Week 10: Community Partnerships
LOC 10: Relate to community partnerships as important resources to adult learning and teaching
Learning Objectives
By the end of this week, participants will be able to:
- 10.1 – Examine and establish local community partnerships to assist them with their learning practice
- 10.2 – Recommend students’ opportunities for adult learning through volunteering
- 10.3 – Support community partnerships by creating a booklet that lists learning/volunteering opportunities for students
Materials Needed This Week
Here is a list of materials you will need while completing this week:
- Writing utensils
- Highlighters
- Ruler
- Sticky Notes
- Dictionary/Glossary booklet
- Handwritten Wisdom Journal
- Blank paper
- Computer/laptop
- A4 size paper
- Scissors
Key Terms
Add these key terms to your personal dictionary/glossary booklet. These important key terms will be used throughout module 2, week 10. If there is no link attached to the definition, be assured that the term will be defined throughout the week. We encourage you to further investigate the definitions in order to expand your knowledge.
- Volunteering
- Community Development
Questions to Consider
1. Libraries – What do they have to offer? Why should your students consider the library as an important resource in their community?
2. What does your community library provide?
3. What other resources are available in your community?
Review
Consult the following resources and interpret the necessary information with your preferred method of note-taking.
Library:
Take a look around the Ontario Library Service’s website to see all that they have to offer.
Ontario Public Libraries (website)
Ontario Library Services (website)
Take a moment to view some of the things libraries do:
Volunteering:
Benefits of Community Service – Western Connecticut State University (article)
Activity
Take a moment and reflect on these questions:
Volunteering and its Surprising Benefits – Help Guide (article)
Video: What is VOLUNTEERING? What does VOLUNTEERING mean? VOLUNTEERING meaning & explanation (1:46)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ82r2bylWg
Click here for a video transcript in .docx format: Video Transcript
Video: Why be a Volunteer? (1:24)
Click here for a video transcript in .docx format: Video Transcript
Video: Community Connections (4:46)
Click here for a video transcript in .docx format: Video Transcript
Video: How Volunteering can help Change the World | Trishya Screwvala | TEDxChennai (10:03)
Click here for a video transcript in .docx format: Video Transcript
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” — Neil Gaiman, Author
Identify
Consult the following resources below to locate the important information on this week’s topic.
Places you may be able to find volunteer opportunities:
- Your local community post office
- Your local community sports centre
- Your local community town office
- Your local cultural centre
- Your local schools (elementary, secondary, post-secondary)
See the PDF template provided below that you can fill or print out and ask yourself the question, who would you like to form a working/learning relationship with within your community? The PDF provides some ideas of who you would like to form relationships with within your community. Check the ones that would apply to you, or jot down some of your own.
Forming Working and Learning Relationships within your Community (PDF)
Develop
Task
- Canva Templates (website)
Apply
Task
Apply in the classroom:
Engaging Community: Survey community members about their interests, strengths, and availability, and develop a program for using volunteers to support the differentiated learning needs of your students.
Volunteering opportunities in your community: Make a list of potential partnerships in your community with your students and discuss interests or why they would want to volunteer within the community.
Take Away Toolbox
Reflect
Handwritten Wisdom Journal
A Wisdom Writing Journal is a way to notarize your learning journey throughout the weeks during all the modules in this course. It will also permit you to demonstrate that no technology is required to focus on reflective practice. There is a variety of writing journal tools that you can choose from that require technology, however, throughout this course, it is important that you experience and model a no-technology required method in order to relate to those students that have limited or no access to technology.
Take advantage of jotting down your thoughts, frustrations, joys, aha moments, and new information acquired as the result of your hard work. Critical reflection time required at the end of each week will be a culminating result of YOUR own personal Learning Narrative.
Using your own personal writing journal, write an entry for this week’s prompts:
- Can you relate to some of the community partners in your community that would be an asset to you and your adult learners with low-tech skills or no tech access?
- How does this make you feel about your community and its opportunities for connection? What are some of the strategies that you could use to motivate your students to volunteer in order to connect with their community?
- Can you see the value of volunteering for your students as a learning tool or a value for your practice?
- Based on the information that you have learned this week, how would you review, identify, develop, apply, and reflect?
Note: Be sure to justify each of your answers or comments.
Optional Resources
These resources are not required to be viewed; however, they give further information on this week’s topics:
- Volunteer Canada (website)
- YMCA of Northeastern Ontario (website)
Activity
Congratulations on completing Module 2: Teaching Strategies for Limited Technology Environments.
Here is a word search activity to help refresh your memory on some of the key terms used and learned throughout module 2.
