Preconference Sessions
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (W1)
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. (W2)
Preconference sessions are intensive, 3 hour - interactive sessions that provide materials, strategies, and skills in cutting-edge areas of service-learning. Each session provides opportunities to explore subject areas in depth.
Preregistration is required and can be done as part of your regular conference registration. There is an additional charge for each preconference session. Only those who register may attend. Attendee email may be provided to the facilitator for pre and post work and materials.
Preconference sessions do not include meals.
If you have already registered for the conference and would like to add a preconference session, please contact us at (800) 366-6952 or nslcreg@nylc.org.
Preconference Sessions
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (W1)
W101 The Sixth Annual Service-Learning World Forum
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Audience: all
Join NYLC for an event that engages attendees and international leaders - the Service-Learning World Forum. Explore youth service and service-learning as forces that span cultural and national boundaries, building communities and strengthening young people. Discover how service-learning is implemented throughout the world. Hear from leaders from the regions of Africa, Middle East, Pacific Rim and Europe. Bring your experience and participate in this unique worldwide exchange.
W102 SMART – Youth Providing Solutions to the Achievement Gap
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Audience: youth
Presented by NYLC’s Youth Advisory Council, MN
Here is your chance to learn more about NYLC’s achievement gap training, an innovative approach to bring youth into the conversation on equity and the achievement gap. Piloted at NYLC’s National Youth Leadership Training and in Minneapolis Public Schools, this curriculum provides training models for youth-oriented activities focused on the achievement gap. Participants will engage in simulations leading to a discussion on the importance of involving young people as stakeholders in the education reform debate.
W103 Designing Academically Rigorous Service-Learning
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Audience: adult
Presented by Susan Root, NYLC Research Director and Caryn Pernu, NYLC Program Director, MN
One obstacle to ensuring student academic learning through service-learning may be the challenges of planning standards-based projects. This immersion session is designed to help teachers think deeply about the abstract concepts and skills they want students to develop service-learning experiences. Join NYLC’s research team, Susan Root and Caryn Pernu, in a hands-on workshop that explores using Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s backward planning model to design service-learning around academic content standards. You’ll learn a process for tying service-learning experiences directly to the standards you’re expected to meet in your classroom, explore strategies for assessing student learning throughout the service-learning experience, and create a plan to boost your students’ academic knowledge and skills — while they contribute to their community.
W104 Circle of Engagement Part 1 of 2
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Audience: youth ages 14+ and adults
Presented by youthrive, MN
Join this invigorating session on building cross-generational partnerships that produce powerful community results! Developed by dynamic youth workers and the youth leaders of youthrive. The Circle of Youth Engagement trains teams of young people (2-4) and adults (1-2) to refine the listening, critical thinking, and communication skills necessary for shared leadership. Attend this youth- and adult-led session to learn new approaches to authentic youth/adult decision-making and develop an action plan for implementing service-learning your home community. Experience the personal and community transformation that results from powerful youth/adult partnerships! The “4 Simple Rules of Engaged Leadership” Measurement Tool will be introduced.
Must register for both sessions.
W106 Capacity Building for Research and Evaluation: Using Service-Learning to Expand Research and Evaluation on Experiential Learning Programs
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Audience: adult
Presented by Robert Shumer, University of Minnesota, MN
In an era of declining resources and limited opportunities it is important to find new ways to increase the capacity of service learning and other experiential learning programs to conduct research and evaluation. One approach that is growing is the use of service-learning programs, themselves, as a method of conducting research and evaluation. Using courses, from elementary school through graduate school, as a source of student engagement in the evaluation process is a useful way to improve both the learning that accrues through evaluation and provides a new kind of service to communities and programs: evaluation itself. The purpose of this session is to introduce participants to models of research and evaluation capacity building and then to help them develop a specific program/model in their own setting.
