Video on smaller classrooms VS larger classrooms in UAlbany!

LARGE CLASSROOMS VS SMALL CLASSROOMS

BY: SPENCER, CAROL, COURTNEY, JESSICA AND CAITLYN

We chose smaller classrooms vs larger classrooms because it highlights many "arguments" on what is better for students in one video! It can be shown that from smaller classrooms it is easier for the professor to engage with students and for students to get a chance to get a more in-depth understanding of what is going on in the lecture by having more chances of asking questions, since there is less people in the classroom. We know that it is unrealistic for there to be no more large lectures, but we believe that a smaller classroom environment is a more effective way for students to learn.

Carol Filmed this video

Spencer and Courtney acted in this video

Caitlyn wrote the script for the video 

and I (Jessica) posted and wrote the blog!

To do this video we walked around campus to find different examples of small classrooms and large lecture centers for the location of the video!

Hope you enjoy!

How and Why to Donate Books - Group 1 Video

4/21/2015

Group 1 Members: Alex Moeller, Jessica Henkel, YoonKyung Cho, Jane Kim, Brianne Dolan, Jenna Dobin

To decide on our concept, we first thought of our initial thought process when we discussed how and why to donate books. This can also apply to donation and community service of any kind. We wanted to break down these steps into more broad detail in order to apply to others, and what message we wanted to send. We then decided on a script in which to communicate our message that best portrayed our vision. Jessica Henkel, Brianne Dolan, and Jenna Dobin communicated these messages in our video, and the message was recorded by Alexander Moeller. We took a desk from our classroom to use as a base prop, and used Alex's laptop to help us with our our new script. The script was essentially a rough rewrite of our blog post about how to get involved, because we felt that post was strong and needed not only emphasis, but more of a personal touch for those who wanted to get involved. We talked about how we donated books, what others can do to get involved, and the hashtags (#GreatBookGiveaway #DoYourPart #ProjectCommunity #OneselfOneCommunity) that others can use to follow our progress--or even show us their own! Alex is best at computers so he volunteered to edit our video together with the text that we needed. We then broke down our duties as group members for the other parts of the assignment.

Below is our group video for the Great Book Giveaway.

Project Group Video (Week 8)

4/21/2015

Group:
Kelly, Kassie, Oscar, and Carrie

Project Group Video (Week 8)

     Today our group was given the task to create a video explaining the process we used to accomplish our group service learning project. We were given a checklist that included the criteria we had to meet to finish the project on time. First, we were told to pick a concept for our video. We decided that our concept would be our process of choosing our organization, challenges we met along the way, and how we were able to overcome those challenges.  Next we gathered our equipment, which was an iPhone, and a Mac with iMovie.

      Next, we wrote a script and tasked each member to speak about one aspect of our project. We then filmed and edited the video using iMovie. We split up the work by having two people work on editing the video while the other two worked on the blog post. Finally, we uploaded the video to YouTube and embedded it into this post.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbnDOZZAukE&feature=youtu.be
                                                                                           

 Hope you enjoy the video!

Our Video

Our video will be introducing group members as well as the organization, St. Mary's Children's Hospital of Queens. Our goal in the video is to meet our group members and to share further information on our organization and the reasoning behind choosing it. With this we will explain the positive impact this assignment has had on us as group members and conclude by asking each member whether or not they will continue participating in service learning related activities.

-Rebecca, Zuri, Brooke, Diamond, Molly

The Importance and Impact of Civic Engagement

Have you ever done something for someone not because you had to but because you were in the position to do so? Has someone ever done something for you with you asking because they knew that their help would help you to be in a better place than you were before? This is community service in a nutshell and it changes lives and has been since community service has been around.

Community service is becoming increasingly important in society. It provides service and help to people and communities in need, while strengthening communities, too. It serves as a platform for personal growth and a self-esteem booster in volunteers. It helps volunteers feel good about themselves for their giving back to the community. Another positive experience of community service is that it brings people in the community together while strengthening community bonds. Community service can also act as learning experience for volunteers and even act as experience for certain careers (ie. Peace Corp., Red Cross). Giving back to the community also emphasizes the importance and civic responsibility of being in a community. However, the most important reason for community service is that volunteers make a difference through action.

            Community service and its importance is clearly and widely known to have the impact that is mentioned above and much more. However, this was only the case after community service was seen to be effective and necessary to develop standards for community engagement. Through social learning, the community at large has been constantly reminded that service can only benefit those in need and if you are in the position to provide a service then why not? Community service has grown and spread to other aspects of society. Nowadays, you have entire companies, corporations and countries engaging in community service. The NBA, for instance, under the name NBA Cares, provides local communities with services ranging from education to infrastructure. Many large corporations are now engaging in corporate social responsibility which is a way for these large corporations to show the communities in which they conduct business that they care and are not purely focused on just making profits.

            Society, overall, has placed a positive connotation on the words community service. When you hear it, an image of solidarity and empathy comes to mind. You can only hope that community engagement continues on this upward trend.

            

            We encourage feedback. All comments are welcomed and if there are any questions you have, please feel free to express them. 

