Explore resources and strategies for the various stages of community-engaged course design and teaching, from co-creation with community partners to assessment. These resources can be adapted for project-based, discipline-based, or community-based research courses.
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Course Design and Co-creating with Community Partners
Course Design Resources
- Ginsberg’s Best Practices for Community-Engaged Teaching & Learning
- Sample community-engaged syllabi from Campus Compact affiliates
- Howe et al’s (2014) community-engaged course design model, based in student development theory. Read the full article here.
- Jacoby, B. (2014). Service Learning Essentials: questions, answers, and lessons learned. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Welch, Marshall, & Plaxton-Moore, Star. (2019). The craft of community-engaged teaching and learning: A guide for faculty development. Boston, MA : Campus Compact.
- The companion (printable) toolkit offers opportunities for reflection and application.
Community Partner Perspectives on Course Design
- Sandy, M. & Holland, B.A. (2006). Different Worlds and Common Ground: Community Partner Perspectives on Campus-Community Partnerships. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 13(1), 30-43.
- Karasik, R. J. (2019). Community Partners’ Perspectives and the Faculty Role in Community-Based Learning. Journal of Experiential Education, 43(2), 113-35.
Getting Feedback on Your Community-Engaged Course
- For peer feedback, consider applying for Ginsberg Center’s Community of Practice for academic partners.
- For student feedback, sign up for a Midterm Student Feedback session from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT).
- For self-assessment, consult the PRELOAD Rubric, designed to help instructors evaluate their syllabi for key quality indicators, and Duke University’s Critical Service-Learning Conversations Tool, designed to help instructors integrate critical perspectives into their courses.
Resources to Address Social Identities & Power in Community Contexts
Preparing Yourself
- Check out our faculty workshops series, which includes regular workshops on anti-racist approaches to community engagement.
- Consider applying for Ginsberg Center’s Community of Practice for academic partners, structured around Campus Compact’s key competencies for community engaged learning and teaching.
- Additional resources
- Mitchell, T. (2008). Traditional vs. critical service-learning: Engaging the literature to differentiate two models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 14(2): 50-65.
- Mitchell, T., Donahue, D., Young-Law, C. (2012). Service-learning as a pedagogy of whiteness. Equity & Excellence in Education 45(5): 612-29.
Preparing Students
- Assign Module 1 (Community Context & Ethical Engagement) and Module 2 (Social Identities, Power, & Privilege) of our MOOC, Community Engagement: Collaborating for Change.
- Request a customized in-class workshop for your students.
- Consistently incorporate opportunities for students to critically reflect.
Tools for Anti-Racist Facilitation
- U-M’s Program on Intergroup Relations offers a white paper (2017) on Balancing Asymmetrical Social Power Dynamics in Intergroup Dialogues (2017).
- Written after the 2016 presidential election, CRLT’s blog post on Teaching in the Current Political Climate remains a relevant, helpful resource.
- Ginsberg Center offers Tools for Promoting Student’s Civic Learning, including several activities that can be adapted for a variety of groups.
Project Planning/Management Resources
- The Public Participation Spectrum reflection tool (adapted from IAP2) is a helpful starting point for balancing power, decision-making, and responsibility between various stakeholders.
- To prepare your students to manage community-engaged projects or collaborations, have them complete Module 5 (Community-Engaged Project Management) of our MOOC, Community Engagement: Collaborating for Change.
- U-M CRLT's white paper on Development and Assessment of Collaboration, Teamwork, and Communication offers a host of tools to help prepare students and yourself to manage group work.
Assessment
- Review our collection of resources for assessing the impact of your course on students.
- Explore our resources on assessing the impact of your course on community partners, including the Winter 2020 issue of the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning which features a special section on community impact. The section was guest edited by partners from Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement, centered at Carleton University in Ontario.