Monitoring Progress  

YSA encourages all service-learning practitioners to evaluate their efforts continuously throughout the duration of their projects.  Since you all also have to complete a LASSIE report, we suggest you use this report as a progress monitoring tool. 

Download the LASSIE Report at the following site:

• Project Characteristics:  Page 13 of the report (under the heading K-12 Individual School Version), lists characteristics of high-quality service-learnnig practice (e.g. actions and practices that you can incorporate into your service-learning project).  Read through the list to determine which of these practices you might build into your project and into your practice.
• Institutional Supports for Service-Learning:  Use the list of questions on pages 27-28 of the report (under the heading K-12 School Version) to monitor the progress of your efforts to institutionalize service-learning in your school and increase support for service-learning in your school community.

Reflecting on your Project 

Reflection helps students become aware of what they are learning, what impact they are making on their community and how their participation in the project is impacting them.  By Friday March 18th, please send a youth blog from one (or more) of your students to Portia Obeng, YSA's Youth Engagement Manager, at pobeng@ysa.org.  In order for your students and school to receive positive attention for their STEMester of Service efforts, Portia will post the blogs on YSA's ADDService blog site:  www.YSA.org/blog 

Note:  The deadline for the youth blog posts has been extended from March 4th to March 18th.

The content and format of the blog is up to you and your students.  Your students might want to submit a poem, an essay, a video, an interview, a glogster "poster" -- whatever works best for their project.  The blog should be a reflection of the project thus far (e.g. What have your students enjoyed about the project?  What have they learned?  What are their goals for the project?  What is their vision for their community?)

For additional reflection questions, check out pgs. 26, 44, 52, and 62-67 of the Semester of Service Strategy Guide.

Teachers, administrators and community partners are also welcome to submit blog entries!  We encourage teachers and administrators to reflect on the ways service-learning has impacted student achievement and/or classroom climate, or a reflection on why you enjoy teaching through service-learning.

If you need a youth waiver form in order to post the youth blog on the ADDService website, please send me an email at sguy@ysa.org.

• By Tuesday, March 15 you will need to register and post your STEMester of Service project on the GYSD Project Map.  This is a particularly good task to assign to one of your students.  Through the map, they can also learn about projects taking place all over the world. 
• On the GYSD site, you can also enroll in a Global Learning Exchange. Partner with a school in another country so that you can share across borders what you are doing, learn about what they are doing, and even collaborate on your service-learning projects:  http://www.GYSD.org/exchange 
• Check out the new GYSD Toolkit for ideas on engaging media, gathering additional funds for your project and recruiting community volunteers to assist with your GYSD project.

Visiting your Schools 

Reporting your Successes

RMC Surveys

Thank you to everyone who has sent parent permission forms and class rosters to RMC Research.  For those of you have not yet done so, please mail any returned parent permission forms, as well as class rosters for those classes involved in the evaluation, both STEMester and comparison students, to Linda Fredericks at the address below. The rosters need to include students' names, birthdates, and school ID numbers.  If you have any questions regarding this request, please email Linda at fredericks@rmcdenver.com.

LASSIE Report 

The completion of LASSIE is a Learn and Serve America grant requirement.

If you were unable to attend the February 28th LASSIE webinar, the session has been recorded and posted under the "Help" section on www.lsareports.org.  The "Help" section is located on the top-right corner of the www.lsareports.org webpage.  

Additionally, you should have received your LASSIE log-in information.  If you do not know your LASSIE log-in information, you can call the LASSIE hotline at 866-337-8751.

Two excellent videos from your peers!

Lincoln IB World School

Lincoln IB's district TV channel put together this video from their Conversation Cafe, which was held in early February:  http://epresence.psdschools.org/1/watch/454.aspx

Warner Middle School  

Flash movie created by two students at Warner Middle School who are working to restore abalone and kelp forest habitat in southern California:

http://spamtheweb.com/ul/uploads/622011/81_Abalone_Project.swf