Creating Service Learning Opportunities for Students --> Introduction to Service Learning
I have always included community service in the course plan for my graduating nursing class to introduce them to the service aspect of nursing expectations.
This course has given me ideas on how to introduce the course to the students to make them understand the rationale for the community service projects.
Emotional intelligence is important to keep the learner engaged in school and helps identify the EI skills needed to manage self.
Today with all the technologies the EI skill is being lost by the younger generation. As an instructor, we need to have the emotional intelligence to deal with students and being able to connect to their situations.
I teach at a school for audio engineering, and my areas of focus are film/television sound and certification for Pro Tools (an industry standard software). Community service in this field isn't easy to explain to students, as they all seem to think they're going to make the significant jump from student to multi-award winning sound editors/mixers by next week; the reality is that they need to create a client base, a work ethic, and beyond reading texts and manuals, get their hands dirty and make mistakes.
I consistenly tell them that they should be meeting film students who need sound work done for their final projects, find bourgeoning youtubers who need better sound, and offer to help those content creators with their projects. The unfortunate truth that so many students can't seem to understand is that the first few years of a career in sound (music, film, or games) is typically done for free. It's a learning tool for interaction with creators, the platforms (film, music, or video games), and the processes behind each of them.
All of that is to say, that's the closest parallel I can draw between my areas of instruction and the usefulness and benefit of service learning.
