Welcome to the first installment of our Spring 2020 course blog! In previous years, we have maintained a blog to help keep our community partners informed about what is going on inside the classroom. I hope that the blog will provide both students and partners with a foundation for meaningful discussions about their work with children. Every few weeks, students will post essays about what they have been learning in class and will provide internet resources that might be useful for our community partners or the families with whom they work.
Let me begin by once again extending a formal thank you to all of our community partners for continuing to work so effectively with our students. This year we have 4 different community partners. Students in this year’s class are working with community partners in the Allentown schools (Jefferson Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Muhlenberg Elementary) and the Autism Resource Community Hub of Lehigh Valley (ARCH). Such a diverse variety of experiences greatly enriches our classroom discussions.
In the blog, students will write brief essays that highlight a specific issue or reading discussed in our class. In the first installment, Talia Hawkins has written a brief essay about the importance of empathy. In class, we read about the potential impact of having community-based experiences in higher education. Shannon Beachem wrote about some of the multiple factors that contribute to a child’s behavior, including the important of understanding the broader family and societal “systems”. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the complex interrelationships of multiple factors…one of the main objectives of our class. Both essays are located in the Student Essays section of the blog. Also, in the Internet Resources section, Levelle Arnold (Autism resources) and Ara Ludwig (help-seeking resources ) have provided a few internet resources that we hope you will find helpful. Please check them out!
