Weekly Tip: Learning through Community Engagement

Community engagement is a subset of experiential learning that asks students to work with an organization and apply concepts learned in class to a real problem or issue within a community.  Indeed, a learning goal of Washington State University is for students to “[apply] the concepts of the general and specialized studies to personal, academic, service learning, professional, and/or community activities.” By working with organizations within their community students are provided an authentic environment to demonstrate mastery of skills. In addition, students gain a deeper understanding of the course content and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.

Learn more about WSU’s Learning Goals.

Community Engagement At-a-Glance

• Curriculum based
• Community focused problem serving
• Concept application
  • Moves students from theory and hypothesis to action and implementation
• Organizational and/or stakeholder involvement and input
• Reciprocity—students and the community benefit
• Reflection

Tips for Implementation

• Identify the course goals that will be achieved through community engagement.
• Coordinate and work with organizations.
  • Many groups appreciate the assistance and insights students can offer.
  • Instructors can do outreach to identify entities willing to work with your class.
• Expand your options by considering remote organizations. Personnel can communicate virtually!
• Determine the scale of the community engagement component and the form it will take. The two most common forms are:
  • Project-based engagement—in which students work with an organization representative to identify solutions to a problem the organization is trying to address within the community.
  • Service hours—often requires students to fulfill a set number of volunteer hours over the course of a semester.
• Invite an organization representative to meet with your class throughout the semester.
  • Organization reps. can provide guidance and feedback, and assessment perspective.
• Have students learn from each other’s experiences by having them work in small groups.
• Incorporate reflection frequently.
  • Students can use reflection to make connections between what they are learning and what they are experiencing. Reflections also provide a space for students to discuss their process, challenges encountered, assumptions made, and mindset shifts they experienced.
• Implement the five stages of Design Thinking: research, identifying user needs, challenging assumptions, creating solutions, and testing solutions.

Examples of community engagement across the disciplines.

We understand that incorporating a community engagement component may be daunting. Work with an AOI team member to learn how to create the most meaningful experience for students in your course.

Additional Resources

• Service Learning vs. Community Service
• Community Engagement Across the Disciplines (pdf)
• Implementing Service Learning in Higher Education (pdf)
• Six Qualities of Service Learning
• Center for Civic Engagement (CCE)