This document discusses the the success story of interdisciplinary partnership between the Department of Modern Languages and the School of Nursing at the University of Indianapolis

1. Cross-pollination Conference
Small Small Catch Monkey: The
Success Story of Laurelwood
Drs. Vakunta & Ferrell, Ms. Shoue

2. Small Small Catch Monkey?
o During the conceptual phase of this
presentation, we thought it would be
germane to come with a catchy title that
captured our motivations and path taken to
reach our objectives at Laurelwood.
o Hence, the title “small small catch monkey”!

3. Small Small Catch Monkey
This is a Cameroonian
proverb that underscores
the value of taking
measured steps to get to one’s goal.
In other words,
“Don’t flurry; patience gains the day.”
This is the approach Dr. Ferrell
and I adopted in order to achieve our
objectives at Laurelwood.

4. Languages Without Borders (LANG 300)
Languages without Borders
is a trilingual course designed
with the goal of enhancing the
second language acquisition
skills of the kids at Laurelwood.
UIndy students who are language
majors and minors teach the children
at Laurelwood three modern
languages, namely French,
German and Spanish.

5. Languages without Borders (cont’d)
LANG 300 is conceived as a community–based
Service project that seeks to instill life skills
In the youths at Laurelwood. UIndy Students
enrolled in the course go to Laurelwood
Monday-Thursday (4:30-6:30pm)to help
out with homework and reading skills
given that some of kids at Laurelwood
struggle with reading. UIndy students
enable them to gain reading skills at
age appropriate levels and acquire
proficiency in modern languages
(French, German and Spanish).

6. Lang 300 Learning Outcomes
o Lang 300 provides learners with multiple intelligences that enable
them to succeed in the global community; it instills a sense of self-
confidence in learners;
o Community networking—one of the main objectives of our
university is to transform the institution from a university-as-island
to a university-as-anchor by creating ample opportunities for
students and faculty to engage with the community. This course
fulfills this objective by providing students with the opportunity to
liaise with the community.
o Local-global experience—this course equips learners with
intercultural and inter-lingual competencies locally and globally.

7. Nuts & Bolts of Designing Lang 300
This course was designed in five (5) stages:
 Investigation
Instructors identified community
needs and began research.
During this process, generally
labeled “social analysis”, needs
assessment was done
by means of a survey, questionnaire
and interviews. Community partners were identified at this stage.

8. Nuts & Bolts of Designing 300 (cont’d)
 Preparation & Planning:
Instructors worked with
community partners to
outline various ways they
will meet the needs of the
community or contribute to
improving the situation.
Planning involved developing
a common vision for success,
deciding what will occur and
who will accomplish each task.

9. Nuts & Bolts of Designing Lang 300 (cont’d)
Action:
At this stage all role-players
implemented their plans to
meet the community needs
and contributed to the resolution
of identified problems. The action took
the form of direct service,
indirect service, advocacy, research
or a combination of all of these aspects.

10. Nuts & Bolts of Designing Lang 300 (cont’d)
 Reflection
At this stage, role-players
considered how the experience
knowledge, and skillsets they
had invested could be channeled
toward the resolution of problems.
They pondered what may work
and what may not work. This process
required both analytical and affective skills.

11. Nuts & Bolts of Designing Lang 300 (cont’d)
 Assessment
The purpose of evaluating
service-learning was to determine
whether the service-learning program,
project or approach met its goals,
that is, whether the measured
outcomes for a given set of
activities matched the intended
(pre-specified) outcomes.

12. NURN 421: Community Public Nursing
• 1 Nursing Research Fellow
• 25 RNBSN Students
• 6 Practicum Hours
• 6 Week Accelerated Course
• PBL Principles Applied in Course

13. Project-Based Learning (PBL)
• Students learn to think critically and actively;
• Integrate course information and practicum experience
while solving real-world problems;
• Utilize 21st Century skills; communication,
collaboration, critical thinking & creativity;
• Utilize the 6As (Authenticity, Academic Rigor, Adult
Connections, Applied Learning, Active Exploration, and
Assessment);
• Students engage with Community Partners.

14. Project-Based Learning (PBL)-Assessment
• Assessment comes from evidence of the 4 C’s;
communication, collaboration, critical thinking & creativity;
• Rubrics are given to students at beginning of project; helps
stimulate creative thought;
• Students are able to assess themselves at different
checkpoints during the project;
• Rubrics are used in the last phase of the project from peers;
• Levels of quality work are: Below Standard, Approaching
Standard, At Standard and Above Standard.

