Service Learning

The name "service learning" can be very misleading. At first you may think one person serves while the other one learns. This, however, is not the case because service learning is a learning experience for both participants. To better understand service learning, one must have a clear understanding of the words "service" and "learning."

Service, in the context of service learning, is volunteering your time to provide a helpful activity with clear goals to meet the needs of the community. In our case, the activity is mentoring and our goal is to aid at-risk sixth graders with their transition into middle school. We will provide advice to our mentees to help solve their problems and hopefull make the difficult transition into middle school a smooth one for them.

Learning, in terms of service learning, means to gain knowledge on a subject, in our case mentoring, and all of the elements that accompany it. With mentoring, I hope to gain knowledge and experience with communication, interaction with the community, collaboration, and diversity.

Through the mentoring program we will provide mentoring to sixth graders while learning what they think about middle school, we will give advice to help them through their transition.