Reach Out: Enhancing Education in the DR

Mid-Week Update

2010-01-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

I am posting an update on behalf of the group since I was the first to return to the U.S. Despite the chaos and devastation occurring in Haiti, the Reach Out program is going exceptionally well. We did not even realize that the earthquake had occurred until we had been contacted from home about our well being. When the group left me at the airport this morning, they were on their way to the Child Development Center in San Pedro to continue work begun the afternoon before. Both Monday and Tuesday went well in regards to working with the staff and children at the Child Development Centers. The students are doing an amazing job adapting in their new environment and interacting with the children. The staff from Nazarene Compassionate Ministries has been incredibly receptive and hospitable to us. I am confident that the students will continue to do an excellent job this week as their journey continues. Sincerely, Mary Burnett, Director of International Programs at Ship

Long-Awaited Operations Update

2009-12-03T19:49:00.001-08:00

So we can't believe there's only two weeks left in this semester... the time has flown by! Luckily we are all in good shape to present our curriculum plans to the class next week. Hopefully those who are going on the trip to the Dominican Republic will get a better insight to what they can do to help us present the curriculum to the teachers abroad.

We've been working diligently on our English and technology education curriculum plans for the past few weeks. To make the language learning more interesting, we divided up the curriculum into numerous units, such as weather, colors and numbers, home and family, classroom words, body parts, food, and common phrases. It has been fun coming up with creative ideas to teach the Dominican students English in comparison to the traditional ways we learned a second language. Hopefully our hands-on activities and self-correcting learning centers will be very useful as the students attempt to take on the English language. The materials we designed will also be easy on the teachers in the centers, so that they are not expected to lecture on grammatical points but rather have the students put these ideas into practice.

Building technology education has been rough, but the curriculum itself is moving along swiftly. The problem lies in finding compatible software in Spanish (such as computer games or typing programs), which the students can use to enhance their comptuter and typing skills. Right now we are looking into seeking some donations from local companies who may have similar software programs. Hopefully a solution to this problem will come around this week!
While we've only got a short while left to complete all of the aspects of the curriculum for the child development centers, we can't wait to finish and see the results of our hard work for the semester. It will be so rewarding when we finally visit the Dominican Republic, deliver our materials, and really see how our curriculum development will aid childrens' education abroad.

A Look to the Future

2009-12-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

As the semester is winding down, the PR group is looking toward promoting our final fundraising events and also the achievements of the project as a whole. So here is what we have coming up!

Our babysitting fundraising event is coming up on December 12th. To promote this event we are giving out fliers to faculty and students, utilizing campus mail for the most part to spread the word. We've also advertised for this event on our website's highlights page and through postings on campus. Click here for more information on this event.

We've had another article appear in the Public Opinion which is quickly spreading the word about our project and our achievements! The article was on the upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic and also results of Dominican Day and the Luhrs school box drive. If you'd like to read the full article, click here.

What we are most excited for is putting together a video about our project. Within the video will be pre-interviews of Honors students that are going on the trip to the Dominican Republic, faculty members associated with our project, and parents of students that will be going on the trip and that have contributed to our project. The video will also include footage from the actual trip to the Dominican Republic and how the students implemented the cirriculum for the children. We will then have interviews from the students after the trip has happened to see what they thought of the country and how the project was carried out while in the country.

Visit our website for updates as all these exciting events occur!

Muchas Gracias A Todos!!!

2009-11-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

Dominican Day was a success!!!

We would like to thank members of the Methods class who helped out at the Spanish language table. We would also like to thank Dr. Ricardo for doing a fantastic job teaching merengue. And thank you to Chartwells for providing the food for the evening.

From 3-4 in the afternoon elementary school students attended Dominican Day. The stations were more simplified compared to the evening part of Dominican Day. The kids made masks and learned some simple Spanish words. They also made cards in Spanish to be taken to the childrens centers in the Dominican Republic.

The second part of the evening ran from 7pm-9pm. Over 151 people attended the event. Guests spent time checking out each of the stations which ranged from Spanish language learning to information about the Dominican Republic and Reach Out. The mask-making station was a big hit with the students. The Dominican-inspired food was very popular as well.

