Introduction to Service Learning Project
In small teams of students, you will complete a service learning-based project that manages some form of complexity that you identify at the New York City College of Technology (City Tech). While creating your project deliverables, you will model workplace cooperation, collaboration, and record keeping.
Your goal for this project is to respond to a need of the City Tech community, develop your abilities to meet that need, and knowledgeably explain the process and rhetorical choices that you made to achieve your project’s aims.
As a team, you will identify a problem or need of the City Tech community and propose a research-supported solution. The scale of the problem that you choose to study and propose a solution to is up to each team. In addition to proposing a solution, you will collect data, use library research tools, create supporting materials that support the argument of your proposal, and expand your skill set to complete this team-based, collaborative project. Throughout the project, think about how you can leverage the work you do on this for improving your skill set and job application materials.
Assignment Deliverables
Most of these deliverables are created collaboratively by the team as a whole except for the individual project narratives at the end of the project. I recommend using Google Drive for most of your drafting and planning of documents, but you will likely need to use other tools, software, and services to create the project deliverables. Due to the wide variety of solutions to this project, it is the responsibility of each team to invest the time and training necessary for those things that they do not know and leverage those things that they do know for solving problems. I will be here to support, assist, and mentor, but this project is meant to provide students with a self-motivated experience similar to collaborating on a team-based workplace project.
- Meeting Minutes: This will be an on-going Google Document that you create together. Add a page break, title the page with the date, the recorder’s name, and the team members present (always give first and last names for each team member). Your minutes should include what you discussed, what you did, any decisions made, and what you plan to at your next meeting.
- Pitch (Powerpoint presentation): This will be your first component to the project. Together, brainstorm different problems that need to be addressed around campus. Choose a problem that can be fixed or managed with an original idea envisioned by your group. It must be a solution that you can implement in the time available or a campaign promoting a solution that you would be unable to implement in the time available. Prepare a 5-minute presentation to deliver in front of the class that explains the problem and your proposed solution. Only one team member is required to speak, but all team members must join the presenter in front of the class. The deliverables for this component include a script or outline and your PowerPoint file. One team member can submit viewable links as a comment to the appropriate blog post.
- Proposal: Following the example of proposals we review in class, you will collaboratively create a proposal for your project. Identify the current situation and problem, detail your research into its past and present on campus and off (Are others dealing with a similar problem? If so, what did they do?), include background data obtained from interviews and questionnaires with potential users of your solution, your communication collateral (e.g., poster, website, brochure, video, podcast, instruction manual, etc.), your proposed timeline, your resources and personal experiences (why are you four-five the right team for the job), etc. A minimal proposal will be at least eight pages long, but it is very likely that your proposal will extend beyond that threshold.
Your research must include observations, interviews with students, faculty, and staff, research in the archives, college reports, and academic journals. The Ursula C. Schwerin Library Archives are a good place to begin (http://library.citytech.cuny.edu/services/archive/index.php). It should include images as part of your evidence of a problem and an illustration of your proposed solution (with proper parenthetical citation). For your research, include parenthetical citations and a concluding Works Cited list in MLA format. Remember, all projects need a strong foundation to build upon. If you create a great proposal with a good self-motivated schedule, you are more likely to keep on-track and create useful deliverables.
- Team Presentation: With the final deliverable completed, your team as a whole will give an approximately 20-minute presentation to the class detailing the major components of your project process: problem and research, proposed solution, draft deliverable, usability testing results, and final deliverable. This will be followed by a 5-minute q&a session. I will be looking for the other teams to ask probing and insightful questions. Your deliverables for this component will include a script for all parts and indicating who will be speaking at any given time and a supporting PowerPoint. Practice your presentation beforehand and record the practice presentation for submission. Come dressed in synced business attire on the day of your presentation.
- Project Blog Post: Each team will create a blog post that summarizes your team’s project in words (250-500 words) and pictures (at least two—one of your team and one relating to the focus of your proposal). In your blog post, you will link to a PDF document of your proposal, which includes appendices for your team’s meeting minutes, pitch script, pitch PowerPoint slides, final presentation script, final presentation PowerPoint slides, promotional deliverables, and promotional material memos. Before uploading your PDF to OpenLab, each team must make sure that its file size does not exceed 30 MB. It is the responsibility of each team to learn how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro or other PDF authoring software to assemble this final document.
