ACES Provides Faculty with Resources for Creating Socially Embedded Courses

 

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Interviewer: 
Michael Jung, Feature Writer, Office of University Initiatives

 

Interviewees:
Deborah Ball, Director of Academic Community Engagement Services (ACES)
Jan Kelly, Instructor in the Department of English and former director of ACES

 

For many ASU faculty members, the thought of creating socially embedded courses can be overwhelming. While enabling their students to increase their knowledge by engaging with the community has strong appeal, the logistics of forming community partnerships and teaching a college class can challenge even the most dedicated professional.

 

But according to Deborah Ball, director of ASU’s Academic Community Engagement Services (ACES) program, and English Instructor Jan Kelly, creating socially embedded courses can be more manageable than faculty might believe. By working with ACES, faculty can link their academic courses to ACES’ service learning internships enabling students to work with established community partnerships. Faculty can then base their academic coursework on their students’ community work, creating more meaningful assignments.

 

I spoke with Deborah Ball and Jan Kelly, who shared their thoughts on the ways faculty can work with ACES to enhance student learning experiences, and the impact service learning internships have on both ASU students and the community.      

 

MJ: Let me start by asking, what is the main purpose of ACES?

 

DB: The goal of ACES is to provide college students with opportunities to increase academic achievement, self-esteem, attitudes toward literacy, and college-going success for K-12 students. Participation in our internships provide our ASU students with career exploration, “real-life” experiences, leadership and hopefully a life-long commitment to social embeddedness. Right now all of our service learning internships provide academic tutoring and enrichment opportunities for children attending under-resourced schools. We’re also developing non K-12 service learning internships to address health care and environmental sustainability issues in the community by working with government agencies and non-profit organizations.

 

MJ: How can ASU faculty take advantage of ACES’ service learning internships to provide socially embedded experiences for their students? 

 

JK: Well, ACES is unique from what I know of other service learning programs in that instead of making instructors fit a short, episodic service learning assignment into their academic course, students can engage in two classes – a three-credit academic course and a three-credit service internship. That way, the content in the ASU instructor’s academic course stays the same, but students are also in the community for the whole semester, earning three additional upper division credits for their service learning internship.

 

Faculty need to know they can work with ACES to provide a semester-long experience that’ll give students a real education in the community without having to sacrifice the content they teach. What they are doing is adding an opportunity for students to take what they’re learning in their content class and apply it in the community and vice versa.

 

DB: And part of what makes service learning unique is that it’s not just about going out into the community and doing community service. There are also reflection assignments that students in our service learning internships need to do – academic research papers, short answers, and group discussions that get them to really think about problems they’re addressing in the community and how to fix them.

 

MJ: Jan, I understand your English students can take service learning internships from ACES. How does this help you and your students?

 

JK: Well, right now I teach two sections of ENG 101 and 102 where my students are working on the same number of essays and projects they would in a regular composition course, but they’re also taking a seperate three-credit service learning internship from ACES, which provides the training, oversight, and support for their outreach experience.

 

And the content in my classes is linked to my students’ experiences mentoring children in South Phoenix, the downtown area, South Scottsdale and Mesa. So I tailor my writing assignments and research activities to help them understand their experiences better. We have a selection of readings about educational opportunities, impact of English as a Second Language on student learning, how income level affects the quality of schools, and whether standardized tests are good or bad. And the desire to write about a specific topic related to education comes out of what’s happening in my students’ internships.

 

For instance, I had a student who used to have a hard time doing research. But by working with a child in her service learning internship, she became very interested in learning how early childhood development affects the capacity for learning. So I suggested the student interview Billie Enz, an expert in early brain development and learning who told this student about other research resources – and this student wrote a fantastic paper.

 

So I think a lot of times students go to the library because they have to. But our students want to research so they can help children in the community who are struggling to learn.

 

DB: Now students don’t have to be involved in one of Jan’s courses – ACES internship courses are three-credit stand-alone courses with a service component and learning component that are open to any student. So students can take them alone and connect the internships to their other courses.

 

MJ: What different types of service learning internships does ACES offer?

 

DB: We have a list online. We have math internships as well as biology, geology, physical geography, plant biology, and microbiology internships that let students mentor children in sciences. Then there’s sociology, Spanish, and UNI 402, which are basic after-school literacy internships, and UNI 484 – that’s an art internship.

