in the community and about credentials needed
for careers in social services. The
Susan Shafer talks to QCC’s art
art therapy students then ran a
therapy students
series of workshops in creative
expression, using simple art materials, for members of the Center.
Paul Teller, QCC’s Director of the Office of Campus Facilities,
met with students in Prof. Eileen White’s Video Production I
class. He and the students identified campus facilities projects
on campus that could benefit from public service announcements. Mr. Teller also met with Prof. Craig Weber’s Architectural Design class. Students in this class created designs to enhance and better utilize the southeast corner of QCC’s campus.
Mr. Teller’s feedback helped these students understand the
constraints that professional architects face on a daily basis.
Jason Yoon, Director of Education, Queens Museum, met
with students in Prof. Eladia Raya’s Spanish language class and
Prof. Chianli Chen’s Chinese language class. The students were
preparing to translate print materials from English. Mr. Yoon
explained how the multilingual materials would help the museum reach out to local residents, a critical part of its mission.
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Prof. Tony Monahan, QCC
Department of Health, Physical Education & Dance, met
with students in Prof. Ed Davis’s Surveying and Layouts
class to help them envision
an exciting campus project
called Tiger Trails, an innovative network of campus fitness trails that will benefit the entire campus community. The
surveying students measured the distances and slopes of the
main hills on campus, which will be used to calculate the calories
burned by walkers on the trails.
Howard Rothenberg, Assistant Associate Director for Corporate Compliance, Information Technology and Staff Development, from Transitional Services for New York (TSI) spoke to students in two of Prof. Eva Goldhammer’s psychology classes. Students accompany case workers on rounds, assist the caseworkers
as needed, and apply their classroom-based knowledge to the
setting in community. TSI is interested in breaking down the stigma of mental illness and identifying dedicated students who
might be interested in careers in the field. Mr. Rothenberg explained the legal and organizational structure of TSI and the credentials needed for careers in mental health.
Prof. Eugene Harris, QCC Department of Biology, and Philip Duckett,
a local naturalist, guided Prof. Beth
Counihan’s Reading and Writing
about New York class on a nature
walk around Oakland Lake. Students were invited to write creative
pieces for Prof. Harris’ Nature-onCampus blog. The goal of these writing assignments was to inspire others to visit Oakland Lake and appreciate its ecology and wildlife.
Rosemarie Favuzza, Head of Education at the Alley Pond Environmental Center (APEC), visited students in Prof. Yisun Rho’s
Advertising Design and Layout class. She described APEC’s focus
on environmental stewardship and education. The students
designed informational and educational posters about the carbon footprint. APEC intends to use these posters to enhance the
delivery of a new environmental course for elementary students.
Tony Luna, Director of the QCC
Single Stop, informed Prof. Amy
Traver’s Sociology class about
Single Stop’s free services, which
help QCC students stay in school
and graduate. These services
include benefits screening, legal
assistance, and financial counseling. Mr. Luna identified a need to
expand student awareness and
utilization of Single Stop services.
For their final projects, students created innovative flyers and
videos to advertise the office’s services.
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Pilot Project Puts Reflection Facilitators into the Classroom
This year, service-learning students in several classes are being supported by reflection facilitators to help them think deeply
and broadly about their service-learning experiences.
The facilitators visit service-learning classes to provide students with an orientation to service-learning, focusing on the
three R’s: Real, Reciprocal, and Reflective. The facilitators, or in
some cases a member of the community partner organization
(see page 2), also provide students with an orientation to the
mission and needs of the partner with which they will be working. Finally, the facilitators engage students in reflection activities before, during and after their service-learning project.
In the Fall semester, reflection facilitators and OASL staff delivered orientations and pre-project reflection activities to 21
classes and guided 13 classes through post-project reflections.
Reflection before, during and after the project
Reflection is an essential component of service-learning. It is
an opportunity for students to think critically in three areas: the
skills they acquire through service-learning, the application of
course content to their project, and the perspectives they gain
concerning the community partner.
Using a set of prepared prompts, the facilitator guides students in the reflection process. Before students begin their project, they are asked to articulate what they will be doing, how
the project will help the partner, their beliefs and attitudes concerning the partner or its work, and how they think the servicelearning experience will help them in the future. The facilitator
may also work with students throughout their projects to help
reinforce the learning taking place.
After the project is completed, students are asked to describe
the project and articulate: how the project helped the partner,
how perspectives changed about the partner and its work, how
course content was applied to the project, how workplace skills
improved, and how challenges were addressed.
In Fall 2013, Alexandra Aguilar, an Urban Studies intern in
the OASL, worked as a reflection facilitator with three different
classes during their projects:
Prof. Lana Zinger’s Health of the Nation made presentations
Health students and Prof. Lana Zinger at the QCC Health Fair
Students articulate their learning
“I wish all my classes had service-learning. All of us participated and expressed a desire to be healthy.”
“We provided a sense of direction and enlightenment.
Service-learning educates them [high school students]
and us as well by introducing different types of jobs, as
well as stressing the importance of education.”
“It's not just them [the seniors from Bayside Senior Center] that's learning, we learn too. We are learning
about past morals and values, and they are learning
ours. They want to be heard, they all have stories.”
“I thought we weren't going to have anything in common [with the community partner], but that changed.
We ended up having a connection.”
“We learned that despite their economic status, the
children [from the Saratoga Family Inn homeless shelter] are very smart and have strong goals. [The project]
gave the children an opportunity to show us what they
know.”
“My project helped me learned my course material
better by having me do more research and understanding what I’m learning and talking about.”
