One of the community service projects that the Dean of Students’ Office coordinates is teaching computer skills to high-school students in the outskirts of Ankara. In the past 5 years, close to 100 Bilkent students have taken part in the project; teaching more than 650 high-school students basic computer skills.
The project consists of teaching basic Windows application skills along with webpage design and computer-aided presentation techniques to high-school students. Although the aim is to help others less fortunate than ourselves, the project gives student volunteers the chance to learn classroom management, lesson preparation, and perhaps most interestingly, student assessment. Above all, volunteers get the satisfying feeling of sharing their skills with the community.
Nermin Fenmen (fenmen@bilkent.edu.tr), the project coordinator, will provide notes and weekly exercises to the volunteers. Transportation to and from the schools and a packed lunch will also be provided. So it only remains for you to be there, to share, and to feel what it is like to be a teacher.
A smaller scale project, teaching English language to third graders in an elementary school in Kayaş, has been added to the program this semester. This new project promises to be a lot of fun as well as a positive educational experience. The coordinator of the project is Elizabeth Wadden from BUPS (wadden@bups.bilkent.edu.tr) who, together with another colleague, coordinated the English program for Kaynaşlı last year.
For more information on either of these programs, contact the coordinators listed above. Please give your full name, department, telephone number and e-mail address, and indicate which of the two programs you wish to join. They will contact you with further details.