Great Book Giveaway

In our Conference and Group Leadership class, we are currently working on a service learning group project called "The Great Book Giveaway." Service learning is the integration of meaningful community service and following instructions that meet specific learning objectives, enriching the overall learning experience. Along with enriching students learning experience, service learning is also a way to develop and acquire necessary skills, as well as knowledge. The goal of this project is to distribute 30 books to a non-profit organization outside of the Capital District by April 30^th, while applying our leadership and team skills. The members in our group are Chelsea Merrill, Tunisha Bey, Chris Smith, Michaela Burbank, and Stephanie Acosta. Chelsea Merrill is a junior majoring in Communications and minoring in Business and German. Tunisha Bey is a senior majoring in Communications and minoring in Psychology. Chris Smith is a senior majoring in History and minoring in Communications. Michaela Burbank is a junior majoring in Communications and minoring in Business and Psychology. And Stephanie Acosta is a senior majoring in Communications and minoring in Criminal Justice. We have decided to donate our books to the Ingalls Memorial Library in Rindge, New Hampshire. The Ingalls Memorial Library was built in 1894 on historic ground, which once belonged to Colonel Nathan Hale of Revolutionary fame. Today, the library offers many services such as book sales from donated books, children's story time, and home school programs. To successfully complete this project we have been following a consensus approach. We believe and have agreed that through the consensus decision making process we effectively complete our tasks more effectively than through a directive decision making process. Through the consensus process that we have chosen to follow, every group member gives their input in a decision that needs to be made and as a group we come to an agreement on the ultimate decision. Each and every one of us has distinct skills and attributes that make it possible for us to collaborate together to complete our given tasks. We will be distributing children’s books to the Ingalls Memorial Library. The reading level of the children’s books that we will be distributing to the library will range from toddlers up to preadolescents. One of the main reasons as to why we decided to donate children’s books instead of any other kind of books was because we believe that it is extremely critical for children to learn and flourish through reading.  Therefore, the Ingalls Memorial Library was the perfect library since it also has a passion for educating our youth. We have successfully collected 30 books and will officially distribute to them to Ingalls Memorial Library on April 18. We are looking forward to completing this project and furthermore providing children with inspiring books!

Group 1: Community Service is a necessity, even for YOU!

The members in our group are Jenna Dobin, Brianne Dolan, YoonKyung Cho, Alexander Moeller, Jessica Henkel, and Jane Kim and we all agree that community service is important for countless reasons. Community service makes the world a better place; it can make a difference to the lives of people, animals, organizations, and the environment. Community Service has a positive impact not only on the community but also on the volunteers contributing their efforts. Taking part in community service gives volunteers psychological, social and cognitive benefits. Through volunteering for community service people create friendships, learn new skills and often even advance their careers. Its also been studied that volunteering also helps peoples mental and physical health.

Most people don’t realize that community service is also important to the volunteers. Volunteering for community service is very beneficial; it helps people make new friends, expand their network and boost social skills. To commit to a shared activity together, this strengthens friendships and causes new relationships to form. It forces volunteers to meet new people, especially when they’re working in a new area. This enforces volunteers to build their networks, and expose you to people of similar interests. Volunteers need to constantly be around other people and work with others to complete a goal this results in developing their social skills and giving them a great opportunity of learning how to work in a group.

Volunteering increases self-confidence by providing a healthy boost to their self-esteem and life satisfaction. Volunteering makes people feel better about themselves causing them have a more positive view on life and their own future goals. This in end combats depression in people who volunteer, considering key risk factors for depression are social isolation and not feeling good about oneself. Another important impact volunteering has on a person is that it helps people stay physically healthy. Studies have found that those who volunteer have a lower mortality rate than those who do not.

Volunteering can introduce people to different experiences that could turn into new career interest. Through these experiences people can meet necessary people in the new field that they are pursing. Even when people are not planning on changing careers, volunteering teaches people new knowledge or offers opportunities to learn new skills used in the workplace. Volunteering people learn teamwork, communication, problem solving, project planning, task management, and organization.

The more obvious benefits community service provides is the great impact it has on the community. Some people believe that it is the unpaid volunteers that are sometimes the glue that holds a community together. There are many different community service activities that make a huge difference. Listed below are simple and easy things we can do, to contribute to our community.

·       Like our group has done, people can donate books, novels, and other reading materials to their local parish. People could also donate books to schools, hospitals, libraries or shelters.

·       Donate old clothes or household goods. You can give to your local Goodwill

·       Donate some non-perishables foods to your local food bank.

·        Bring used toys and stuffed animals to a children’s hospital.

·       Answer a letter to Santa from a needy child.

·       Send a care package to deployed troops, veterans, or wounded soldiers. Write a thank-you letter and include some food (no homemade or canned food allowed). This can be done through: Operation Gratitude

To learn what to donate and who to send it to:  Give2TheTroops

·       Donate blood. You can make an by clicking on: appointment with the Red Cross,

or look for a community blood drive near you.

·       Teach computer skills to the elderly.

·       Become a volunteer tutor.

Further information can be found at: http://www.helpguide.org/articles/work-career/volunteering-and-its-surprising-benefits.htm

From just these few examples we have a slight look into how important community service is to society and how the public depends on it for many different scenarios. Community service is crucial for the environment on a moral standpoint. There are many issues that cannot be fixed on their own or through government help and people who are capable need to help. In some cases community service is essential for peoples lives or the existence of an organization. When things have this big of an impact on the public its not hard to argue why community service is so important.

#DoYourPart #ProjectCommunity #OneselfOneCommunity

Section: 0002

Image Source: http://bsulife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/community-service.jpg

Adapted From: https://students.ucsd.edu/student-life/involvement/community/reasons.html  

Link for Community Service Organizations:

http://www.albany.edu/cpsp/

Questions or comments? Interested? Contact us!

cpsp@albany.edu

(518) 442-5683

Community and Public Service Program CPSP

School of Social Welfare

1400 Washington Avenue

Social Sciences Bldg. Rm SS112

Albany, NY 12222

Come join us in the rewarding experience of community service today!

#cpsp #communityservice