Summary Unable to travel out of province due to the global pandemic, students and teachers at DAIS developed a partnership with regional corporations in order to bring online learning opportunities to children in local communities.
SERVICE LEARNING
Finding an Opportunity for Service Learning in an Unusual Time By Justin Sheehan Dalian American International School
As the pandemic spread across the globe in early 2020, disrupting global trade, travel and healthcare, it also led to new and unprecedented challenges for educators, students and families. Skyrocketing cases led to school closures, shuttering learning institutions and pushing the bulk of education into online spaces. Although the online learning industry has been growing for some time, this sudden and massive test brought many of the limitations of digital schooling into stark relief. In those communities with access to plentiful digital resources, students missed the opportunity to socialize with peers and interact with teachers directly. International trips were cancelled and virtual explorations often paled in comparison.Vulnerable communities lost access to key student support services like school lunch programs and struggled to connect with students in homes with aging devices or limited access to the internet. In the fall semester of the 2020-21 school year, a group of DAIS student leaders were tasked with developing ideas for service-learning projects which would be attainable in this unique environment. In partnership with Dalian Mother Education Consulting Company (DMECC), a local social enterprise that facilitates volunteerism within the Dalian community, they began to research possibilities to develop a program. DMECC and DAIS engaged with local community organizations to identify local families who wished to connect their elementary-aged children to online learning possibilities, but were unable to access computers, educational services or, in some cases, an internet connection. Although the pandemic had precluded the possibility of DAIS students embarking on their traditional servicelearning trips, it also brought into focus the needs of communities in their own backyard. The timeliness of these needs created a sense of urgency in students, who set out to find a solution. Part of the answer came in the form of a local branch of Accenture, the multi-national logistics and business services giant.The regional office brings hundreds of small desktop computers out of service each year, and those systems are generally destroyed due to security concerns. Recognizing the potential for these systems to be used in connecting learners and educators, the company offered to perform special refurbishment on small batches of these decommissioned systems if the DAIS community could facilitate their delivery and setup. DMECC recruited a group of teachers interested in supporting the program and drafted a plan to recruit additional students.
34 EARCOS Triannual Journal
