Cierra Woods completed a service learning experience working as a teacher's assistant at a YMCA summer camp for children with special needs. She helped accommodate 12 campers ages 5-12 who had conditions like autism. Her duties included explaining activities, making song lyric sheets, and discussing character traits. She felt this experience improved her understanding of concepts from her EEX 4070 course like IEPs, response to intervention, and assistive technology. Woods believes civic engagement helps create a more accepting society and that service learning is the best way to prepare as a teacher.

1. Teachers
in action
Cierra woods
cierrawoods@knights.ucf.edu
July 15th
, 2016
EEX 4070

2. Welcome to the ymca!

3. Engagement Activities
• Providing one-on-one attention to
YMCA campers with special needs
• Helped perform accommodations
needed for these campers to
participate in everyday camp
activities including:
– Taking extended time to explain
games and give examples/visuals
– Making printouts with song lyrics for
children to take home and practice
(if they wanted to) so they could
sing with their group the next day as
well as give them time to look over
other activities (most at parents
request) for the week as well
– **Work on character traits by
brainstorming what it means to
them and what they could do to
earn a bracelet

4. Character trait bracelets
• Caring
• Perseverance
• Citizenship
• Cooperation
• Honesty
• Leadership
• Responsibility

5. Participant Demographics
• Out of the approximately (changes every week)
150 children at camp, 12 have special needs.
• These children are of all ethnic backgrounds and
their ages range from 5-12 years old.
• I mostly worked with the 5 and 6 year olds who
were autistic.
• Sec. 300.8(c)(1)(i)
– (i) Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting
verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction,
generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child's
educational performance. Other characteristics often associated
with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and
stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or
change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory
experiences.

6. Service in Action

7. Perceptions of Differences
• I find their mind and how they
think about things interesting and
intriguing.
• I was nervous about this project
however I was more excited to
learn about how capable I was to
help them.
• I am so happy to participate in this
project especially since my
internship this fall will be at UCP,
an inclusion school.
• I think the bracelets made the
most impact on the children.

9. Connections to Your Course
• EEX 4070 Teaching Students with Special Needs
1. IEP – some of the children in the camp actually brought their IEP’s (Individualized Education Plan)
for us to look at to get a better idea of how to accommodate these children during activities that
include cooperation or working with others or for the curriculum part of the camp (learning
information about other countries and cultures). This gave me a better understanding of how to
use an IEP to help children with special needs and how beneficial it can be for them.
2. RtI – Response to Intervention is all about giving students interventions before they need special
education services. At camp, we tried to be as proactive as possible instead of reactive. Whether it
was to prevent injuries in a game or giving the children song lyrics so they could sing with their
group, we made every effort to make their experience at camp a good one before they even had a
bad experience or struggled.
3. Assistive Technology – the one thing I believe is missing from camp is assistive we technology, not
because we don’t want to give it but because the budget just doesn't’t allow us this luxury. For
example, we have one child with autism who has trouble speaking and it would be great if he had
some sort of keyboard to help him speak to us. We have a make-shift one out of paper but if he
had a real, advanced one I believe he would communicate with us better and a lot more than he
does now.
• I better understand course content know because I had a chance to apply my knowledge and
techniques that I have learned in this course and observe the changes it makes in a child with
special needs while still learning.
• This experience will shape how I approach working with students with special needs because of
how much I learned with interacting with them.

10. Civic Engagement
• I believe everyone, especially teachers, should be as involved as possible to
make a better, more understanding, more accepting community.
• I think civic engagement makes society better. We can always improve
ourselves and therefore the world we live in however, it would be much
easier if everyone participated and got involved.
• I think service-learning is the best way to learn. There is nothing like hands
on experience to prepare me as a future teacher.
• I feel as if this experience not only motivated me to get involved, but
pushed me to try to get other motivated as well.
• I would definitely encourage other teachers or students to participate in
this service learning experience because you not only learn about persons
with disabilities and all of their amazing qualities but you learn a lot about
yourself and your techniques as a teacher.

11. Final Thoughts &
Reflections
• Working towards a greater understanding, empathy, and
opportunities for persons with disabilities, I believe, just takes
consideration. Before you say something, before you do something,
before you ask a questions, you should think about how it will make
them feel and what they are going through.
• Teachers should lead by examples. Teachers should be a role model
for students as well as their parents on how to have compassion for
everyone, including persons with disabilities. Teachers should truly be
a paramount to the “greater good” of society. When becoming a
teacher, you choose a lifestyle. A lifestyle where you shape young
persons minds and hopefully better the adult minds.