Service Learning

Reflection

I was on a DI team in middle and high school, and learned many important life skills that may not directly be taught elsewhere, such as persistence, adaptability, and teamwork. As a result of this, I have a strong commitment to volunteer with the organization, so that other children can have as good of an experience as I did. Since I do not have the space or time to manage a DI team directly, I decided to volunteer each year as an Appraiser. Although I had been to tournaments on a team, I was unprepared for the experience as an Appraiser. Every year, I am amazed by the amount of creativity, hard work and technical skill shown by the students. My favorite part of being an Appraiser is talking to the team after the performance so that we can ask them how they got their ideas and constructed their set, props, costumes, etc. Often, these are pieces that require a fair amount of design and engineering skill. I love seeing the students so excited about the things they spent time researching, planning, and constructing over the year.

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GCSP Connection

Volunteering as an Appraiser fulfills the Service Learning requirement through being significant involvement with an outreach/service experience. This experience is tangentially related to Engineering Better Medicines, since DI challenges frequently include using science and engineering, and helping to make this a good experience for the students might encourage them to continue in these fields. However, this is more related to Personalized Learning, since the DI experience is highly personalized: teams pick the problem from several options, then develop their own solution and learn the skills needed along the way. As an Appraiser, I interact with the students to learn how they have chosen to solve the problem and what they have learned in the process.

 

This experience contributes to realistic vision, because I get to see many very different and equally valid ways to solve these problems, and this inspires me to be more imaginative and open-minded when trying to solve problems of my own. This contributes to being a team member because I work with a team of Appraisers to make it a good experience for the students. It also contributes to flexibility, since things inevitably go wrong when managing any event.

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Learning Objectives

• Community Engagement: Participate in community action, including campus community, neighborhood/city/state community, national community, global community, and others. This experience allows me to give back to the DI community on a local and state level though interacting with DI teams at competitions.

• Civic Agency: Regard themselves as connected to communities and social groups, and as able to proactively interact with them. Seek ways to make positive change. This experience allows me to continue being connected with the DI community and act as a force of positive change by ensuring younger DI students are able to continue learning important skills through this program.

• Capacity for Reflection: Consider role as social actor, impact on community, and effect of community involvement on self. Seek to strengthen and multiply skills for sustainable social solutions.  This experience positively impacts and inspires both me and the students I interact with. I hope to impact the community by helping students learn about science and engineering in a way that is fun and applicable to the real world.

• Capacity for Social Analysis: Identify and understand systems and structures at work in society. DI fills an important gap in education. Often, classes require students to have a particular level of knowledge before they can participate, and tends to use extrinsic rewards, such as grades. In contrast, DI allows students to use the skills they have learned at whatever level they are at, as well as empowering them to learn new skills through intrinsic rewards, such as interest.