August 6, 2025 • 22 mins
Kristen Wright and Dr. Shauna Rigaud, of the Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning at George Mason University, join your host, Dr. Rachel Yoho, to discuss opportunities for community-engaged teaching and civic learning and... maybe a little teaching and learning magic!
Resources: Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning (CECiL) Website: https://cecil.gmu.edu/ CECiL’s Community-Based Learning Introduction: https://cecil.gmu.edu/faculty-resources/community-based-learning-0 CECiL’s Engaged Summer Program: https://cecil.gmu.edu/community-partners/engaged-summer-program George Mason University’s Quality Enhancement Plan: https://provost.gmu.edu/academics/accreditation/quality-enhancement-plan CECiL Course Designations: https://cecil.gmu.edu/faculty-resources/course-designations CECiL Training and Support: https://cecil.gmu.edu/faculty-resources/training-and-support
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Episode Transcript
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Rachel (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in
Teaching podcast, a highereducation podcast from the
Stearns Center for Teaching andLearning at George Mason
University.
I'm your host, Rachel Yoho, andin this episode I'm very excited
to be joined by two guests fromthe Office of Community
Engagement and Civic Learninghere at George Mason.
(00:28):
So I'm joined by the DirectorKristen Wright and the Associate
Director, Dr.
Shauna Rigaud.
So thank you so much, both ofyou for joining us.
Kristen (00:38):
Thank you for having us.
Wonderful to be here.
Shauna (00:40):
Thank you so much for having us.
Rachel (00:44):
Can you just give us a little bit of a brief overview
of the community engagement andcivic learning office, or as
we'll call it probablythroughout the episode, CECiL?
Kristen (00:53):
Yes, I'll kick us off.
So the CECiL office was formallylaunched in 2022, and it was a
part of our quality enhancementplan.
And really through that plan,George Mason identified a
specific focus on expanding theopportunities for students and
faculty to do community engagedwork during their time at George
Mason, whether that's throughstudent programs, curricular
experiences, faculty teaching,engaged research.
(01:15):
And also hoping that throughthat we would also be able to
deepen the communitypartnerships amount of
organizations that we're workingwith, the ways in which that
those partner organizations caninterface with George Mason and
really deepen the relationshipsin that space.
So we've been, we're, I guessthat puts us at about three
years now.
So relatively new office.
And we have a handful ofsignature programs.
So our, we have signaturestudent programs.
(01:36):
These are all paid kind ofinternship like experiences, but
our students are doing really,really meaningful work with
local nonprofit organizations,generally for about eight to 10
hours a week during the academicyear.
And then in our engaged summerprogram, which is run by Shauna,
doing that at a higher level upto 30 hours a week during that
time, we also have some facultydevelopment experiences that
range from like one time attendthis workshop, learn a little
(01:57):
bit.
Up to cohort-based experienceswhere folks are working with us
over the course of an entiresemester or a few months at a
time.
And then we have a number ofevents that are really designed
to be.
Kinda exposure opportunities forfolks to get a taste of what
does it mean to do sort of civicengagement broadly or community
engagement work in the area.
So learn about different issuesthrough an event series.
We do call engage, learn aboutdifferent organizations through
(02:19):
things like our service fair.
So trying to make sure thatwe've got opportunities from,
Hey, what is this?
Let's get to know you all theway up to really deep,
meaningful, engagingopportunities for students and
faculty to work withcommunities.
Rachel (02:30):
Yeah, that's great.
Thanks Kristen.
And for those of us who might beless familiar with the Quality
Enhancement Plan or the QEP,it's part of a university's
accreditation efforts.
So we've had ones in the past atMason that we're focused on like
under.
Graduate research and they lastgenerally in the like six to
eight year kind of range.
So it's really an integral partof, of the university
(02:52):
experience.
Shauna, was there anything youwanted to add for this part?
Shauna (02:57):
Yeah, I'll just say that I also really appreciate that
the work of our office is aboutbringing together all of the
other things.
Right.
