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Reflection assignments in the first half of the quarter should be designed with students' variable timelines in mind. Returning to the "Logistics Timeline in Community-Engaged Courses" below, note that individuals' circumstances and organizational differences mean that some students will begin volunteering earlier than others.
Some organizations require several onboarding steps and run longer background checks than others. While the CEC team will do everything we can to promote efficiency, you may have some students who are volunteering by Week 2 and others who don't start until weeks later.
For these reasons, we suggest that assignments in the first half of the quarter do not require students to reflect directly on their current community-engaged experience. The first half of the quarter may be a good time for students to reflect on themes and texts that build their understanding of the context around this experience. Below are a few ideas for early-quarter reflections that may be relevant for every student, regardless of whether or not they've begun volunteering:
Brief research into the community partner organization and neighborhood that they will be working alongside
Pre-engagement goal-setting and positionality (can be revisited in end-of-quarter assignments)
Intention-setting and reflection around texts on critical community-engaged scholarship
Note: It is a good idea to continue check in with your students via Canvas about the status of their community-engaged placement onboarding. Any students who have questions or concerns should please reach out to the CEC team at engage@uw.edu.
Our team will also be reaching out to students via email in early weeks, but we typically do not see a high response rate to our check-ins. The sooner students reach out to us with concerns, the sooner we can resolve or help determine a best path forward.
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