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Curricular Considerations

Guiding Principles

Four basic principles should guide faculty in constructing a community learning course:

Engagement: Does the service component meet a public good? How do you know this? Has the community been consulted? How? How have campus-community boundaries been negotiated and how will they be crossed?
Reflection: Is there a mechanism that encourages students to link their service experience to course content and to reflect upon why the service is important?
Reciprocity: Is reciprocity evident in the service component? How? “Reciprocity suggests that every individual, organization, and entity involved in community learning functions as both a teacher and a learner. Participants are perceived as colleagues, not as servers and clients.” (Jacoby, 1996 p.36)
Public Dissemination: Is service work presented to the public or made an opportunity for the community to enter into a public dialogue? For example: Do oral histories that students collect return to the community in some public form? Is the data students collect on the saturation of toxins in the local river made public? How? To whose advantage?

Faculty roles & responsibilities

The central role of the faculty member is to help students link the service to course learning objectives. The faculty member prepares students for the service, guides critical reflection on the service, and assesses student learning.

Preparation includes assisting students to:

Understand the purpose of the service and its relationship to course objectives;
Select appropriate service sites and roles; and
Enter and exit the community with respect and sensitivity
Critical reflection is a thoughtfully constructed process that challenges and guides students in:
Examining critical issues related to their community learning project
Connecting the service experience to coursework
Enhancing the development of civic skills and values
Finding personal relevance in the work.
Refer to the reflection section for examples of reflection activities.
Assessment of student service should be based on demonstrated learning. Evaluation of student learning usually involves measurement of:
Feedback from the site supervisor about outcomes of student activities and student performance. If students are working in teams, feedback from team members may be considered.
Assessment of student mastery of course learning objectives through traditional evaluation tools like written and oral reports, exams, and/or classroom activities.
Assessment of student ability to reflect upon the service experience and to integrate learning from service activities, readings, and classroom presentations through written or on-line journals, structured discussions, and any of the traditional evaluation tools listed above.

Reflection

Reflection is an essential element of effective and high quality community learning. It links service to the intellectual and academic learning goals of the community learning course. As students are prompted to explore and analyze their service experiences, they become aware of what they have actually learned and can start to make connections to their classroom subjects as well as to their everyday lives.

Guiding principles of reflection

Reflection is most effective when it is continuous - done before, during and after service activities.
Utilizing a wide array of reflection strategies is the most effective way of engaging all students in learning from service.
Post-service reflection needs to happen as soon after the service event as possible.
Insights gained via reflection can be used to support learning in other contexts and long after the initial reflection session.
Some of the most compelling reflection sessions actively involve people who are receiving the service as well as students who are doing the service.
The environment and method of reflection should be appropriate for the given course (may not always be formal, may be conducted in the service setting, etc.)
Reflection activities are most effective when they are challenging (pushing students to engage unfamiliar or even uncomfortable issues) AND "safe" (an environment is created in which learners feel confident that their contributions, backgrounds and feelings will be respected and appreciated).

"All those things that we had to do for the [community] learning. Each one successively helped me to pull together what I'd learned. As you're going along, you're not really seeing what you're learning every minute. But, when you have to pull it all together and really think about it, I think it helped me realize what had taken place."
- University student

Reflection Activities

Traditional and familiar methods are group discussion, journal writing and essay writing; however, there are creative and effective activities that engage a range of learning styles and maximize student involvement.

Personal Journals

Journals provide a medium for students to document their experiences and explore the connections to course learning, and offer the opportunity for written dialogue between instructor and student, enabling the instructor to monitor the student's service experiences over time. Journals can be structured, e.g., students can be asked to respond to structured questions, apply specific theories to service observations, write from the perspective of different stakeholders, document field notes for later use, record relevant resources. Engage students in periodically reading aloud from their journals to reinforce their efforts.

Portfolios

Compiling an array of materials related to their service can help contextualize students' experiences. It is a collection of documents and other forms of evidence of student competencies and achievements, specifically as they relate to learning plan objectives.

Integrative Papers

Integrative or analytical papers provide students with the opportunity to incorporate examples from their service experiences with course material to demonstrate their learning. Integrative papers may be structured in a variety of ways (e.g., problem solving, theory application, case studies, self assessments, agency analyses, or book reviews). The final paper should be the culmination of a series of reflective discussions or assignments.

E-mail or chat rooms

Instructors using an online format for communication with students may pose critical discussion questions online. Students may respond directly to the instructor (online journal) or may be asked to post a response to the week's reflection question and reply to at least one student's entry. Instructors may respond to students or use their entries to shape future discussion topics.

Facilitation

Giving students responsibility for conducting reflection sessions is a powerful way to encourage analysis and synthesis of their experience, and builds student leadership skills. Students should be provided basic training for facilitating discussions including time management, establishing "group norms", validating everyone's opinions and contributions, affirming opinions and listening while asking critical questions, and remaining objective and neutral when serving as facilitator.

Artistic Reflection

Expressing feelings is often the first step in the process of reflection. Artistic expression is a powerful method for communicating feelings and synthesizing meaning. Murals, artistic journal, poetry and song, photography and video-taping are examples. Multimedia presentations/PowerPoint or poster presentations can integrate cognitive and effective learning.