That happens at Mason.
And so, oftentimes when Iexplain our office to students
as I talk about it, as one ofthe various ways that students
can get involved in communityservice and acute community
(03:18):
engagement.
So our office works alongside,our faculty works alongside
student groups, who are doingcommunity service, working on
alongside student researchers.
Pulling together our partners.
And so we really are aboutbuilding a coalition of offices
(03:40):
and programs that are thinkingabout how we can really push the
needle on social justice in thisarea through community engaged
experiences.
Rachel (03:52):
Absolutely.
And if I can just add to that,Shana, I just wanna give a shout
out to both of you and youroffice.
I, you know, after attendingyour end of your event, it's
sometimes rare to see studentsas excited as they are about
programming, about academicrelated or academic adjacent
types of things, as I saw atthis past year's end of year
(04:12):
event.
So massive congratulations toyou for all of the impact and
work that you do.
Shauna (04:17):
Thank you.
Rachel (04:18):
Yeah, as we're talking about this type of impact, if we
step that back into the teachingspace, it's a lot of work for
instructors, for faculty toinclude a community engaged
element or this type ofcommunity partnership in their,
(04:39):
you know, pedagogical strategiesin their teaching.
What are some of the benefits ofmaking these rather large
investments?
Shauna (04:49):
Yeah, I can kick it off here.
I think when we think aboutcommunity engaged teaching, we
look at there being benefits forboth faculty, students and
community partners on thefaculty side, right?
Like we're talking aboutinnovation in teaching.
Faculty members' work withcommunity based organizations
(05:10):
allows them to think differentlyabout how they wanna bring
material, how they want toengage students, and how they
want to do learning in theclassroom.
And so that allows them a reallyinteresting lens to now think
about their student learningoutcomes by incorporating
community-based learning intothe classes that they teach.
(05:33):
We can also think about the waysthat this kind of scholarship
and teaching, right?
Because community engagementwith faculty is about a
pedagogy, so we can also thinkabout the ways that community
engaged teaching and researchreally benefits the faculty
members by deepening theirconnections to the community.
(05:55):
And so as they're thinking kindof big picture about what's
going on and what kind ofscholarship that they might be
able to produce, they're able tolook and work with communities
to think about the on the groundimpact for them.
So we think about that forfaculty.
For students, it's also aboutthat engagement, giving them
(06:16):
hands-on experiences,professional development skills,
and opportunity to thinkcritically about social justice
issues.
And then for our communitypartners, they're also now sort
of increasing their access toresources from working with the
institution, right.
As well as being able to buildcapacity in their own
organizations, bringing newideas, new energy to the work
(06:40):
that they're already doing.
And so we really think aboutthis as everyone that
participates kind of benefitsfrom that in a variety of
different ways, depending onwhat kinds of ways that you're
engaging with community in yourteaching.
Kristen (06:54):
Yeah, I echo everything Shauna said, and I think I
appreciate the way she brokedown the different audiences and
how they're all benefited bythis type of learning.
I feel like I say this jokinglyin some ways, but like truly
mean I think it's a high impactpractice that is in some ways
sort of a supercharged practicebecause of its ability to have
this benefit that does hit allthese different audiences.
(07:16):
And when you hit that communityimpact piece and you're looking
at students being able to dowork that's like bringing real
capacity to the communities thatthey work in, to the communities
that they're living in for thisamount of time, but is also
bridging that gap between thethings that they wanna do, the
reason that they're in college.
There's skills that they get topractice, things they get to try
out for the first time.
And connect that to like meaningmaking and what it means to be a
(07:37):
member of a community and whatit means to be a member of a
society, and see themselves asagents of change.
But if you're gonna do that andyou can think about all the ways
in which your teaching may beimproved, there's some research
that suggests that faculty whodo community-based learning also
just use active learningpedagogies more broadly in their
teaching, even if that courseisn't community engaged.
Rachel (07:54):
Yeah, I would think,
Kristen (07:55):
So we're, it's like you may
Shauna (07:56):
Mmhmm.