Dr. Ricardo of the Spanish department kicked off the 8pm hour with merengue lessons. He broke down the steps to make it easier for everyone to learn. The upbeat music added to the dancing and soon the floor was filled with students.

Overall, Reach Out was extremely pleased with Dominican Day! It was a great night!

Photos of the night will be posted on our website www.ship.edu/honors/reachout so be sure to check them out!

Dominican Day is almost here!!

2009-11-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

It's almost here, Dominican Day (November 17th 7-9 PM CUB MPR)s is just around the corner! We have been making many preparations for the day and we as a class are very excited for the turnout we are expecting.

In terms of the PR team we have successfully created flyers and passed them out to the rest of the class and to other members of the campus community. We have also hung up both posters we made (one in the library on campus and one on the Great Wall in the CUB). Lastly, we are printing out a lot of brochures for Dominican Day, both to pass out at the event and also to have at our Hospitality table, which will be the first and last table that people will walk by as they enter and exit.
In the earlier part of the day (3-4PM) we have been able to invite the kids from Grace B. Luhrs Elementary school which we have partnered with to come and enjoy some of the festivities. They will be coming and making cards for the children in the Dominican Republic and they will be able to make crafts in the form of masks that are like the masks that Dominican people wear during Carnival. We are hoping this will be another way that we can connect the children here in Shippensburg Grace B. Luhrs school to the children in the Dominican Republic.

The evening will be our actual Dominican Day.
Here are some of the activities that we are going to be offering:
1) A Full Menu inspired by Dominican foods
2) Crafts in the forms of masks inspired by Dominican Carnival
3) Dominican inspired dancing taught by our own Dr. Ricardo of the Spanish Department
4) Spanish Lessons for beginners
5) A Photo Souvenir for everyone to remember the great time they had
6) Raffles of some great prizes

We will be offering this and more! Already, we are so excited for this event and we are anticipating much participation!
Make sure you come out and support SU Reach Out: Enhancing Education in the Dominican Republic!

Dominican Day
Date: November 17, 2009
Time: 7-9PM
Place: CUB MPR
Donation Accepted

A Great Day for Ship Sports and Project Fundraising

2009-11-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

Our ribbon and pom-pom fundraising events at the home football and volleyball games on Saturday, November 7th were a huge success! Between both games, we made approximately $200, which is great! Thank you to all that donated to our cause!

It would be unfair not to also thank the Ship football and volleyball teams for putting on such a fantastic show for the fans this weekend. Congratulations to the football team who beat California University of PA to clinch the 2009 PSAC championship, and to the volleyball team who swept West Chester to receive the number 3 seed in the upcoming PSAC tournament! Way to go Raiders!

Advertisment is Key!

2009-11-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

Advertising can make or break your project and the way that PR is moving, we are definitely in the direction of making our project. This week we worked on our many forms of advertising for our project. We have many forms of adverstiment that we plan to distribute.

Our most upcoming event for our project is Dominican Day on November 17th 7- 9PM in the CUB MPR. At Dominican day we are planning to allow people to come and experience Dominican culture. At Dominican Day we are planning to have dance lessons, food and mask-making all centered around Dominican culture. We have made a flyer and have started to hang them up around campus and other areas. Our flyer is one way that we are getting the word out about this event.

At Dominican Day we are planning to wear our T-shirts that we are getting made. We are getting shirts done by ABC Lettering and they will advertise our project and give the public a way to contact us and learn more about our project. On the front will be our logo and on the back will be a way to contact us and learn more about our project. We feel that this is a way to advertise our project in a different manner. Along with our Dominican Day event, we have also partnered with the Grace B. Luhrs Elementary School in Shippensburg. They are holding a school supplies drive. These supplies will be taken down to the Domincian Republic for the children there in the child development centers. At the school, we are giving out stickers to the children who participate in the drive and also to the children who come to Domincan Day. The stickers have our logo on them and are also a creative way to get out the word out about our project.

Lastly, we have taken advantage of the oppurtunities that our campus allows us for advertisement. We are making a poster to hang on the Great Wall in the CUB and we are making a poster to hang in the library. Both of these posters will advertise Dominican Day. These are both places that students frequent a lot of the time and it would be beneficial for us to advertise there. Posters have been started for both of these locations and will be hung for at least a week before Dominican Day.
This week has been all about advertising!

