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SERVICE LEARNING & CRITICAL THINKING IN A WRITING COURSE
Danielle D. Brown, Ph.D.
Psychological & Brain Sciences
University of Louisville
Course Overview
PSYC 366-WR: Multicultural Psychology Multicultural psychology is the systematic
study of behavior, cognition, and affect in settings where people of different cultural backgrounds interact.
Course structure team-based learning service learning focus on developing critical thinking skills
Team Based Learning
Up to 6 people per team
Teams developed by survey Rank service learning opportunity Have you completed/are you enrolled in a WR
course? Have you completed the experimental
psychology/statistics sequence? Do you have a laptop that you can bring to class? What is your current level of
employment? Were you born or have you lived
outside of the US?
Service Learning
Includes: Community engagement Reflecting on community service
experience Integrating intellectual knowledge
Americana Community Center 4801 Southside Dr.
Louisville, KY 40214502-366-7813
Preparation for Service Learning Attended semester-long workshop on SL
Prepared by Kim Shaver (Student Affairs) and Lora Haynes (Psychology)
Contacted community partner earlier semester
Americana Community Center Non-profit (est. 1990) that provides a spectrum
of services for the diverse residents of Metro Louisville. Services enable people to discover and utilize resources to build strong families, create a safe, supportive community, and realize their individual potential.
2300 refugee, immigrants, and low income people from south Louisville 27 languages; 42 countries Communities: Vietnamese, Somalis, Bosnian,
Sudanese, Haitian, and Hispanic Latino 26% below poverty line
Key Features of ACC
Population served is consistent with course material
Can accommodate 50+ student volunteers
Close to campus/on direct bus line
Multiple options
SL Course Requirements
24 hours of SL (5 pts X 24 = 120 pts) Service learning log signed everyday by ACC staff
SL Opportunities at Americana Community Center (ACC) After School Program
Volunteers can provide assistance with homework, snack, arts activities, recreation, and computers.
Family Education Volunteers provide assistance with daycare or programming (for
adults) Americana Fiberworks
Program strives to empower women through fiber arts and education.
Women with sewing skills only Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
Volunteers are needed to provide free tax preparation
SL Course Requirements
Reflections combine course content with SL experience Individual: 1 written reflection per unit
(total=7) 2 – 4 pages
Team: 1 in-class reflection per unit (total=7)
Final Team Project Combines course content with hands-on
activity for SL opportunity Combined with an individual reflection
Individual SL Reflections
Unit 2 discusses how the worldview or values of a culture can influence communication. Do the people in your service learning opportunity use mostly high-context or low-context communication? How do you think their worldview and/or cultural values influence they type of communication used? Find an article regarding the population of interest that supports your opinions. Identify the aspects of communication that are high- or
low-context. Relate the culture’s worldview and/or cultural values
relate to the communication style. Incorporate a relevant article using the elements of
thought and provide the full citation. Intellectual standards: clarity, accuracy, depth, and
relevance.
Individual Reflection: Example 1 Many of the children at the Americana
Community Center are from Africa and the Middle East. African and Middle Eastern cultures, as well as Asian and Indian cultures, are high-context cultures. Eastern European cultures are typically low-context (Gupta, 2006). Although the children at Americana come from a high-context culture, they primarily use a low-context communication style when conversing with American/English speaking volunteers.
Individual Reflection: Example 2 …these behaviors relate to the cultural
perspectives of many Asian and African countries and influence high context communication amongst those serviced at Americana Community Center. I assume that different cultural perspectives such as personal space, gender roles, eye contact, and authority figures also can influence the type of communication that is used within their cultures. Most of the volunteers at The Americana Community Center are Americans who, I assume, communicate more directly, with low context communication. The different communication styles could cause a language barrier between volunteers and participants.
Team SL Reflections
Unit 3: Acculturation, Socialization, & Identity Development Describe 2 hardships people in your service
learning opportunity have experienced? What were the conditions of their family/ies’ ancestral homeland before coming to the United States? What information forms the basis of your inferences?
Intellectual standards: clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, and breadth.
Team Reflection: Example 1
In the case of a woman whom [student] has worked with, she was an accountant in Laos before immigrating to the US. Since she cannot speak English well enough to pursue her career here, she will have to attend school and be trained appropriately before she can receive her credentials.
Team Reflection: Example 2
Another woman from Cuba told her story about receiving a masters degree and teaching at a university within Cuba. When she immigrated to the US, her teaching degree was worthless in America. She was forced to go from a very prestigious job to a minimum wage job.
Final Team Project
Develop a hands-on activity to implement in your team’s service learning opportunity. Document the activity using pictures, narratives from people in the service learning opportunity, products from the activity, etc.
Provide a 20 minute in-class presentation that describes the activity and the multicultural psychology concepts evident within the activity.
Intellectual standards: all
Procedure
4. Instructed children to count the number of selected goldfish
5. Allowed children to eat the goldfish
6. Repeated steps 3-5 for each of the goldfish colors
Extra Credit Reflections
Critical Incident Reports Based on SL opportunity at Americana
Community Center
Reflections related to multicultural events in the community