Kristen (07:57):
Supercharge all of your other courses, yeah, in the
process you may see that happenand students are learning better
in that type of environment.
We know they're retaininginformation, practicing it.
And then a third group thatcould include partners but could
exist outside of our partners,are employers are then seeing
the skills that they wanna seefrom students too.
And so I think, to just put acouple other examples to what
(08:17):
Shauna already really well said.
There's a lot of benefit sort ofwrapped around that I think can
make the added work and the timeworth it.
And I will say
Shauna (08:25):
Mmhmm.
Kristen (08:25):
It's al always more work at the start too.
Once you get relationshipsgoing, you have a course built
and designed with this pedagogy,you have partners that you work
with, like it gets easier andyou build that muscle memory of
what it looks to do this, andthen it's just a part of your
typical pedagogy.
But the benefits really arethere to make it
Rachel (08:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
Especially when we're in an ageof questioning the importance of
higher education, of studentsquestioning the relevance of the
time and effort they put intotheir classes, their activities.
We're not trying to sell them onit, but we're showing the
skills, showing the relevance,showing that impact, I think is
so, so valuable.
But let's talk about what aresome of the best practices for
(09:02):
community engagement?
Or perhaps put another way, whatare we actually doing when we're
talking about community engagedteaching and how do we go about
doing it?
Shauna (09:11):
There are a couple of things that I think about when I
am thinking about the bestpractices for approaching this
work.
So I'll say like the first onethat comes to mind is this idea
about like, seeing the communityas knowledgeable, as
co-educators in this process.
A lot of times when we kind of,the history of service has
(09:33):
oftentimes lended this idea thatwe are working for folks.
This idea of kind of like cominginto communities and doing
things to make them better.
And so if we kind of flip thaton its head, and understand that
communities, folks that aredealing with the issues, folks
that are in the trenches on theground, right?
(09:54):
Like they have as much knowledgeabout a subject as possible.
We can flip that to thinkingabout this as working with
communities, as opposed to for.
So I think about that as thefirst approach that's important
in doing this work.
And with that then leads to thisidea that when designing a
community engaged courseexperience, being able to align
(10:21):
that work with the needs of thecommunity, listening to
community members, communitypartners, organizations about
what do you need help with?
What are the gaps?
How can we support, right?
And then being able to frameyour work around that.
The other thing I wanna add too,before Kristen, well, I know
(10:43):
Kristen has some things that shewants to add too, but, the other
thing I think about that I thinkis really important in terms of
best practices, is also thisidea of making sure that there
are reflections for students,right?
And so, within communityengagement, you want to provide
opportunities for students tothink about the work that
they're doing, how it's impactedhow it connects to the things
(11:08):
that they're learning in classor to other issues.
Their own ways of being, thekinds of ways that they
understand certain things, andso making sure that there's
reflection built into yourcourse, your curriculum, those
experiences for students.
Kristen (11:24):
You set up perfectly.
I feel like one of the spots Ialways like to go with this
question, which is making surethat if you're considering
adding a community-basedlearning pedagogy to your
course, to your teaching in someway, that it's aligned with the
course learning objectives.
So Shauna already talked aboutmaking sure it actually meets
that community need and thatwe're really thinking about
students working with, not forthe organizations, the
(11:47):
partnerships.
But there was a long time wherea lot of, I feel like the
literature in the servicelearning space would talk about
like hitting this magical 20hours, if you're gonna do it.
And I feel like thatunfortunately started a trend of
people just doing like adding onhours to a course and it was
find service wherever you wantand just have students complete
hours.
And if they do 20 hours in thecommunity, this like magical
learning thing will happen,
Rachel (12:07):
Magical learning! All right.
Our new thing.
Shauna (12:10):
Yeah.
Kristen (12:11):
Right, this magical.
And they'll take away all thesegreat things that we know can
happen.
But I think the more likelyscenario and most of the sort of
current research confirms thatit needs to be aligned with the
student learning outcomes, thecourse learning outcomes for the
course.