Community Learning Theater & Role Plays

Debriefing in large groups can be challenging. Engaging the students in planning, presenting and discussing their "plays" can add variety and reinforce other reflection activities such as personal journals.

Values Continuum

Engage students in physical movement in response to target questions read aloud. Students line up/ circle up and with each "value" question or statement either step forward or back in response to whether they "strongly agree, agree, are undecided, disagree or strongly disagree." In powerful activities for exploring sensitive and personal topics related to personal identity, power, prejudice, societal norms, culture and assumptions, facilitators must be prepared to create a "safe space" or group agreements to encourage full participation (sometimes conducted in silence).

Small Group or Partner Discussions

Pair students in small groups to discuss issues or work on joint assignments – effective in large classes or in courses where student learning or project outcomes could benefit from encouraging students to work or reflect together. Discussion groups allow for sharing among students involved in service and those doing alternative assignments. Structure discussions to push students beyond surface reflection and avoid simple reporting of experiences, e.g., “what, so what, now what?”

Reflecting WITH the Community

Creating reflection sessions that involve members of the community related to the community learning can be extremely powerful. It is consistent with the philosophy of reciprocity in community learning and can create surprising new relationships and mutual respect between the university and surrounding community stakeholders. This method is most effective when students' service activities are working with community members to plan projects or are in an organization in which involving agency constituents is deemed appropriate by the service organization.

Developing Similes and Metaphors

Often used as an opener or wrap-up in a large group, students create analogies for their service experience, helping to analyze its meaning. (e.g, "Service at my site is like… because…")

Oral Presentations

Using the experience as a case study to illustrate a theory being explored in class or in the course readings helps solidify students' learning. This can also be a way of enabling students serving at different sites to learn about their classmates' experiences.

Additional information about how and why to construct reflection activities can also be found at the following Campus Compact web site.

Community Learning Designation of Courses

Schedule of Classes & Course Changes

Courses/sections designated as “community learning” shall be identified by the department in the Schedule of Classes. Departments are responsible for amending community learning designations for succeeding Schedule of Classes, and shall submit a new Minor Course Change Proposal whenever there are substantial changes.

Problems regarding approval of community learning courses/sections shall be resolved by the AVP GS&R or the AVP UGS, in consultation with the College Dean and the appropriate senate operating committee.

The Policy Recommendation passed by the SJSU Academic Senate can be viewed on the Academic Senate website.

Procedures for approving designation as a community learning course.

A department seeking community learning designation of a course will follow the policies and procedures for creating or modifying curriculum. A Minor Course Change Proposal to the Office of Graduate Studies and Research or to Undergraduate Studies shall include as an attachment:

A statement of how the course or section(s) meet(s) the minimum criteria set forth.
A brief description of the probable service assignment(s), including expected hours and/or work products, and preparations for their service placement.
An explanation of how the instructor will integrate learning from this particular community service experience into course discussion and assignments, including a statement of how learning from a service will be evaluated.

Updating Your Course Description

The CCLL attempts to maintain a current list of community learning courses offered at SJSU. Please notify the CCLL of changes to an existing class or new community learning classes are offered.

Retention, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Process

Community learning, planned and evaluated effectively, can contribute to a faculty members' portfolio in the three key areas for retention, promotion and tenure.
The Center for Community Learning & Leadership can help faculty members to:

evaluate the impact of community learning on teaching effectiveness;
locate resources for conducting, funding, and publishing research related to community learning;
demonstrate the contributions of community learning activities to students, the University, the community, and/or professional organizations and;
plan for documentation and evaluation of community learning accomplishments for RTP through workshops and personal consultation
In support of RTP, community learning provides opportunity to:
Enhance your teaching effectiveness:
Develop more powerful curricula that provides students with a "real world" context for theory and discipline-specific knowledge, thereby helping students to retain more relevant information.
Raise students' awareness about current social issues as they relate to academic areas of interest.
Engage students in powerful, interactive classroom discussions that invite new perspectives and personalize student learning.
Develop students' critical thinking, writing, and interpersonal communication skills.
Help students learn about the complexities of social systems and community problems.
Advance research & scholarship efforts:
Identify new areas for research and publication, thereby increasing opportunities for professional recognition and reward.
Present your professional papers at state, regional and national conferences.
Publish findings in higher education publications or applied academic journals.
Make your work visible and emphasize quality.
Serve the university and surrounding community
Leverage your ability to provide direct service and/or research benefiting the community.
Offer professional skills and expertise to the nonprofit agencies where students are serving.
Serve on the advisory board of directors for the nonprofit agencies with which the community learning class "partners."
Increase visibility for the University by facilitating local media coverage of your community learning projects.
Make community learning presentations

Benefits/Services for Faculty

The Center for Community Learning & Leadership provides a variety of support services to new and experienced community learning faculty. Please contact the Center for more information on the services listed.

Support Services
Mentoring & Curriculum Development Program
Mini-grants

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Center for Community
Learning & Leadership
One Washington Square
San José, CA 95192-0246
408.924.3540
fax: 408.924.6962

Located in Clark Hall 203 and 126C