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?

Unit Structure

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 SL Reflections

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

Final Team Project

Final Team Project

Extra Credit Reflections

Critical Incident Reports Based on SL opportunity at Americana

Community Center

Reflections related to multicultural events in the community

Changes to next course

Revise format of reflection for better integration of SL experiences with course material

More integration of standards inassignment Revised rubric