If you would like to request any forms of our advertisement please send us an email at: sureachout@gmail.com
Also, make sure you come and check out our table at the November 7th Football and Volleyball games. Come pick up some pompoms and donate to support our project. And don't forget to come to Dominican Day, November 17th 7-9PM CUB MPR!!

Finishing Touches

2009-10-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

The brochure has been finished! The final product turned out well. We used red and blue throughout the brochure to really bring in the Dominican flag colors. The brochure details our mission statement and who our class is. It also explains the child development centers that we will be working in. Our project is detailed as well along with some general facts about the Dominican Republic. Reach Out's contact information can also be found on the brochure. Brochures will be available at both athletic events and can be obtained by contacting Reach Out at sureachout@gmail.com.

The logo has also been made. It is simple yet still incorporates our project name and the school and Dominican Republic colors. We are going to have t-shirts made featuring our logo. This will be another way to help promote our project. Contact information will be put on the back of the t-shirts as well so people know where to find more information.

We will also be making stickers to be handed out at the school box drive at the Grace B. Luhrs Elementary School during the week of November 10-16. The stickers will have the Reach Out logo on it and will be handed out to the children.

Operations is rolling

2009-10-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

The operations team is making good progress on developing our curriculum and wanted to update you on some of the ideas that we are moving forward with.
The topics that we are covering so far (as discussed at our meeting yesterday) are: classroom materials and common phrases/commands, food and table settings, computer and technology information, standard and complementary colors, body parts, the weather and how it coincides with the seasons, and the months of the year/days of the week.
The three components that we are keeping in mind when making these units is that they must be self-teaching, self-correcting, and re-usable. This will allow the most students possible to learn at the same time, while also allowing the teachers to circulate and reach all of the students.
In order to incorporate making "education/learning attractive" to the students, we are creating and adapting a lot of games and activities to our specific activities. One common way that we are accomplishing this is create a flashcard review/memory game for each unit.
Activities in specific areas so far include: velcro flip books for vocabulary words and common terms, a grocery shopping list and restaurant menu games, matching words to a diagram of a computer, having students create and share large family trees, a labeled doll house reconstruction, color wheels for every center, large body cutouts that can be labeled, a Simon Says game with the body parts, each center will be provided a re-usable calandar, and a Bingo game with the weather and seasons.
We have also devised a rotating schedule for the 5 centers to follow in order to share all of the curricular materials that we are providing. Making 5 seperate copies of each unit would cummulate in us transporting over 50 binders of material alone to the Dominican Republic. In order to maximize our energy and information output, we decided to have the centers work on a rotating schedule and will be counting on our liasons in the DR to help in transporting materials between the centers.

2009-10-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Strategy Team here...

We are on a roll with figuring out some ideas for more fundraisers and Dominican Day! The class is going to host a babysitting event (pending proper approval) for faculty and staff of Shippensburg. We will be hosting it in the Spiritual Center on December 5. More details to come!

Our group has talked a lot about what it means to be a success. Is it the number of children we affect? Is the number of people attending Dominican Day? Is it the amount of curriculum we each have the opportunity to teach? We'll be coming up with more ideas in the coming weeks about our measures of success. Let us know what you think is the best measure of success!

The other main focus has been on Dominican Day. We are very excited!! Don't forget to tell your friends and professors!

Financing Reach Out

2009-10-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Finance team is made up of four accounting majors, and it is our duty to support the overall class mission of enhancing and supporting domestic and international educational programs through establishing local partnerships while emphasizing cultural understanding. More directly, the mission of the finance committee is to provide the necessary monetary support required by the created project, Reach Out: Enhancing Education in the Dominican Republic. The goals of the finance committee are:

· To utilize the individual knowledge and skills of each group member to research anticipated project costs and create a functional budget

· To develop a strategy to obtain the necessary funding

· To monitor actual spending against proposed budget

· To communicate with other committees about potential fundraising events

· To coordinate the travel arrangements to and from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

At the beginning of the class, we did a lot of research, set up a budget, and determined that costs for implementing the project are going to be approximately $10,000. In order to offset the costs for each student, we have applied for several grants and have held one fundraiser so far.

