Creating Global Citizens: An Engaged Learning Community

TITLE:

Creating Global Citizens: An Engaged Learning Community

GRANT RECIPIENTS:

Dr. Michael Lenaghan – Social Science – North Campus
mlenagh@mdc.edu
Myra M. Medina – ESL & Foreign Languages – North Campus
mmedinac@mdc.edu
Ginny Peterson-Tennant – Social Science - North Campus
gpeterso@mdc.edu

ABSTRACT:

This is a multi-disciplinary project to plan, implement, and evaluate a curricular and co-curricular multi-cultural engaged learning community. The purpose of the project is to provide students the opportunity to apply their newly acquired knowledge and insights in service to the community in which the College is located and wherein the students will be productively employed.

International Relations, Psychology, and Spanish language are the core curricula configured, along with service learning and a technology component. Offering these courses in a two semester program will allow for optimal faculty-student interaction. As well, a student-professional interaction will be created and facilitated by the faculty through various venues, including internship options. The project envisions a total of 25 students per semester, enrolled in two courses. The continuously cooperating faculty team and service learning colleagues will contribute to the successful implementation of this program.

PROJECT SUMMARY:

Creating Global Citizens is a wonderful project with vision and creativity. It is the type of project that requires the faculty to be very engaged for it to be successful because it is not limited to the coordination of course content. As well, support from the respective departments is necessary when scheduling the courses and with assistance in recruiting students. This was a first time and we have learned from the experience. Some activities turned out well, whereas others were a total failure. The Creating Global Citizens learning community extended over two academic semesters. In the Fall term, the students took Spanish I and the multicultural psychology course. Then the cohort of students continued into the Spring semester with the second Spanish course linked with a course in international relations. One of the goals of the project was to provide students with the opportunity to be engaged in this learning process. Engaged learning is accomplished when students realize what they learn in class applies to the real world. In addition, a component of that learning experience is ‘moving students out of their comfort zone.’ As a result, students had the opportunity to participate in a myriad of extra-curricular activities. Some of these activities were:
Service Learning Projects – Fall and Spring:
Fall: One Day’s Pay Project, Miami, several locations
Camillus House Holiday Gardening Project, Overtown
Spring: KaBoom Playground Construction Project, Lejeune Gardens

Two Cultural Events:
            Fall:     Miami Book Fair International
                        Dinner at Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana
            Spring: Miami International Film Festival – Argentine Film
King Tut Exhibit in Fort Lauderdale

Hispanic Cultures Exposure:
“Su Exelencia” – film starring Cantinflas in INR 2002 Spring

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PROJECT RESULTS:

http://webct4a.mdc.edu/webct/public/home.pl

On this WebCt link, one can find the syllabus for the Spanish class and other related activities for this particular class, such as correspondence between students and professor, Power Point projects completed by the students, and calendar of activities.

One of the our students, Kerby Angerbil, won the Service Learning Student of the Year Award from the Center for Community Involvement for a service learning project he had done through the grant project. As a result of Kerby’s experience with our learning community, he also became inspired to start his own not-for-profit agency called “World Peace for Kids” at www.wpek.org.

Three projects implemented through Service for Peace in Miami Gardens and Liberty City benefited from the involvement of four of our Learning Community students during the spring term. In these projects, Spanish and English speaking community members were served.

The fact that the project spanned two semesters, it did not produce the intended student retention within the Learning Community. Overall, students were pleased with their participation in the project. The attractiveness and interest in the Learning Community program was demonstrated by the publication of an article in Language Magazine in July 2006, briefings requested by Higher Education officials in the Dominican Republic during the month of July, and in the Republic of the Philippines in August, 2006.

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PLANS FOR DISSEMINATION:

We have already presented during Conference Day. We have, as well, written an article that will be published in Language Magazine this July ’06. Myra is presenting at the AACU in Chicago in November and the service-learning aspect of the Learning Community will be discussed in this presentation.

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