Checklist for Designing the Course and Project Components (for Faculty)
How Can I Design a CE Course at a Distance?
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Identify Course Learning Objectives
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List some major questions, problems, or concepts that the course addresses and consider how this course raises issues about the community
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Develop what outcomes you want your students to achieve and what skills and competencies their projects should demonstrate: Service Learning Agreement
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Provide tools for students to develop a list of possible action projects, or to propose a project to you or a community partner
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Provide resources to help students identify potential partners who might benefit from the goals of your course or who might be related to the discipline
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Consider how to incentivize and evaluate (grade) assessments
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Plan how students will evaluate substantive community need and ensure that the community partner’s voice is heard in the development of a student-driven or faculty-created project
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Provide all the project organizational details upfront, in the syllabus and course site so students can plan: Planning Your Action Component
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Define the reflection activities upfront so students can incorporate reflection across the scope of the project
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Who Can Help?
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Review the University of Southern Maine and University College Collaborative Civic Engagement Toolkit for resources, templates, guides, and instruction for implementing your course at a distance
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Consider working with an instructional or learning designer and a technology integrator through your campus
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Check with your dean or department chair about service learning, community or civic engagement, or other campus resources that may be able to help match you with a partner
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Work with information technology services and accessibility coordinators to ensure your students, course materials, technology, and partner connection meet with social media and accessibility policies
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Reach out to the Campus Compact, a national organization with local state chapters that has a mission to promote civic engagement and service learning across disciplines and modalities
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How Can I Promote Student Connection to the Community?
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Design interaction and encourage that interaction with clear expectations
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Identify tools that both the partner and students can use together. Does the partner have an intranet? Do they have a private social media group that students could join?
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Refer students to campus offices of civic engagement or service learning to seek out partners, or connect them with University College Center Directors to match them with potential partners
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Identify a shortlist of possible projects related to your learning outcomes, achievable in most communities, to provide to students as suggestions [1]
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Refer students to:
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What Limitations Should I Consider?
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Please observe the following limitations adapted from the Corporation for National & Community Service: the project cannot include the following activities:
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Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes
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Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing
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Impairing existing contracts for services or collective Engaging in religious instruction; conducting worship services; providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship; constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship; maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship; or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
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Providing a direct benefit to a labor union
Activities for which a student is paid or earning a wage or stipend should be carefully considered and reviewed
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How Might I Assess and Evaluate Projects?
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Think about the ways you see that the project has contributed to the course and the community
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Provide space for the Community Partner to weigh in both with your student and class, as well as privately with you so that the partner has a private or anonymous space to voice concerns and suggested changes
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Consider giving us your feedback! Tell University College and University of Southern Maine’s Center for Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning how your experience went using any part of this toolkit to inform it for future use-cases, share experiences with Civic Engagement at a distance, and discover new methods with your colleagues.
References
- It is advisable to work with an instructional designer if you need help conceptualizing manageable project lists that map to your learning outcomes and that can work well in a distance course. Instructional designers can also help you manage logistics of distance civic engagement and boost the social interaction and reflection activities between students and community partners at a distance.
Resources for Students
Guidance