With assistance from the instructor and from the Key Center, students will engage in a ten-hour active learning project that involves working with an individual or community whose needs are related to issues or challenges in one of the following five components of wellness: Physical, Social, Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual. The purpose of the project will be to combine service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity changes both the recipient and the provider of the service.
Examples of a physical challenge might be the circumstances of a person differently- abled or a child learning a new sport or someone struggling with weight issues. An example of a social challenge might be a shut-in or someone who faces a language barrier. Kids who need extra help with homework might be characterized as having an intellectual challenge. Or is that an emotional challenge? Or is that a social challenge? One quickly sees that regardless of the focus, all aspects of wellness are likely related. Your job will be to choose a single challenge to address as you engage in some kind of service to ameliorate that challenging issue.
One of the goals of the course is to enable participants to make choices about being in a state of Optimal Performance. A necessary corollary of that goal is to explore barriers to being in Optimal Performance. This project will require you to identify a person or a group of people whose life experience you believe or predict to be compromised by challenges in one of the five components of wellness: Physical, Social, Emotional, Intellectual, or Spiritual. What are the barriers and challenges that this population is perceived to have? What choices are truly available? How does their situation relate to or impact your own?
The project will entail a minimum of ten contact hours working directly with the population you have targeted. You will not be "volunteering" but rather will be doing personal research exploring this issue, the potential you have to impact the issue, and the nature of the assets both you and your target population have in addressing this issue.
Final Product (s)
Students will want to work either in pairs or in groups no larger than four. The following outcomes will be part of the evaluation of the project:
· Reflective writing
o Pre-, Mid-, and Post
· Visual display of some sort
o Scrapbook, photo essay, poster, ppt.
· Presentation
This project will occur in four phases:
Contemplation, Action, Evaluation, Reflection/Presentation
Each phase, worth 25 points, has its own requirements. For instance, in the Contemplation phase you have a reflective writing, the responsibility to affiliate with a group, engage in discussions and planning, identify a placement and submit a plan. You are awarded full or partial credit based on the degree to which you fulfilled the requirements of that phase.
Contemplation:
This Phase should be completed by Oct 23rd
Reflective Writing on their chosen focus
What drew you to this choice?
What do you have to offer and what intrigues you?
What placements (what sorts of settings) might be appropriate to explore?
What placements might connect you to other classes of interest?
In-class discussion about possibilities
Make groups of 3-4
Interview at Key Center or with Connie
Turn in Here’s Our Plan by
Successful completion of the Contemplation stage will require
˙ Timely submission of reflective writing tying your process to the concepts of the course
˙ Regular attendance and active participation in discussions
˙ Timely interview to establish placement options
˙ Timely submission of “Here’s Our Plan”
Action:
This Phase should be completed by November 15th
Set and follow through with appointments such that you have scheduled a minimum of ten hours over a minimum of three contact days.
Submit reflective writing within two days of the first encounter
Email me about your first encounter so that I know a) you made it, and b) if there are issues I can get involved
Photography is one way to document your experience, but can you think of other ways?
Attend your scheduled sessions with your community partners
Meet regularly with your co-learners (your UNCA group)
Successful completion of the Action stage will require that you
˙ Meet each appointment
˙ Submit reflective writing tying contact to concepts presented in our course
˙ Provide references from current events relevant to some aspect of your collaboration
˙ Documentation of some sort
Evaluation/Reflection
This phase will be completed by November 20th.
With your UNCA partners write/list/summarize the high points, surprises, difficulties, and delights you each encountered. What changed about the recipient during your contact? How did you change?
The overall challenge was to consider one of the components of wellness and how the life of a person might be sub-optimal if this component were inadequately developed or nurtured. What did you discover about this? How can you apply other aspects of the course to this challenge? How might abilities be fostered to more adequately develop or nurture this component? What is the nature of the barriers perceived? Refer also to concepts of Flow, TAIS, Open Focus, and any of the other experiences we’ve encountered.
Successful completion of the Evaluation/Reflection stage will require discussion and reflection leading to some sort of product which highlights:
· The nature of the collaboration in which you and your community partner(s) were engaged
· The nature of the reciprocity you discovered (how were both partners both teachers and learners?)
· Your observations about diversity—how you came to view differences as assets and how you employed those assets
Presentation
Why might someone care about what you’ve discovered?
The experiences you had, the discoveries you made, the ideas you now hold about optimal performance will be shared in presentations to the class. These will be 8-10 minutes. This sharing may be the presentation of your group's photo-essay, a PowerPoint, a poster board, or some other method. Not everyone needs to be responsible for every aspect of the presentation. Divide up the duties you think will be involved with creating an engaging presentation so it is truly a group effort.
Following your presentation additional time will be allotted so that you and your partner(s) can conduct group discussion based on questions and issues you will ask us to consider.