15. Health Literacy/Healthy People (HP)
2020
• Health (il)literacy increase in the United States;
• Health Promotion through education for children;
• HP 2020 Topics chosen after assessment; dental oral
hygiene, inactivity, diabetes, nutrition, safety & injury;
• Health Teaching through age appropriate literature
provided to take home.

16. The Laurelwood Project

17. Laurelwood Project
o The Indianapolis Housing Agency (IHA) is a federally-funded
government housing agency that provides low-income
families, seniors and families with disabilities access to
affordable housing in IHA communities or in private market
housing subsidized through the Housing Choice Voucher
(HCV) Program (Section 8).
o It is IHA’s hope that by helping these families afford safe,
quality housing, they will also encourage individual and family
self-sufficiency, promote fair housing and fight housing
discrimination.

18. Laurelwood Afterschool Program (cont’d)
o The Laurelwood Afterschool Program is a
community service project that seeks to instill
life-skills in the youth at Laurelwood.
o UIndy students go to Laurelwood Monday-
Thursday to help with homework and reading
skills because many children at Laurelwood
struggle with reading.

19. Laurelwood Afterschool Program (cont’d)
o UIndy students enable them to gain reading
skills at age appropriate levels.Second
language acquisition is a key component of
the project.
o UIndy students who are majors or minors in
German, French and Spanish teach the kids at
Laurelwood modern languages.

20. Laurelwood Afterschool Program (cont’d)
o In addition,UIndy students engage the
children in various capacity-building activities
such as civic responsibility and respect for the
law.
o They also engage the kids in health
improvement activities such as soccer, tennis,
ethno-music and dance.

21. Laurelwood Afterschool Program (cont’d)
UIndy professors
and students work
in tandem with
Laurelwood staff
to make the program
life-changing for the
children enrolled in
the Afterschool Program.

22. Laurelwood Afterschool Program
Every child enrolled in the Afterschool
program is required to participate in
one or more of the following enrichment activities:
• Arts and Crafts
• Sports and Group Games
• Ethno-music & Dance
• Character Development Activities
• Culture and Language Sessions
• Mentoring
• Girl Scouts
• Science Experiments
• Cooking Projects
• Art Reach (every Friday)

23. Typical Daily Schedule
4:30 p.m. 4:45 p.m. Snack Time and Stations (free time)
4:45 p.m. 5:30 p.m. Tutoring /Homework, Literacy/Math
Centers, and Language Sessions
(UIndy)
5:30 p.m. 6:00 p.m. Enrichment activities (varies based on
the day of week)
6:00 p.m. 6:30 pm Dinner and Clean Up

24. Interdepartmental Partnership in SL
o Collaborative endeavor between disparate disciplines
often seems elusive; the more so because frontiers
between academic specialties appear to be
unbridgeable.
o To surmount this seemingly insuperable obstacle
calls for extraordinary stretch of the imagination. Dr.
Peter Vakunta and Dr. Denise Ferrell achieved this
feat with their partnership in service learning this
semester at Laurelwood.

25. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)

26. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)

27. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)

28. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)
UIndy nursing students
provided healthcare lessons
to the children at
Laurelwood.
These lessons
ranged from
dental hygiene to
physical activities
and their impact on
childhood obesity.

29. Interdepartmental Partnerships (cont’d)
Nursing students
discussing dental
hygiene with
children at Laurelwood.

30. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)
Physical activity
demo by a nursing
student at Laurelwood.

31. Interdepartmental Partnership (cont’d)
As you can see from this
presentation, this semester students
from the School of Nursing at
UIndy successfully partnered
with Language students from
the Department of Modern Languages
to serve the Laurelwood community.
This is a viable collaborative success story
that creates a nexus between the
Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences
and the School of Nursing.

32. Concluding Remarks
 Denise and I have learned a number of vital lessons from co-teaching this
course:
o Interdisciplinary service learning partnerships are feasible irrespective of
discipline;
o Instructors should start off by looking for common grounds between their
disciplines;
o They must then conceptualize the impact the SL course will have on the
community and their students; without losing sight of disciplinary
specificities and potential bottlenecks that need to be surmounted;
o Instructors should identify reliable community partners and establish a
Memorandum of Understanding;
o Finally, instructors must then formulate a project and begin.

33. Portrait of Drs. Vakunta & Ferrell, Ms.
Shoue

34. Q & A