“One skill I have learned that will prepare me more for
the future would be the ability to listen and come up
with research to back up reasoning.”
on healthy living strategies to children, high school students and
adults. Alexandra circulated among the groups while they researched and prepared their presentations, helping them plan
their activities, address problems that arose in the groups, and
elicit discussion about their learning. “She engaged the students
in dialogue by using open-ended questions and really listening to
what they had to say,” said Prof. Zinger.
Students in Prof. Susan Gonzalez’s Introduction to Art Therapy
class led a series of art sessions for members of the Bayside Senior
Center. Alexandra joined the students in their visits to the senior
center and provided them with brief reminders to think about
their learning as well as their art.
Prof. Amy Traver’s Sociology class provided QCC’s Single Stop
office with innovative ways to increase awareness of the office on
campus. Alexandra accompanied the students to several Single
Stop workshops, and then assisted them in the classroom to summarize what they had learned.
Orientations and pre-project reflections for Spring 2014 service-learning classes are now in progress. Some classes will have
facilitators with them during their projects, and post-project reflection activities are being scheduled. The OASL continues to refine
these tools in order to help students identify the knowledge, skills
and values they develop through service-learning.
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Generating Prosocial Agency
by Prof. Temenski (Continued from p. 1)
Students sometimes resist genuine reflective examination. To minimize student vulnerability, yet scaffold deep reflection, I have
been trying a method designed to foster
narrative safety zones for student disclosure.
The approach affords students an opportunity to limit the personal evidence they present
in reflective discussion by focusing their sharing on themes and values students associate
with the service-learning events and related
course content.
The approach begins with on-demand
writing, addressing specific question(s) regarding one or more learning objectives of
the Service Learning project. Questions are
phrased so that there is not a “right” or
“wrong” response, rather a well-considered
examination of key points in the topic area.
In the second step, individuals review their
own writing for key themes and values, not-
The Contribution of Reflections
by Prof. Goldhammer (Continued from p. 1)
To enhance the quality of writing assignments, I sought a more concrete way for my
students to interact with psychology. The
aim was to depart from writing about theories, which still leave many students bored or
challenged. I was determined to go one
above my usual style, of presenting case
studies and examples of concrete people, to
enhance their understanding of theoretical
material.
The natural extension from describing
concrete cases is to send my students out
into the world to do service-learning. They
help out in various agencies and locations,
where they have the opportunity to interact
with people who embody some of the theories discussed in class. This is the essence of
service-learning, where volunteer work includes an element of education.
A great deal of practical thought and effort goes into this project. My students find
their own locations and ask for permission
from site-directors and approval from me.
They meet with me individually, to perfect
their on-site strategies. They need to schedule these extra hours into their week. They
need to find time and means to travel to and
from said locations. All of this is very real
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ing those in the margins. They then transfer margin notes to a separate written list.
Third, in small breakout group discussions,
students discuss themes and values they
identified, providing whatever level of
evidence they feel comfortable with. If I
assign numerous questions, I may instruct
the group to select a person A, B, C, D in
each group. “A” shares what they wrote
on question 1, B, question 2, etc., or the
group self-selects (or I assign) one question
per group. Students may still be reluctant
to share, but are only obligated to share
one theme or value from their list; other
students can broaden and build on that.
Finally, we undertake whole class discussion, in which each group offers a highlight of its discussion, identifying or teasing
out common themes, much like the constant comparison of action research. Everyone has contributed, without judgment
on the individual perspectives, and thus
each student has a thoughtful, grounded
sense of self and community.
and concrete.
The final key step, in my opinion, is to
lift my students from the active work of
providing the service to the brainwork of
doing the learning. Intellectual growth is
leavened by the process of reflection. In a
quiet room, generating these thoughts
and feelings, which have been conceived
and birthed in the process of serving people, my students grow intellectually and
personally. As they commit their thoughts
and emotions to paper, they can put their
personal problems into perspective. Surely, their personal concerns dim in comparison to the larger challenges of people they
have come to know and care about. They
are often inspired to generate new life
ambitions and goals, as they realize their
level of significance in other peoples' lives,
and new confidence, as they think about
their burgeoning relevance in the adult
world they are about to enter.
In short, reflection is the final element
which completes the circle of writing, service and reflection. This circle wraps my
students in understanding, skills, goals,
and self-confidence. This triumvirate of
high-stakes interventions is the most powerful blend that I have found to affect my
students' thought processes and emotional maturation.
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QCC Office of Academic ServiceLearning
222-05 56th Avenue
Humanities Building, Room 246
Bayside, NY 11364
718.281.5612
servicelearning@qcc.cuny.edu
www.qcc.cuny.edu/servicelearning
Support for the development and
production of this material was
provided by a grant under the Carl D.
Perkins Career and Technical
Education Act of 2006 administered
by the New York State Education
Department.
Project Director, Josephine Pantaleo
Faculty Associate Director, Dr. Sharon
Ellerton
Center for Excellence in Teaching &
Learning (CETL)
Jane Hindman, Meg Tarafdar
Perkins Project Coordinators
Arlene Kemmerer, Mary Bandziukas,
Cristina DiMeo
Project Coordinators, Berina Pobric,
Diana Silvestri
Spring 2014 QCC Events
Health Fair
Wed., March 26, 2014, 11:00 a.m.—3:00
p.m., Student Union. Sponsored by the
Office of Health Services. Service-learning
students will showcase their healthrelated projects.
Earth Day
Wed., April 23, 2014, 12:00 p.m.—2:00
p.m., The Loggia. Sponsored by the
OASL, Student Activities and Student
Government.
Common Read
The Common Read is a Common Intellectual Experience that promotes integrative learning across the curriculum.
The book for 2013-2014 is The Road of
Lost Innocence , by Somaly Man.
Over 20 events will take place from midMarch to early April. To see the list of
discussions and activities, go to:
www.qcc.cuny.
edu/academicafairs/pedagogy/
commonintellectualexperiences.html.