Service Project

Service Project by Matt and Molly

Beijing, USTB Spring 2007

Appropriate Student Level: University, possible Senior students if they have time

Service Project

This term we are requiring our sophomore Management Students to participate in a service project for part of their grade.

It’s not really an English lesson, but we justify making them do it by… well, there really is no good justification. It just seems like something they should do. It’s also a good transition from when they operated an imaginary business last term to putting into real life practice some of the ideas they’ve discussed. Given that many of our students have never had a job, internship or have volunteered, this also seems like a good way to make them demonstrate some leadership skills and initiative. It can also help their resumes and give them something to talk about at a job interview. This rationale seemed to work with them and, as a whole, many of our students are excited about this project.

We are trying to tie in some English into all this as well.

For example:

Week 1: Divide the class into two groups- one male, one female. Each group must select one person to be a project leader. After several minutes, have them finalize their decision and bring the project leaders to the front of the class. They must then choose one person at a time, alternating boy/girl, to be a member of their project group.

Have the groups discuss project ideas and how they can do them. They must select an idea by Week 3. Try to make sure that they will actually be responsible for organizing some event or activity. That way they are not just finding an already established activity and participating. The idea is to make them responsible for making something happen.

Also, try to do this in the 2^nd semester so that they can do their project sometime in May or June when it’s warm.

Week 2: Hand out sheets asking the following:

Project Leader Name
Description of Project
Member Name		Next Task	Date to be Completed	Supervisor’s Name
1
2
3 (etc…)

Discuss basic ideas and vocab regarding hierarchical management structure. Have the group make sure everyone is assigned a task and that supervisors are selected to help ensure specific tasks are completed.

Also notify them that next week, one person from each group will have to present their idea.

Week 3: Have one person from each group present at the beginning of class (but it cannot be the Project Leader). Presentation is very basic, just a few minutes so they can express their plan.

We’ll be monitoring students and grading them individually over the course of the term. We’ll have occasional classed dedicated to further speaking exercises involving their project. Just not sure what… we’re kind of winging it at the moment. We also intend on visiting the students when they do their projects to make sure they are actually volunteering. We have one group already doing one of many events they plan tomorrow.

This is also nice because we may be able to learn of new volunteer opportunities for VIA through our students as they seek out their own volunteer projects.

Of course, we’ve had to plan other lessons on top of these lessons for the service project b/c most of the in-class work does not take much time.