These institutes are open only to active Campus Compact members and are a benefit of Campus Compact membership. If you have a question about your member status, please contact Natalie at nfurlett@compact.org.

Upon completion of the series, participants will:

• Develop and apply community-engaged teaching competencies, including integrating community-rooted learning experiences, collaborating with community partners, crafting engagement-specific outcomes, designing and facilitating reflective activities and assignments, and assessing learning and community impact
• Locate your community-engaged work within the broader context of higher education, your discipline, and your community
• Design and implement a high-quality community-engaged course grounded in a critical perspective
• Build a community of support with colleagues across institutions and disciplines

Session 1: Community-Engaged Course Design Foundation and Frameworks

Participants will learn how to integrate their disciplinary expertise and curricular content with community-engaged pedagogical elements using the OPERA framework (objectives, partnerships, engagement, reflection, and assessment) to create a coherent and impactful course experience for students. They will apply dimensions of CEL course design including purpose, process, and relationships, and consider various foci, forms, and frameworks that are best suited to their vision for their community-engaged course. The session will also introduce  theoretical frameworks for teaching and learning that are foundational to community engagement, and provide an overview of the origins and current context of community engagement in higher education to allow faculty to situate their practice and understandings within a broader scholarly context.

Outcomes/takeaways:

• Use the OPERA framework to plan your community-engaged course structure and content

• Consider integral components (e.g. purpose, process, relationship, and forms) that will inform your course design

• Locate your community-engaged course within a broader historical and contemporary context of higher educations’ public purpose

Session 2: Partnering with Community Co-Educators

Participants will develop an understanding of the roles of community partners in community-engaged courses, including their capacity to act as co-educators of students. Together, the group will explore the meaning of the term, “community,” and interrogate assumptions about how it is defined, who is included/excluded, and the university’s legacy and relationship with community. Faculty will access practical tools and strategies for researching and contacting organizations to explore partnerships, and discuss practices for addressing power dynamics, diverse expectations, and fluctuating capacities in sustaining partnerships. Attention will be given to how to foster student relationships of accountability and respect with community partners, and how to negotiate meaningful community-rooted activities that are also aligned with community priorities and needs.

Outcomes/Takeaways:

• Define and apply concepts of “partnership” and “reciprocity” in the context of your course
• Identify practical strategies for cultivating and maintaining partnerships that ensure mutual benefits for students and community partners
• Critically explore the tension between student and community expectations and outcomes, and make a plan for mitigating potential issues

Session 3: Student Engagement, Preparation, and Reflection

Participants will discover and share various frameworks and tools for designing and facilitating student reflection. We will define reflection in the context of community-engaged learning and focus on its dual purposes of processing and documenting student learning. Additionally, participants will consider how to prepare students for community-engaged learning, laying the groundwork for meaningful and respectful engagement, by setting clear expectations, responsibilities, and dispositions. The workshop’s focus will be on adapting resources to participants’ specific courses and disciplines.

Outcomes/Takeaways:

• Describe the purpose and distinct features of critical reflection in the context of your community-engaged course
• Plan when and how you will facilitate reflective discussions, activities, and (graded) assignments throughout your course
• Identify appropriate reflection models, techniques, and tools to integrate into your course

Session 4: Assessing Learning and Partnerships

Participants will learn how reflection, assessment, and evaluation intersect in community-engaged courses. This session will guide the group to consider how to measure cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional learning outcomes, along with community-identified outcomes from the engagement activities. Participants will explore tools, frameworks, and resources that they can adapt to their courses.

Outcomes/Takeaways:

• Understand how reflection, assessment, and evaluation are both distinct and overlapping in community-engaged courses
• Plan how you will assess student learning specific to your community-engaged course
• Plan for how to assess community partner-identified outcomes
• Become familiar with assessment and evaluation frameworks that can be adapted to your course

Session 5: Taking a Critical Approach to Community-Engaged Teaching
Participants will learn the characteristics of various critical models for community-engaged learning, including decolonizing, critical, and liberatory service-learning, and activist and social justice pedagogies. We will explore diverse historical origins of community-engaged learning within and outside of the academy, and draw on critical frameworks to reframe community-engaged courses to directly address issues of equity and justice.
 
Outcomes/Takeaways:

• Understand how scholars have integrated critical frameworks, perspectives, and principles into their community-engaged teaching and learning
• Identify and interrogate limitations, contradictions, and tensions inherent in your course and context
• Consider how identity, positionality, power, privilege, and oppression shape your course and experience

Questions? Get in touch with Nicole Springer at nspringer@compact.org.