When students were, and this waseven from just sort of my own
graduate research, when studentsin interviews were talking about
(12:32):
when it was just randomlyassigned, they had to do things,
there was no connection betweenthe service that they were doing
with a partner and what theylearned in class.
But when you identify specificlearning outcomes or just one
outcome for your course that isachieved by virtue of doing a
service project or doing workwith a partner, those are the
places where the learning isreally maximized, where students
are applying those concepts.
And then to Shauna's point aboutreflection, you're seeing that
(12:53):
in the way that they're writingabout it.
You'll get better reflectionswhen students understand why
those two things are happeningin the first place, why they're
doing this experience.
And so it oftentimes, instead ofthinking of it as an add-on, it
truly can be a replacement foreither an assignment that was in
the course, a text today we'reusing.
An expression that we sometimesuse in the field is like"Service
as Text." Like that experienceis and should be thought of.
(13:15):
So you could remove an entirebook from a course if you're
gonna add service.
It shouldn't just be this thingthat you're putting on top of.
But really stepping back andlooking at what outcome am I
achieving through doing that?
And I think one other thing thatit's hard in the best practice
space, like saying flexibilityfeels like not saying quite
enough, but understanding ifyour course, your teaching
(13:36):
style, whatever this thing is,has enough flexibility that the
unpredictability of acommunity-based learning course.
When you open up to experientiallearning, you don't exactly know
what's gonna happen.
You're adding more variables.
If you're instruction style, ifthe course itself isn't flexible
enough.
You know you're teaching a let'ssay a core course that has these
very specific objectives, thenyou can't move those and there
(13:57):
isn't an obvious way that one ofthose can be, will absolutely be
achieved and can be achieved inthat case, then it's okay to
decide like, this specificcourse isn't a good fit.
But knowing if your style, yourwillingness for uncertainty, all
these different things, becauseit does require a lot of
flexibility and the willingnessto adapt with students as the
semester's going, adapt withpartners as the semester is
going, and just be willing tostep back and say, we need to
(14:19):
look at this a littledifferently and do that.
Having that approach andinvolving the partners as early
as you can in the design aresome of the other things that I
think really benefit.
I dropped like four thingsthere, Shauna.
Where is there something I youwanna pick more up on?
I feel like there is.
Shauna (14:31):
No! Because I think that that was perfect, right?
Because I think in, in all ofthis, in this conversation, when
we're talking about bestpractices, right?
We're touching on all of thethings that faculty are, and
that we've heard from faculty,from students, from our
community partners, and that weknow from research, as this
field has grown and has had moreattention.
I think that these are, theseare spot on.
We're, we're doing a good job.
Rachel (14:55):
Could you give us maybe a couple of examples?
You know, and we talk about, andespecially when your office
talks about, when I also, fromthe Teaching and Learning Center
side, talk with faculty, there'sdifferent levels for their work
with the CECiL office of theirprogramming within their
courses.
So, you know, we go from kind ofthat baseline overview to a
super high level servicelearning type of course.
(15:18):
Can you walk us through whatmaybe some of the examples of
that would be to give sometangible things of where people
can think about where they mightwanna be in the future?
Kristen (15:28):
Yeah, so when we were designing the office and our
kind of curriculum, coursedesignation process, we wanted
to make it really accessible forfaculty who haven't done this
work before and are interestedto have a place that they can
start.
And so we have three differentcourse designations essentially
from at the ground levelexploration and those types of
classes, we're looking forfaculty to incorporate civic
(15:50):
knowledge, civic identity, civicaction, those concepts into
their course, but it doesn'thave to be through a service, a
service learning, or communitybased learning experience.
So this is a great way for thatfaculty member who wants to get
started but isn't quite ready todo work with a partner or needs
time to build thoserelationships with a partner,
but realizes that, making surethat, let's say, an engineering
(16:11):
student, has the chance to learnabout how zoning laws were
written and how redlining maybeimpacted a community and how
there's still some work that'shappening in that way to kind of
undo some of those effects, howthat impacts you as an engineer.
