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Community Engaged Teaching Modules
CESI has six online modules:
- Theories
- Logistics
- Partnerships
- Student Capacity
- Learning Outcomes
- Reflection
CESI was established in 2012 with a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
Questions? Please contact:
Camille Martinez, Office for Faculty Development, at Camille.Martinez@umb.edu.
Theories
Theoretical Framework
Definitions
- Under the Umbrella of Civic Engagement: Conceptualizing Key Terms
- Activity worksheet to generate your own interpretations for the meanings of several commonly used terms
Toolbox
- Resources
- Currents in Teaching and Learning: This peer-reviewed electronic journal fosters exchanges among reflective teacher-scholars across the disciplines with the goal of improving teaching and learning in higher education through short reports on classroom practices and longer research or conceptual articles. This is a great resource to explore topics in greater depth and to support your own reflective practice as you embark on the process of designing a civic-engaged course.
- Civic Prompts: This resource provides a series of prompts to support faculty and departments with effectively embedding civic learning into courses and programs.
- Readings
- Changing Pedagogies (2015): John Saltmarsh develops a thorough understanding of engaged pedagogies and the implications of changed pedagogies for students, community partners, faculty and the overall institution.
- Crucible Moment (2012): Commissioned by the Department of Education and released at a White House convening in January 2012, this report from the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement calls on the nation to reclaim higher education’s civic mission.
- The Centrality of Engagement (2012): This article discusses the changing pressures on higher education and positions community engagement as a critical component within all aspects of today’s university.
Logistics
Logistical Considerations
Risk Management
Toolbox
- Resources:
- Collaborative Planning Guide for Engaged Scholarship: Part III: This is a practical resource that poses logistical questions to grapple with and suggestions for effectively designing your syllabus, from the University of California’s Faculty Toolkit.
- A Resource Guide for Managing Risk in Service Learning: From the California State University’s Center for Community Engagement, this comprehensive resource includes templates for partner site visits, partner agreements, student orientation checklists, and student learning plans.
- Syllabus Example: Pediatric Exercise: Sarah Camhi is a faculty member in the Department of Exercise and Health Sciences. The syllabus she created for this service learning course clearly articulates the community component of the course in several sections including in the course objectives, teaching strategies, grading, and in the course schedule.
Partnerships
Partnerships as a Process
Toolbox
- Resources
- Partnerships Best Practices Table: This chart illustrates best practices of partnerships and summarizes the purposes and characteristics of each.
- Community Partner Motivations and Barriers: This is an excellent visual that presents common motivations and barriers that community partners experience when collaborating with university courses, from the article Making Service-Learning Partnerships Work.
- Collaborative Planning Guide for Engaged Scholarship: Part I & II: This is a practical resource that breaks down various steps for consideration when initiating and developing partnerships, from the University of California’s Faculty Toolkit.
- Readings
- Community Voices: A California Campus Compact Study on Partnerships, Final Report: This 2007 study engaged long-term community partners of higher education institutions in California in focus group conversations in order to leverage their perspectives and recommendations to strengthen university-community partnerships.
- Creating and Sustaining Authentic Partnerships with Community in a Systemic Model: Michigan State University’s approach to community partnerships is outlined in this article, including the developmental, dynamic, and systemic framework through which the voices of community partners can be heard.
Student Capacity
Student Leadership Theory
Student Leadership in Practice
Toolbox
- Resources
- Leadership for a Better World: Understanding the Social Change Model of Leadership Development, Instructor’s Manual: This comprehensive guide supports teachers with applying the Social Change Model of leadership within their classes and programs. Activities and case studies are offered.
- The Social Change Model of Leadership Development: An outline of the model’s components with definitions of the “7 C’s” or critical values.
- A Social Change Model of Leadership Development, Guidebook Version III: Developed by the Higher Education Research Institution (HERI) at UCLA, this guidebook includes a set of helpful case studies and frequently asked questions associated with applying the model.
- Readings
- Student Development and Service-Learning: A Three-Phased Model for Course Design (2014): This article offers a unique approach to effectively designing engaged curriculum by focusing on how student development theory can inform individual courses or sequential curricula and the potential impact of this approach. The handouts on pages 15 and 16 are particularly useful visual references.
- Social Change Model of Leadership: A Brief Overview: Wendy Wagner explains the main purposes, values, and assumptions present with the Social Change Model of leadership.
- Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success: Selected Findings from Online Surveys of Employers and College Students (2015): Hart Research Associates conducted this study for the Association of American Colleges & Universities. Findings emphasize the important skills and knowledge that students gain from applied learning experiences in real-world settings. This is a great quick read that links career readiness and civic learning outcomes.
- Student Leadership Development (2nd Edition, 2011): Developed by the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs, this resources offers theories and research in leadership education and learning, and lays a groundwork for program design and delivery. Chapter 11 on “Curricular Programs” and Chapter 13 on “Powerful Pedagogies” are specifically recommended for CESI participants.
- From Command to Community: A new approach to leadership education in colleges and universities (2011): This book offers in-depth insights and recommendations for approaching leadership education in the context of the twenty-first century. Specifically, it emphasizes the roles of civic engagement, young people, and higher education and the emerging values of transparency, authenticity, collaboration, action, and interactivity.
Learning Outcomes
Strategies
The GOSA Worksheet
- GOSA Worksheet Template: The CESI team created this worksheet based on the term GOSA which represents the process of aligning goals, outcomes, strategies, and assessment. It is intended to be a flexible and we encourage you to adapt it as you work through the presentations in the Outcomes Module. Through the multi-tab worksheet, the template provides structure for you to develop academic and civic learning outcomes, brainstorm strategies and forms of assessment, and then map out your assignments and strategies so that you can visually see how you are meeting your learning outcomes.
