Jordan Kiesewettrer

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Service Learning Project Reflection

Service learning is a method of teaching that incorporates community service

with learning objectives. Students usually serve under a non-profit organization or

agency. The service involved in the service learning is geared toward meeting a specific

need in the community. Here, the students are benefited as they may be fulfilling a

certain curricular requirement in their school. They may also be benefitting from the

service learning in that they are learning more about the world around them (in the

context of local community), and how to meet the needs of those close to them. The

community is benefitted in that they are having particular needs met.

For the service learning project that I conducted, high school students at Beaver

Area High School were tasked with creating videos for the students at Dutch Ridge

Elementary and College Square Elementary. These videos served as miniature

instrumental, vocal, and compositional lessons for the younger students. This project

was undertaken as an initiative during Music in Our Schools Month (March). Music in

Our Schools Month is an initiative led by the National Association for Music Education to

advocate for the inclusion of music as a fundamental part of every school’s curriculum.

This year’s goal for Music in Our School’s Month was to reach fourth graders

specifically with an emphasis on instrumental lessons. These lessons were taught with

the goal of incorporating well-known children’s songs as a method for teaching the

objectives.
 This project was led by members of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. Tri-M is an

organization that seeks to develop student musicians through performance and

community service. The students of Tri-M at BAHS participated in NAfME’s MIOSM

through their service in creating lessons for students in their district’s elementary

schools. I had the students write reflections for their lessons, and one of the ways in

which they benefited from this project was that they were able to reflect on the

importance of music in their own lives through helping young musicians. They were also

given the opportunity to hone their music skills and knowledge by being put in the

position of having to teach. The elementary students benefited in having a supplement

to their daily lessons. The Tri-M students served as young models for the elementary

students and showed their younger constituents that their musical goals are achievable.

Through this project, I was able to see the ways in which music is essential to the

education of my students. It was eye-opening to see the importance of strong musical

influences to the development of young musicians. The presence of a musical model for

students is edifying in that it gives the students a practical example or a mark to obtain. I

learned about an organization led by students dedicated to the development of young

musicians, and I feel that this is a valuable resource that should be implemented in

many music departments. I would say that one way in which this project could be

improved is by having a more hands-on approach. That was difficult to do under the

circumstances of the pandemic, as the students were restricted to creating videos

instead of meeting with the students to implement the lessons. One of the ways in which

this project was strong was that it had participation from a good amount of Tri-M

members, so a lot of elementary students were served. One of the weaknesses of this
project was that only a few of the Tri-M students chose to reflect on their experiences

participating in the project.