The Service Learning Experience

For my service learning placement, I decided to volunteer my time with the Greater Ohio Virtual School and was able to tutor two students for about 18 hours and 30 minutes. The subject areas that I focused on with these students were Spanish and English. This service learning experience has altered my perspectives on identity and personal development and has taught me valuable lessons that I intend to remember for my career as a future educator. For instance, in relation to clarifying my future profession, service learning taught me that although teaching isn’t always easy, that it is worth it. To pursue this thought further, service learning confirmed my overall interest in teaching because it demonstrated that every successful and good …show more content…
In relation to how this experience has altered my views of the service learning process as a whole, I can confidently say that it has not altered my original opinion, but rather reaffirmed it. My original stance on service learning was that I believed it would be beneficial not only to the tutee but also to the tutor. By undergoing this process, I have learned not only more about myself as a future educator but was also able to bond and help two GOVS students. Each one possessed contrasting and varying personalities, but nonetheless, they confirmed my original idea that service learning was a great opportunity to engage in community work and learn. Although I cannot say that I have had a tremendous influence on the two young men that I tutored, I can say that it appeared as if once they started doing better on the subject that I was assisting them in, they grew in confidence and they became more eager to learn. Moreover, service learning taught me valuable insights about how the real world of teaching operated. Service learning allows those that are involved to get a hands-on teaching experience, but on a smaller scale. By limiting yourself to one or two students, the tutor is able to comprehend how much work goes into helping students and allows them to learn how to differentiate or make instructions and knowledge more accessible. By doing service learning, therefore, tutors learn how to assist student’s needs on a smaller scale, so that later when they have a broader network of students, they already have an idea how to help them and maximize their learning experience. However, despite this service learning experience, I did not feel a stronger connection with GOVS or the community. I believe that because I was isolated on a computer that I did not fully experience the community and school based bonding that normally ensues