 

MJ: What non K-12 service learning internships does ACES offer?

 

DB: Well historically, this program was all K-12. But my program coordinator senior will work on non K-12 internships next year – one might be in environmental engineering where students go and do an internship with Salt River Project.

 

We do have a program with the judicial system now called Youth in Transition where tutors go into the Black Canyon Correctional Facility and mentor the student inmates as they are being processed to be released into society – they have a few months to work with a tutor before their release and continue to work with their mentor after their release.

 

MJ: How do ASU students involved in service learning impact the community?

 

DB: Oh in so many ways. Academic achievement is number one – we’re taking K-12 kids who are behind their grade level and trying to catch them up while at the same time getting them excited about learning.

 

We train tutors on how to make learning fun for kids – for instance a lot of kids like to read Harry Potter books, so the class might read a chapter in the first book where Harry and Hagrid are going down to the vault at Gringott’s Bank and Harry asks a question about stalagmites and stalactites. So the tutor can then say to the kids, “Okay, let’s research what stalagmites and stalactites are” – and boom, it turns into a geology lesson.

 

We get a lot of anecdotal information from teachers and parents who say, “This child behaves better.” “This child raises his hand more in class.” “This child makes friends more easily.” So there are some benefits you can’t judge by a standardized test.

 

JK: It’s also that one-on-one mentoring relationship. Because ASU students are with those kids through the whole semester, they work first on developing trust, which allows kids to try and answer questions even if they might be wrong. Most of these kids are bright; it’s just that they’ve missed some fundamental aspect of their learning. And so our students have to go back and build those building blocks so the kids can perform better and have more confidence in their classrooms.

 

DB: ASU students also talk positively about college – we do college workshops to show students all sorts of different people go to college and that it’s an option for them too. We teach them about financial aid and scholarships. And we teach them about the benefits of going to college – you can get a better paying job and support your family better.

 

MJ: How is funding for the programs shared between ASU and your partners?

 

DB: We take care of administrative duties and provide the tutors, the training, and our administrative salaries. But we ask the site to pay for its supervisor – the person who acts as the ASU liaison and does all the site logistics to make sure tutors are well trained and have the materials they need to handle problems. ASU doesn’t give us the budget to take care of all expenses so we need to ask our partners for some assistance. And they get a lot – if they were to pay $10 an hour salaries, every site would cost about $200,000 a year when they’re asked to pay maybe $18,000-$20,000.

 

MJ: Both of you were involved in socially embedded work before “social embeddedness” became a common phrase at ASU. How do you feel we can improve the way we teach and promote socially embedded work at the university?

 

DB: Require service learning for all students before they graduate.

 

JK: I think that might be a good idea. You also have to support the faculty so they can give their students these opportunities without going beyond their own ability and expertise. Most of them don’t have the contacts or cost sharing arrangement ACES has – so they can tap into these ACES resources to get students out into the community.

 

Essentially any faculty person in any discipline area can work with ACES to place their students in the community and create a companion content course – or adapt their current content course so students can have that side-by-side experience.

 

MJ: Why is it so important for you to teach and be involved in service learning?

 

JK: For me, the opportunity to feel like you’ve made a difference is what keeps me involved. And it’s not just that I’m helping address these social issues by helping my students, but the fact that my students are more inclined to keep being involved in the community after engaging in these service learning internships.

 

DB: I love the fact that I can help mold college students into their careers and hopefully turn them into solid employees and citizens. Some students come here with no direction, and being part of our program helps them transform into confident, responsible, professional adults. When I heard what some of my students said about the effect the program had on them, it was really heartwarming because I didn’t know I made that impact.

 

MJ: Thank you both for taking the time to talk to me.

 

JK/DB: Thank you.

 

Spaces are available each semester for Jan Kelly’s ENG 101 and 102 classes and other ACES service learning internships. Many of the internships also satisfy ASU’s cultural studies requirement for graduation through assignments regarding social justice issues such as poverty and racial injustice. Visit the ACES web site and learn about the opportunities and assistance ACES can provide ASU faculty, staff, and students.

 

Date of Interview:  June 27, 2007

 

Michael Jung, ASU in the Community feature writer
Michael.Jung@asu.edu
480-727-8339

 

To learn more about how ASU is engaged with the community, please visit ASU in the Community’s Program Database which connects you to a wide variety of specific ASU outreach efforts.