Building community-engaged learning into the syllabus as a main "text" looks different in every community-engaged course. For those courses where CEL is a major component and requirement, here are just a few examples of the ways this has been done:
Students log periodic journal entries to record and reflect on their engagement over the quarter. In culminating assignments, these journal entries can be used along with other course texts to craft a larger synthesis.
Students participate in scheduled, structured, in-class discussions surrounding their CEL experiences throughout the quarter. Reflections include how they see course themes playing out in their experiential learning.
Students propose and refine interview materials in early-quarter assignments, conduct interviews (with site supervisor permission) at their community partner site, and build these into culminating assignments.
Even if community-engaged learning is a requirement in your course, it is important to be prepared with an alternative. Whether something arises in your student's life or the community-partner organization, situations that require an alternative to community engagement are not uncommon. Consider these examples:
1-Your UW student completed all of the required onboarding steps to sign up as a volunteer with an after-school program. They have been waiting weeks for their background check to clear, and it still has not cleared by Week 6. The volunteer manager at the after-school program unfortunately has no control over this. They share concerns about having a volunteer start so late in the quarter; in the past, it has been challenging for the younger kids in their program to adjust to volunteers coming and going for less than a month. At this point in the quarter, CELE's CEC team is not able to find another placement for your student.
2-Your UW student signed up to volunteer with a food bank and attended two shifts before something came up in their family life during Week 3. They are no longer able to commit to in-person volunteering for the rest of the quarter, and CELE's CEC team does not have any remote options left.
If the CEC team becomes aware of a situation that will require you and your student to choose an alternative to community-engaged learning, we will email you both. Please email us if you become aware of a situation where your student can no longer fulfill their commitment to a community partner, so that we can help all parties with next steps.
Note that the need for an alternative assignment could arise at any point during the quarter. We offer the suggestion that you may want to build multiple entry points for students to shift into that alternative (early in the quarter, mid-quarter, and for culminating assignments).
We recognize that creating an alternative that works for the same themes, credit hours, and learning goals is challenging. Here are some examples of plans for alternatives that past instructors have shared:
Supplemental texts each week (podcasts, movies, articles), with longer synthesis papers as culminating assignments.
A list of relevant community events for students to choose from (often a mix of in-person and remote/recorded) and written reflections for each event attended.
Students complete an interview/transcription/synthesis assignment with members of their community.