Right.
It's just like a off the top ofmy mind example that you could
give.
Incorporating that, don't haveto use a partner right away, but
what are some texts, what aresome interviews?
What are some sources thatstudents can look through?
(16:32):
And having there be some kind ofdemonstration of learning
through a reflection or a grouppresentation or something that
shows the learning from thatcourse.
That's what we're looking at,that introductory level.
And then moving up to acommunity-based learning course.
Of course, so this is for afaculty member who wants to
start involving a partner orpartners with their course,
having students do somethinghands-on.
The kind of changes during COVIDI think have really expanded.
(16:55):
And so sometimes I feel like myanswers are like, if this isn't
good for you, don't do it.
Not discouraging, this is gonnabe a more encouraging answer.
I think there's a lot more ways,and we've gotten more creative
in how service learning can beincorporated in a course.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto look like students going two
to three times a week to a site.
We do encourage them to go whenpossible, but some work can be
done virtually.
So I think there's a lot morecourses that can do this kind of
(17:17):
work than could before'cause wegot creative during this time in
different ways.
But anyway, so that, that middlelevel yeah is looking at
students who are doing what wethink of as a more
community-based learningexperience.
They're probably working with apartner either individually or
as a group on some kind ofproject that both meets that
student learning outcome andmeets the community identified
need.
And we're trying to find thatsweet spot.
And then the highest level arekind of capstone like courses.
(17:39):
We call it like a Mason Impactplus civic engagement course.
But this is where students aregenerally doing original work
with a partner.
They have a research questionthat they co-designed with that
partner.
They get to produce somethingnew for the first time.
They get to do kind of thathigher level.
These are generally gonna be,again, smaller classes, major
specific opportunities wherestudents get to really, really
dig in in that space.
(18:00):
And so if you're a facultymember just wanting to try it
out, think about redesigningyour course with that civic
learning component, or ifyou're, again, operating at a
really high level, maybechallenge yourself to think
about how you could incorporatecommunicated research or
something like that into theexperience.
Rachel (18:14):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's important to also
highlight here, we're oftentalking about, or almost all the
time talking about our localcommunities.
So, yeah.
But as we talk about this, thereare a lot of barriers.
You know, we might be thinkingabout time, you know, the kind
of learning curve for faculty toget into that service learning,
community engaged learning typeof instructional space, funding,
(18:37):
all kinds of things.
So how might your office besupporting Mason faculty with
some of these common or thesefrequent barriers?
Kristen (18:49):
Yes.
I'll start us off.
So those three that you named,we find time, money, and
knowledge about the pedagogy arereally the three things that
kind of stand in the way and wedo the best we can.
We've designed a lot of ourfaculty benefits programs,
experiences with those threethings in mind.
So from a knowledge perspective,as I alluded to a little bit
earlier, but we have kind of ahandful of faculty training or
(19:11):
faculty development resources,many of which we partner with on
the Stearns Center on to helpprovide that knowledge.
If it's purely, I don't exactlyknow what incorporating
reflection into my course wouldeven look like, or I'm not sure
that I'm connected enough tothink of what issues would work
with my course or definedpartners.
We have a lot of differentsessions, again, from one time
we have some content just livingon our website, CECiL.GMU.edu,
(19:34):
that has just basic videos thatfolks can watch right away and
get some primers on what is thiswork, even lessons that they can
do in their class that help withfacilitating reflections and
that sort of thing.
Up to longer, I'm thinking ofredesigning my course.
Can you support me step by stepthrough that process?
Through our cohort experiences,we have everything in that space
to try it again, provide thatknowledge, and even some of the
community around it.
(19:54):
'cause we can then connect thosefaculty with others who have
done this work before and cangive some suggestions, tips,
things they learned, that kindof thing.
From a money perspective, wehave a couple different process
in place.
One is a thing calledMicrogrants.
For any of the courses that gothrough our designation process,
it's up to$500 for your course.