W107 It's All About the Outcomes: How a Semester of Service™ Leads to Student Achievement, Workforce Readiness, and Stronger Communities
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Presented by Susan Abravanel from YSA
YSA’s Semester of Service™ is a service-learning framework that links prominent national events, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Global Youth Service Day, or 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance, through continuous youth-led service and learning experiences over a extended period. In this session, you will learn how students become involved in addressing the substantive community issues they most care about – childhood obesity, the environment, literacy, and childhood hunger and other issues of local, national or global importance. You will also learn how from successful Semester of Service™ teachers and facilitators how they guide their students through related learning goals and academic content standards across the curriculum, and introduce career and workforce readiness skills.
YSA staff and Semester of Service™ educators have designed this engaging and interactive session to present you with tools, strategies, and information about Semester of Service™ funding opportunities that you can use right away to build student achievement and workforce readiness outcomes into your classes!
Preconference Sessions
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. (W2)
W201 Gathering of Elders
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Audience: all
Presented by NYLC
Community elders have shown extraordinary wisdom and originality as teachers and counselors of change. Their life lessons are contained in philosophies, oral histories, and ceremonies, handed from one generation to the next. Their symbolic connection to the past helps us remember who we are, why we serve, and what we must do to change the world. In this special gathering, elders speak from their traditions and life experiences about youth, change, service, and leadership. Young people are encouraged to ask questions of the elders.
W202 Designing Transformative Service-Learning Professional Development
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Audience: adult
Presenters: James and Pamela Toole, Compass Institute, MN
Service-learning professional development is inherently deep work because it involves not only teaching new behaviors, but fostering new ways of thinking. We’ll create a day-long community of learners where trainers can collaboratively share innovative strategies and personal insights about service-learning professional development. We’ll also present fresh tools for how service-learning champions can facilitate and sustain professional development and quality practice in today’s turbulent environment.
W203 SWAG: Sharing Wisdom Amongst our Generation
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Audience: youth
Presenter: Julia Sewell, motivational speaker, performer, and trainer, NY
This engaging, interactive workshop teaches its participants how to gain the "SWAG" needed to create local, national and international change. Using mediums such as the arts, hip-hop and service-learning, students will learn how to identify the type of leader they are and then transfer this information with social change. Attend this workshop if you're interested in learning more about yourself as a leader, finding interesting ways to bring about social change and to put on your service-learning SWAG!
W204 Circle of Engagement Part 2 of 2
1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
Audience: youth ages 14+ and adults
Presented by youthrive, MN
Join part 2 of this invigorating session on building cross-generational partnerships that produce powerful community results! Developed by dynamic youth workers and the youth leaders of youthrive.
Must register for both sessions.
W206 Give Youth a Voice: How to Create Real Life Leadership Opportunities
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Audience: youth and adults
Presenters: Joan Liptrot, Executive Director Institute for Global Education and Service-Learning, Levittown, PA and Youth Action Council members from IGESL and Richland School District 2, Columbia, SC
All across the country, youth and adults have established or seek to organize youth-driven councils, boards, committees, or leadership teams designed to effective positive change. Such groups can be organized around policymaking, philanthropy, action, advocacy, advisement, or similar purposes. Effective youth councils are comprised of socially engaged young people who have awareness, skills and capacity to make positive contributions. They are resourceful, connected and experienced in navigating through varied settings and situations in order to get things done. Such skills and abilities, however, don’t happen in a vacuum. This high-energy youth-led session will provide practical information, advice, tools, and resources to guide young people as well as the adults that advise and support them, in establishing and improving youth councils.
*Participants are encouraged to attend in teams of youth and adults currently working together or interested in creating a youth council.
W207 The Gold Standard of Quality Practice: What the Research Shows, and How to Bring it to Your Program
1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.
Audience: adult
Presenters: RMC Research and Youth Service America, DC
With eight service-learning standards for quality practice to consider, are some more critical to producing positive outcomes than others? What really makes the difference?
Shelley Billig of RMC Research will guide participants through research findings, highlighting key features of the YSA Semester of Service™ program outcomes.
The core of this session will focus on how to replicate this high-impact program in your own school and community. YSA staff will provide training on elements essential to the success of Semester of Service™ programs. Interactive and small-group activities will engage participants in exploring and experiencing the Semester of Service™ framework.
This high-impact workshop promises to initiate a long-term coaching and training experience designed to help you bring the successful outcomes of a Semester of Service™ into your 2012-2013 school year.