As stated previously in the Pompoms and Athletes post, we will have another pom-pom and ribbon fundraiser at the home football and volleyball games on November 7^th, so please come out and support Ship sports and learn more about our project!

Also, we are having benefit nights at Fuddruckers in Chambersburg on November 11^th and 12^thduring their hours of operation! A percentage of sales those days will be donated directly to Reach Out. If you would like to come out and support our cause at Fuddruckers on those days, please send us an email at sureachout@gmail.com requesting a flyer (a portion your sales won’t donated to Reach Out without a flyer).

If you would like to make a tax deductible donation to support our project, simply go to http://www.sufoundation.org/opportunities/funds, click on Honors Program Colloquium, and click Donate Online.

The Operations of Reach Out

2009-10-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

The operations team is make up of 5 education majors, and our objective is to create a sustainable curriculum for the child development centers in the DR based on their needs while creating partnerships locally.
At our last meeting, we decided on three areas of curriculum to focus on based on our feedback from Paquita. These areas are technology training, basic English education, and activities to make learning fun for students. Because the students have computers at the centers but little knowledge about how to use them, we will create referral manuals on basic internet skills and word processing for ages 7-10 and 11-15. In addition, we would like to obtain a Spanish typing program by donation to improve the students' typing skills.
For English education, we will be teaching basic words and phrases focusing on five broad areas: classroom objects, things at home, weather and seasons, technology words, and food. The centers are interested in materials that can be reused numerous times, so we would like to have information for the teachers as well as several activities (flashcards, games, etc.) for every topic.
We plan to make bilingual labels for classroom objects (clock, door, etc) and large dry erase calendars among other things.
We have utilized our partnership at Grace B. Luhrs Elementary School by organizing a school supplies drive called Gift of the Heart. The school PTO (Parent Teacher Organizaion) will purchase materials like pencils and notebooks that the students can then purchase at the school store and give as a donation to the children in the DR. PTO will sew bags to make individual kits for the students, which we will then pack in our luggage. The store will be open from November 10th until the 16th. We also invite students to come to Dominican Day on November 17th, as Strategy explained below. Everyone at the school is enthusiastic about the project and the partnership.

Pompoms and Athletes

2009-10-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

Our class table at Shippensburg's homecoming game was a little bit of a washout. The weather was less than ideal since it rained the whole day. There was not a large turnout as far as visitors to our table. Ribbons in the colors of the Dominican flag, similar in shape to the breast cancer ribbons, were available for a donation.

Fear not, though, because we will have a table set up at the November 7 football game. We will also be at the volleyball game on the same day. Both ribbons and pompoms will be available at these games. Members of the class will at the tables and can provide information about the project.

Also, both of these games are senior games so please come and support Shippensburg's senior athletes.

A brochure has been with information about the project. If you would like a brochure or more information please e-mail us at sureachout@gmail.com

The Strategy behind Dominican Day!

2009-10-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

The strategy team is made up of 4 Senior business majors. As members of the strategy team, our goal is to keep the project focus and provide structure. We are all excited about our project and look forward to seeing what we can accomplish!

At our last meeting we spent time discussing Dominican Day. Dominican Day will be an event for members of the Shippensburg University community, our partners, and students in the Luhrs Elementary School. For this event we hope to educate these audiences about the Dominican Republic and our project. We plan to provide many events to give insight into Dominican culture, while sharing the specifics of what we plan to do while in the D.R.

We began our meeting by discussing the portion of the activities that will be dedicated to the Luhrs Elementary School students. For the time slot from 3:00pm-4:00pm we will focus on these students. We have developed a list of stations in which the children will participate for 10 minutes each. An example of these includes creating flashcards which will have a word in Spanish on one side and the picture on the other. The kids will be able to learn the word in Spanish and also color the picture. Other stations may include Spanish lessons, Spanish games, mask making, writing cards with translations for children in the DR, checkers and chess, and an active activity which will soon be determined. We also reached out to Kady and Abby in the PR group about what this event will entail so that a flier can be developed to promote Dominican Day within the elementary school.

In regard to the main portion of Dominican Day, Jon has also been in contact with Dr. Moilanen about constructing the Dominican-themed posters that we will use for photo opportunities. We also refined the list of supplies and materials that we will need to budget for in order to make Dominican Day a success. Examples of the supplies that we will need include paper plates, glitter, yarn, glue, feathers, markers, crayons, construction paper, flashcard supplies, and additional materials that will support our provided activities.