And that can cover things likespeaker fees, if there's someone
you wanna bring in, money totake students somewhere, if they
(20:16):
need to reimburse a few studentsfor travel, if that's a barrier
for the students in the coursewho are taking the course as
well.
So to be able to provide thatkind of resource for folks is
something that we have.
And then there are stipendedexperiences through things like
our cohort.
So if it's a little bit of moneypersonally to be able to invest
in this kind of professionaldevelopment, that's something
that we can offer as well.
And then from a timeperspective, we are able to
(20:37):
assist folks in some of thoselogistics of the course.
So if a course goes through ourdesignation process, we can help
with finding partners gettingmatched even coming in and if
there's content you would wantsomeone from our team to be able
to facilitate for your class, wecan do that.
To be able to remove one lessonthat you have to plan, say for
your course, and we can step inand do that.
You know, to remove a little, acouple of those barriers.
(20:58):
And so we've really tried todesign the office with thinking
of those different things inmind.
Rachel (21:02):
Yeah, that's great.
So I think here what we'rereally looking at today with our
keystone concept is connection.
You know, we have, obviously theconnection with community.
They're building authenticconnections with our
communities, our communitypartners, or even just building
those connections into ourcourses, the relevance.
But also, of course as we talkabout this, the connections with
(21:23):
the CECiL office for support andreally that peer element that we
were just discussing.
Having instructors talk witheach other.
You know, teaching can be veryisolating and especially when
you're trying out something new,you know, getting some of those,
Hey, I learned this, I triedthis.
Maybe here's some tips andrecommendations can be really
valuable.
So talking with each other aswell.
(21:44):
So thank you both for joiningus.
I really appreciate your timeand your insights.
This was, been a lot of fun, atleast for me.
Hope it was for you, too.
Shauna (21:52):
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I had a great time talking aboutthis work.
Kristen (21:57):
Yeah.
Same.
Thank you so much for having us.
Rachel (21:59):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you everyone forlistening.
Please catch our next episode.
We're posting every two weeksduring the fall and spring
semesters.
So I hope we'll have you back inthis space in whatever way that
you listen, and we'll talk aboutother keystone concepts in
teaching.
So thank you so much.
Hello, and welcome to the Keystone Concepts in
Teaching podcast, a highereducation podcast from the
Stearns Center for Teaching andLearning at George Mason
University.
I'm your host, Rachel Yoho, andin this episode I'm very excited
to be joined by two guests fromthe Office of Community
Engagement and Civic Learninghere at George Mason.
(00:28):
So I'm joined by the DirectorKristen Wright and the Associate
Director, Dr.
Shauna Rigaud.
So thank you so much, both ofyou for joining us.
Kristen (00:38):
Thank you for having us.
Wonderful to be here.
Shauna (00:40):
Thank you so much for having us.
Rachel (00:44):
Can you just give us a little bit of a brief overview
of the community engagement andcivic learning office, or as
we'll call it probablythroughout the episode, CECiL?
Kristen (00:53):
Yes, I'll kick us off.
So the CECiL office was formallylaunched in 2022, and it was a
part of our quality enhancementplan.
And really through that plan,George Mason identified a
specific focus on expanding theopportunities for students and
faculty to do community engagedwork during their time at George
Mason, whether that's throughstudent programs, curricular
experiences, faculty teaching,engaged research.
(01:15):
And also hoping that throughthat we would also be able to
deepen the communitypartnerships amount of
organizations that we're workingwith, the ways in which that
those partner organizations caninterface with George Mason and
really deepen the relationshipsin that space.
So we've been, we're, I guessthat puts us at about three
years now.
So relatively new office.
And we have a handful ofsignature programs.
So our, we have signaturestudent programs.
(01:36):
These are all paid kind ofinternship like experiences, but
our students are doing really,really meaningful work with
local nonprofit organizations,generally for about eight to 10
hours a week during the academicyear.
