This year, I was really glad to be able to engage in community service as I could really understand what the term “helper’s high” meant. I participated in the ‘Fun with Maths’ activity where I was able to conduct various different acitivites increaseing their engagment and interacitivity allowing skill development and cognitive enhacement through the course of 3 weekends and 6 sessions, being able to successfully connect and interact with the students there. By talking to these children and understanding their stories and experiences while also having fun with interesting activities including ICT, familiar games with a twist of Math and with a little dance and music as well, I was able to achieve a sense of gratification and connection where I was sucessfully able to engage with these children and have fun with them simentaneously connecting with them easily.

LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Through this service I was able to understand my strengths and weaknesses to a large extent. I could deeply connect with these students leanring their names, their strength in maths and socialising with their classmates. Whoever felt difficulty to interact within the class or the different activities, I was able indivdually assist them and ensure that everyone had fun in the class without feeling left out or bored. Through this I was able to understand how I was sucessfully able to lead the class, socialise and communicate with these students at a personal level rather than a monotonous class. I was then able to conduct acitivites including different sports, dance and music as well by the end in different venues bringing a twist to the class at eveyr session. The children were quite excited and engaged with enthusiasm with allowed me to feel gratefula dn fuliflled for the effort that I put in for the different activites. I was able to come up with interesting ideas as acitivites including various differnt hands on acitivites, familiar games with a twist of maths and bringing technology in as well which turned out to be quite engaging within the students as they seemed to have fun and interact within the class with excitment. Through this I could identify that I was able to take inititive and conduct creative acitivities to develop motor skills, social skills, critical thinking, problem solving, etc within the students as well.

However, I could even identify weaknesses at certain points where I wasn’t able to fully engage the students. I could understand that the students required a constant engagment and would get bored of the same acitivity that planned at the time. Even though they could enjoy the activities at the moment, keeping them engaged throughout was quite difficult as they would get distracted really easily and some might not abide to the instrucutions which was also difficult to handle. This allowed me to come up with different filler games that could keep them engaged and give conseqeunces to the ones that weren’t obidient to the instructions which allowed me to improve my skills as an educator and develop my social skills as well in different situations.

LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

Personally, I have already thought myself as someone who isn’t able to manage my time or proacitivley achieve everything that I aim to do. I seem to lack self managment skills whihc would make it difficult plan different tasks and achieve goals that I usually aim to achieve. In this situations as well, there were several situations where I aimed to create more creative acitivites such as a treasure hunt yet wasn’t able to achieve due my lack of productivity and dedication towards the same, which lead me discarding that as an activity. This is one of my weaknesses that I need to work upon that was also evidently noticed here.

Through this experience though, I was able to conduct different acitivites such as ICT(where I was able to get 40 chromebooks for the studnets), then hands on acitivity with variosu different resources(where I was able to get differen resources for each activity and relate that with Math). These instances show how I was able to proactively manage my time and resources to achieve what I had planned to do which shows how this experience did help plan and initiate the different activities at a time yet still faced difficulties doing so. This could be worked upon by improving my self managment skills further as well as my organisation skills so it can help me achieve my long and short term goals easily rather than discarding them as well.

LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

This experience was 3 weekends long with the planning and initiation required for 6 sessions which clearly shows that it required commitment and perseverance from my side. Usually it is difficult for me to stick to my tasks for a long period of time where I can begin a task, however evetually derail in my productivity and commitment towards the same which was even applicable to this experience. Initially I was able to achieve various different goals that I had planned for this experience and was successfully able to achieve those tasks by collecting resources and planning exact tasks. However, after the 203 sessions, I coudl see how the productivity and planning of the tasks had derialed. I was able to engage the students in different games at the moment, yet still lacked productivty and creativity as the initial activities did.

Through this experience, I still learned how to stay consistent over certian tasks as I was able to come up with ideas for 6 sessions and keep the students engaged which did develop my momentum over the task yet still could further improve my commitment to a specific task where I can keep my productivity constant throughout without eventually losing motivation to complete the task.

LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

The lack of proficient and engaging education is a significant global issue. Children with the lack of financial stability aren’t able to achieve quailty education in governmental school which fully allows them to understand the world in a new perspective and share their own insghts with various differnet skills and cognitive abilites developed. Through this experience, I was able to identify how these children lacked engagment in their daily routine of learning where they only practiced rote memorisation to study which shouldn’t be the conventional manner of studying.

Here, the primary aim for me was to make maths – FUN! This basically allowed me to tackle the global issue of lack of quailty education to a certain extent as I was able to engage these students with different acitivites which focused on different cognitive abilites and physical engagment allowing them to interact with maths rather than copy-pasting the information from a black board. Not only was I able to provide them an oppourutnity learn with full interaction, but myslef was abel to interact with them in such a manner that even I was able to learn about their daily routines and games and integrate maths in those as well. This allowed my learn about the different ways of learning and engaging with different people and social situations while developing the world in a positive manner. This experience allowed me ot understand about the global issue of quality education and how every individual deserves an education which challenges them in every manner allowing them to come out of their comfrt and express themselves fully rather than the conventional manners of studying.

LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

In terms of ethics of choices and actions, the service includes different actions where the ethical consideration of ensuring all children, regardless of their learning levels or abilities, can participate and benefit from the activity. Acting as an educator, the social ethicalites need to be considered as it was my responsibility to engage all the students in the activities and my it worthwhile for them rather than taking the experience lightly. These students engagmnet and time was in my hadns which made it my responsbility to engage every student however possible and allow this experience to be a learning oppouruntunity for all. Some students might struggle more than others, requiring additional support or alternative methods to engage them. This required me to adapt teaching methods to ensure no one feels excluded or left behind.

Furthermore, it was also my responsiblity to respecting the personal boundaries of the students and ensuring their participation is voluntary, avoiding putting undue pressure on any child to perform or participate in activities they are uncomfortable with which will encourage a safe and trusting atmosphere where the students would feel valued.

These considerations could impacted me directly by shaping how I design and deliver the activities. It was my responsibility to conduct the experience meaningfully and engaging the students in these activities balancing inclusivity, respect, and meaningful engagement requiring awareness, adaptability, and creativity from my end. This allowed me to understand how to manage different social situations where I am leading the group creating a sense of unerstnading towards my role and responsibility.

Conclusion

Overall, in this experience I was sucessuflly able to help teh community by engaing in differnet acitivites increaseing interaction and engagment with math. This allows learning in an interactive manner within the students which allows them to build vairosu different skills and cognitive abilites which also allows them to increase their social skills and further have quality education which help them build as an individual as well.

This experience help me abuild a sense of gratification and fulfillment as I was able to interact with children who could beahved in such excitment and energy which made me grateful for my effort and how I am able to impact them as individuals as well. I was able to grow as a person here where I could identify my strengths and weaknesses in planning and initiating the acitivities. I could realise my responsibility and how I need to engage the students in a positive manner no matter the response. I was able to communicate effectively, critically think about various situations, care about the students and be pricipled about my actions towards the students. This experience brought such a sense of fulfillment which allowed me to open up and understand how global issues are highlighted in this world and how I can play a role to improve it as well. I even build several skills which could further allow me to act productivitly in my tasks as well in the future.