College of Education and Human Development/College of Engineering

Using cross-college collaboration to bring service learning to students

By Jo Ann Jones

ME4773 student Brian Martinez helping middle-schoolers in Woodlawn Academy Robotics Club to diagram the movements of the robot.
Photos courtesy of the Academy for Teacher Excellence.

The College of Education and Human Development's Academy for Teacher Excellence (ATE) and the Center for Civic Engagement partnered up with the College of Engineering (COE) this past year to bring service learning opportunities to UTSA students in a whole new way.

Through a Title V for Hispanic Serving Institutions grant from the U.S. Department of Education awarded to ATE and a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant awarded to COE, 34 students in Dr. Pranav Bhounsule's Fundamentals of Robotics course were able to complete their 10-week required service project at one of ATE's after school robotics clubs last fall.

Once a week, engineering students visited San Antonio schools to mentor 227 elementary and middle school students. UTSA students taught children at these schools how to work with LEGO robotic kits and helped them develop problem-solving and STEM skills for future careers. Through the NSF grant, Bhounsule was able to provide a stipend to support students' travel costs to and from these schools.

"I teach using LEGO robotics kits, so that my students are able to use their classroom skills to mentor young kids in the community," said Bhounsule, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. "The close interaction with young children allowed the students to enrich their learning experience, while instilling a sense of civic responsibility. That's exactly what service learning is about."

All of the schools served by ATE's after school clubs are in underserved areas around San Antonio.

"This partnership was also about making our UTSA students role models to these children and create a college-going culture at these schools," said Deborah Chaney, ATE education specialist. "Our UTSA students talked about the importance of a college-going culture and how exciting it is to be an engineering or STEM student."

A young student at Regency Place Elementary works with UTSA mentor Benneth Perez during a robotics club meeting.
Photos courtesy of the Academy for Teacher Excellence.

Since its inception, ATE has been working across local school districts to strengthen their university-school-community relationships and collaborative efforts. As a result, ATE has been able to provide field experiences and service learning opportunities to teacher candidates and other undergraduate students through its informal learning clubs.

"Reciprocal collaborative efforts across departments and colleges at UTSA, like the one we have created with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, are imperative for us to better serve our English learners, Latino, and other culturally and linguistically diverse learner populations," said Dr. Lorena Claeys, executive director and research associate for ATE.

For the past two years, ATE has worked with Bhounsule's robotics students to provide volunteer opportunities through their after school club. The thirty plus club fall 2016 cohort was the largest group of student mentors ATE has had. This was due, in large part, to the course's service learning designation from the Center for Civic Engagement, the first designation of its kind for the college.

"For me, the excitement is about the mentorship that is happening," said Brian Halderman, former director of the Center for Civic Engagement. "It is important for those young students to see college-aged students who are excited about what they are doing at UTSA and passionate about what they are studying and to share their knowledge and skills with those students."