- GOSA Worksheet Example: Based on Dr. Lila Staples’s 2006 syllabus at California State University, Monterey Bay, this is an adapted example originally sourced from pages 140-143 in Developing Outcomes-based Assessment for Learner-centered Education by Amy Driscoll and Swarup Wood. The CESI team also retained an original copy of Dr. Staple’s syllabus.
Toolbox
- Resources
- Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning: This is a key resource that is widely used. The workbook is particularly useful for establishing learning outcomes. Check out the matrix of civic learning objectives on page 44.
- Bloom Overview: This is a quick overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy across the three domains. It includes visual charts to facilitate a quick review of this content.
- Bloom’s Taxonomy – Action Verbs: This is one of many charts that exists with recommended verbs for each of the levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy. It is a great resource to use as you determine learning outcomes and assess the level of mastery you expect students to achieve.
- Student Learning Outcomes: This 2 page primer distinguishes between objectives and outcomes and provides a set of sample learning outcomes across several disciplines.
- Student Civic Learning Outcomes: From Tufts University, this is another sample breakdown of civic learning outcomes across the domains of knowledge, skills, and values. It also provides examples.
- Options for Students Products: A great way to ensure that your learning strategies support diverse learners is to provide students with a choice of the types of products they submit for summative assessment. This is an example from a faculty member’s syllabus cited in a wonderful book, Developing Outcomes-based Assessment for Learner-Centered Education.
- Using Group Projects Effectively: This is an excellent one-stop shop filled with resources, templates, and creative recommendations for designing, implementing, and assessing group projects, from the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University.
- Division of Labor Expectations: UMass Boston professor, Alan Christian, shared this resource that he uses to communicate expectations to students for group work. It also provides a formal process that students can use to mediate an issue or even fire a student.
- Peer Evaluation Template: Another resource shared by UMass Boston professor, Alan Christian, this template offers a structured mechanism for building peer evaluation into group assignments.
- Group Work Roles: This is one of several resources that outlines various roles that can be assigned, delegated, or rotated to students in order to provide structure and facilitate a high level of collaboration for group projects.
- Collaborative Planning Guide for Engaged Scholarship: Part V: This is a practical resource that poses questions for assessing student learning, partnerships, and engaged scholarship, from the University of California’s Faculty Toolkit.
- VALUE Rubrics: This set of 16 rubrics includes a specific rubric for civic engagement as well as others that cut across relevant competency areas such as critical thinking and intercultural knowledge and competence. As part of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative, the VALUE rubrics contribute to the national dialogue on assessment of college student learning. For more information, visit: https://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics
- The Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile Project: A Focus on Civic Learning by Illinois College: This is a handbook of assessment worksheets and rubrics. For their program, they established six learning outcomes by adapting the VALUE rubrics that were most relevant. This is a great resource that illustrates how you might use a similar model to adapt the VALUE rubrics for your course or program accordingly.
- Readings
- Core Competencies in Civic Engagement: This is an excellent synthesis of the key civic learning outcomes present in three areas, including a review of the literature, national reports, and academic programs.
Reflection
Journaling
Toolbox
- Resources
- 10 Tips for Designing Critical Reflection: Patti Clayton provides a quick rundown of ten key recommendations for you to consider as you design reflection activities for your course.
- Facilitating Reflection: A Manual for Leaders and Educators: Chapter 2 of this manual provides a brief summary of helpful insights for facilitating reflection in groups as well as approaches to troubleshooting in specific situations.
- Factors to Consider in Developing Reflection Activities: This chart is an excellent resource that guides faculty and others involved in designing reflection. It identifies various factors and poses specific questions that should be considered for each.
- Templates for Designing Assessment Questions: Developed by Susan Wolcott, this chart of sample response prompts is organized by complexity, similar to Bloom’s taxonomy.
- Engaging All Partners in Reflection: Kathleen Rice expands on several models of critical reflection by providing useful sample questions based on varying situations and purposes.
- Reflective Writing: DIEP: Similar to the DEAL Framework, the DIEP model is another approach that supports students with the process of reflection through the four stages of description, interpretation, evaluation, and planning. This template is a great resource for guiding ongoing journal entries.
- Kiser’s Integrative Processing Model: Adapted by the Kernodle Center at Elon University, this guide to Kiser’s Integrative Processing Model involves five steps with sample questions offered for each.
- DEAL Framework for Critical Reflection – Faculty Worksheet: This template illustrates reflection questions that might be posed to students using the DEAL Framework. It prompts instructors to brainstorm specific questions relevant for the course in design.
- Journal Types: This handout provides an overview of various journal types you might consider as you develop reflection activities.
- 3-2-1 Journal Entry: A one page explanation of this approach with a sample of how to adapt the assignment for courses with engaged components.
- Readings
- The Articulated Learning: An Approach to Guided Reflection and Assessment (2004): Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton discuss a model for reflection that serves as the foundation for what is known as the DEAL Model today. This article is a good primer for how to apply this framework so that students demonstrate meaningful learning across the academic, personal, and civic domains.
- Generating, Deepening, and Documenting Learning: The Power of Reflection in Applied Learning (2009): Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton discuss critical reflection, principles of good practice, and present a “research-grounded, flexible model for integrating critical reflection and assessment.” The article articulates how to connect reflection assignments to learning outcomes and assessment.