And then in our engaged summerprogram, which is run by Shauna,
doing that at a higher level upto 30 hours a week during that
time, we also have some facultydevelopment experiences that
range from like one time attendthis workshop, learn a little
(01:57):
bit.
Up to cohort-based experienceswhere folks are working with us
over the course of an entiresemester or a few months at a
time.
And then we have a number ofevents that are really designed
to be.
Kinda exposure opportunities forfolks to get a taste of what
does it mean to do sort of civicengagement broadly or community
engagement work in the area.
So learn about different issuesthrough an event series.
We do call engage, learn aboutdifferent organizations through
(02:19):
things like our service fair.
So trying to make sure thatwe've got opportunities from,
Hey, what is this?
Let's get to know you all theway up to really deep,
meaningful, engagingopportunities for students and
faculty to work withcommunities.
Rachel (02:30):
Yeah, that's great.
Thanks Kristen.
And for those of us who might beless familiar with the Quality
Enhancement Plan or the QEP,it's part of a university's
accreditation efforts.
So we've had ones in the past atMason that we're focused on like
under.
Graduate research and they lastgenerally in the like six to
eight year kind of range.
So it's really an integral partof, of the university
(02:52):
experience.
Shauna, was there anything youwanted to add for this part?
Shauna (02:57):
Yeah, I'll just say that I also really appreciate that
the work of our office is aboutbringing together all of the
other things.
Right.
That happens at Mason.
And so, oftentimes when Iexplain our office to students
as I talk about it, as one ofthe various ways that students
can get involved in communityservice and acute community
(03:18):
engagement.
So our office works alongside,our faculty works alongside
student groups, who are doingcommunity service, working on
alongside student researchers.
Pulling together our partners.
And so we really are aboutbuilding a coalition of offices
(03:40):
and programs that are thinkingabout how we can really push the
needle on social justice in thisarea through community engaged
experiences.
Rachel (03:52):
Absolutely.
And if I can just add to that,Shana, I just wanna give a shout
out to both of you and youroffice.
I, you know, after attendingyour end of your event, it's
sometimes rare to see studentsas excited as they are about
programming, about academicrelated or academic adjacent
types of things, as I saw atthis past year's end of year
(04:12):
event.
So massive congratulations toyou for all of the impact and
work that you do.
Shauna (04:17):
Thank you.
Rachel (04:18):
Yeah, as we're talking about this type of impact, if we
step that back into the teachingspace, it's a lot of work for
instructors, for faculty toinclude a community engaged
element or this type ofcommunity partnership in their,
(04:39):
you know, pedagogical strategiesin their teaching.
What are some of the benefits ofmaking these rather large
investments?
Shauna (04:49):
Yeah, I can kick it off here.
I think when we think aboutcommunity engaged teaching, we
look at there being benefits forboth faculty, students and
community partners on thefaculty side, right?
Like we're talking aboutinnovation in teaching.
Faculty members' work withcommunity based organizations
(05:10):
allows them to think differentlyabout how they wanna bring
material, how they want toengage students, and how they
want to do learning in theclassroom.
And so that allows them a reallyinteresting lens to now think
about their student learningoutcomes by incorporating
community-based learning intothe classes that they teach.
(05:33):
We can also think about the waysthat this kind of scholarship
and teaching, right?
Because community engagementwith faculty is about a
pedagogy, so we can also thinkabout the ways that community
engaged teaching and researchreally benefits the faculty
members by deepening theirconnections to the community.
(05:55):
And so as they're thinking kindof big picture about what's
going on and what kind ofscholarship that they might be
able to produce, they're able tolook and work with communities
to think about the on the groundimpact for them.
So we think about that forfaculty.
For students, it's also aboutthat engagement, giving them
(06:16):
hands-on experiences,professional development skills,
and opportunity to thinkcritically about social justice
issues.
And then for our communitypartners, they're also now sort
of increasing their access toresources from working with the
institution, right.
As well as being able to buildcapacity in their own
organizations, bringing newideas, new energy to the work
(06:40):
that they're already doing.
