ucf college transition

College Transition Program at UCF:

College Transition Program at UCF Gabriela De Almeida gdealmeida08@knights.ucf.edu 04/10/11 EEX 4070

UCP :

United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Central Florida began with a simple goal: offering hope to kids. Reasoning for opening UCP is due to the few options outside of institutions for children with cerebral palsy. Today, UCP is the expert for children with special needs. UCP provides a comprehensive SET of services - S upport, E ducation and T herapy UCP has a wide variety of demographics and for more than 2,300 children up to age 21 across the six locations. UCP

Engagement Activities:

My project served to aid college students with social interaction with another colleague and providing tutoring services. As I applied to volunteer for the UCF college transition program I was assigned to work with two students Matthew and Adrian, once a week for an hour or two, depending on what they felt comfortable with. With Adrian I was able to help teach him essential information like his birth date, full name, address etc… With Matthew I was able to help him learn vocabulary words for his film class. Engagement Activities

Participant Demographics:

Matthew i s a 22 Caucasian male. I do not know what exceptionality he has. Adrian is a 18 year old African American male. I am not aware of his specific exceptionality. Two people were served in my service learning project. Participant Demographics

Service in Action:

I do not have a camera so I can not provide any pictures. Service in Action

Perceptions of Differences:

My initial thoughts on this project was fear that I would not be equipped to teach my students. In addition I thought it would be a difficult task. Post service learning taught me that you have to be understanding of your students and place you’re self in there shoes. An easy task for me can be a great challenge for others. I also learned that working with students with exceptionalities is hard but rewarding. Perceptions of Differences

Perceptions of Differences:

Working with two very different students I was able to gain many experiences that taught me a lot about teaching as a whole. With Adrian my most impacting experience was trying to teach him his address. This task was highly impacting because it taught me that his motivation to learn was so strong. At times I could tell he was frustrated but he never complained. Although this task was highly difficult he was able to learn majority of it. Perceptions of Differences

Perceptions of Differences:

With Matthew I felt like I was being tested some of the times. My most impacting experience with Matthew happened on our first visit. Matthew “forgot to bring his backpack”. He didn’t want to do any work. I felt like I had to communicate with him that this was not a joke so I decided to take him to the main library and find a book with film terminology and have him read over it. Since that day he never forgot his materials again. Perceptions of Differences

Connections to Your Course:

I completed this service learning project for EEX 4070. Through this project I better understand UDL(instruction that includes alternatives to make it accessible and appropriate for all students), methods of ongoing assessment(teaching procedures to test students over a long period of time ), and multiple means of engagement assessment(different ways to examine a student). Connections to Your Course

Connections to your course:

I was able to use each of those course topics through my service learning. As UDL I was able to highlight material, underline key terms, printouts etc… I used ongoing assessment to help Adrian remember want he had learned each week. I would test the concept learned the week before and add a new concept. I used multiple means of engagement by presenting the information in as many ways possible until I learned which way worked best for each student. Connections to your course

Civic Engagement:

I believe that being involved in service learning is very important. I think the purpose of volunteering is to help break the negative stigma society has on people with disabilities and expand people’s understanding. I think service learning is a great method of learning it allows students to have real experience through expermential learning. I think this experience did motivate me to get more involved. I want to work with students with all exceptionalities and learn more about them. I would definitely encourage service learning because students will gain valuable experience. Civic Engagement

Final Thoughts:

Overall I thought that working with the UCF College Transition program was a great way to learn more about students with exceptionalities. In addition to how to work with students with exceptionalities. Overall I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to work with my students. Final Thoughts