We then discussed the activities and events that will make up Dominican Day for our partners and members of the Shippensburg community. These activities include mask making, Spanish lessons, Latin dancing, Dominican-themed food, tri-folds and a PowerPoint explaining our project along with important facts about the DR, an extra credit worksheet for Spanish classes, checkers, and a photo opportunity with a Dominican-themed background. We also discussed placing bins for donations at specific locations near the tri-folds that we create informing attendees about different topics and aspects of our project. Along the lines of getting food catered for the event, we are waiting to hear back from Chartwells, who we informed that there would be between 75 and 100 people attending the event. We hope that this is an underestimation, but do not feel that it is necessary to budget for more individuals because of the many additional activities we will be providing at the event.

We are excited to continue working on this and many other aspects of our project! The Strategy team is 100% optimistic and looking forward to all we can accomplish.

Public Relations Progress

2009-10-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

The PR group consists of 4 members. Our mission is to effectively communicate and market our project to our target audience, the campus and local community, using several different forms of media outlets while maintaining the utmost professionalism. We are always working toward the project's central mission: To enhance and support domestic and international educational programs through establishing local partnerships while emphasizing cultural understanding.

Our group has its own goals which we are striving to reach.
-To inform the campus and local community of our project
-To keep the campus and local community informed of progress -including development in our project, upcoming events, and accomplishments
-To measure and evaluate results

Our group has made quite a bit of progress in the short time since class has started. To help get the word out about our project we have created this blog, made a Facebook page, and are in the process of designing a website.

As a class we are hosting "Dominican Day" in November. It will be located in the Shippensburg University CUB MPR. We encourage everyone to attend. There will be Dominican dance lessons, food, and even Spanish lessons. Our group has begun designing a flyer about "Dominican Day" which will be distributed around campus as well as to our various partners.

News releases are also going to be sent to various media outlets about our project and any events we have. The PR group is also making a brochure to distribute to our partners and anyone else who is interested in our project and is looking for more information.

Shippensburg University's homecoming is October 17, 2009. Our group has come up with the idea to make pom poms. Who doesn't love a pom pom to cheer on their team? What makes these pom poms relevent to our project are the colors. Both the Dominican flag colors and Shippensburg University's colors are red, white and blue. Our class will have a table set up at the homecoming game where you can obtain a pom pom for a donation to our cause. Please come out and show your support for our project as well as for our school!

WE ARE. . .!!!!

2009-09-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

No, we are not Penn State.

We are the Shippensburg University Honors Program Colloquium. We are a class of 18 students who have the goal in mind to design, implement and sustain a project in the Dominican Republic. All in one semester.

The class consists of mostly seniors and two sophomores. The majority of the students are either Business or Education majors. There are also some English, History, and Public Relations majors, making us a very diverse group.

Now for our project.

When brainstorming about our service learning project we wanted to include an international component. That was key. So how did we narrow it down to the Domincan Republic out of all the countries in the world? One of our classmates, Annamarie, spent last semester studying in the DR. She has firsthand knowledge and experience which is a big help when discussing the culture.

The class is divided into four groups: Strategy, Operations, Fundraising and Public Relations. Each group meets at least once a week to discuss the necessary steps to take to have a successful project.

The class consensus was to create a project geared towards children. By contacting our professor, Dr. Klein's contact in the DR we were able to start immediate communication. As of now, our partner in the DR is the Nazerene Compassionate Ministries. As a class we wish to create a curriculum based on the needs of the children at these centers. This may not necessarily be a traditional curriculum. Some of the topics we have discussed are English language lessons, hygiene, and sports. The idea is for everyone in the class, and not just the education majors, to be able to participate in the teaching aspect of our project since members of out class will be going to the Dominican Republic in January.

Currently, as a class, we are working out more details with our contact in the DR so we can narrow down our curriculum and come up with some more specifics. Few things are set in stone so every week is crucial in order to make progress towards completing our goal.

*Fun fact: Shippensburg University and the Dominican Republic flag both incorporate the same colors: red, blue and white!!!