And so we really think aboutthis as everyone that
participates kind of benefitsfrom that in a variety of
different ways, depending onwhat kinds of ways that you're
engaging with community in yourteaching.
Kristen (06:54):
Yeah, I echo everything Shauna said, and I think I
appreciate the way she brokedown the different audiences and
how they're all benefited bythis type of learning.
I feel like I say this jokinglyin some ways, but like truly
mean I think it's a high impactpractice that is in some ways
sort of a supercharged practicebecause of its ability to have
this benefit that does hit allthese different audiences.
(07:16):
And when you hit that communityimpact piece and you're looking
at students being able to dowork that's like bringing real
capacity to the communities thatthey work in, to the communities
that they're living in for thisamount of time, but is also
bridging that gap between thethings that they wanna do, the
reason that they're in college.
There's skills that they get topractice, things they get to try
out for the first time.
And connect that to like meaningmaking and what it means to be a
(07:37):
member of a community and whatit means to be a member of a
society, and see themselves asagents of change.
But if you're gonna do that andyou can think about all the ways
in which your teaching may beimproved, there's some research
that suggests that faculty whodo community-based learning also
just use active learningpedagogies more broadly in their
teaching, even if that courseisn't community engaged.
Rachel (07:54):
Yeah, I would think,
Kristen (07:55):
So we're, it's like you may
Shauna (07:56):
Mmhmm.
Kristen (07:57):
Supercharge all of your other courses, yeah, in the
process you may see that happenand students are learning better
in that type of environment.
We know they're retaininginformation, practicing it.
And then a third group thatcould include partners but could
exist outside of our partners,are employers are then seeing
the skills that they wanna seefrom students too.
And so I think, to just put acouple other examples to what
(08:17):
Shauna already really well said.
There's a lot of benefit sort ofwrapped around that I think can
make the added work and the timeworth it.
And I will say
Shauna (08:25):
Mmhmm.
Kristen (08:25):
It's al always more work at the start too.
Once you get relationshipsgoing, you have a course built
and designed with this pedagogy,you have partners that you work
with, like it gets easier andyou build that muscle memory of
what it looks to do this, andthen it's just a part of your
typical pedagogy.
But the benefits really arethere to make it
Rachel (08:41):
Yeah, absolutely.
Especially when we're in an ageof questioning the importance of
higher education, of studentsquestioning the relevance of the
time and effort they put intotheir classes, their activities.
We're not trying to sell them onit, but we're showing the
skills, showing the relevance,showing that impact, I think is
so, so valuable.
But let's talk about what aresome of the best practices for
(09:02):
community engagement?
Or perhaps put another way, whatare we actually doing when we're
talking about community engagedteaching and how do we go about
doing it?
Shauna (09:11):
There are a couple of things that I think about when I
am thinking about the bestpractices for approaching this
work.
So I'll say like the first onethat comes to mind is this idea
about like, seeing the communityas knowledgeable, as
co-educators in this process.
A lot of times when we kind of,the history of service has
(09:33):
oftentimes lended this idea thatwe are working for folks.
This idea of kind of like cominginto communities and doing
things to make them better.
And so if we kind of flip thaton its head, and understand that
communities, folks that aredealing with the issues, folks
that are in the trenches on theground, right?
(09:54):
Like they have as much knowledgeabout a subject as possible.
We can flip that to thinkingabout this as working with
communities, as opposed to for.
So I think about that as thefirst approach that's important
in doing this work.
And with that then leads to thisidea that when designing a
community engaged courseexperience, being able to align
(10:21):
that work with the needs of thecommunity, listening to
community members, communitypartners, organizations about
what do you need help with?
What are the gaps?
How can we support, right?
And then being able to frameyour work around that.
The other thing I wanna add too,before Kristen, well, I know
(10:43):
Kristen has some things that shewants to add too, but, the other
thing I think about that I thinkis really important in terms of
best practices, is also thisidea of making sure that there
are reflections for students,right?
And so, within communityengagement, you want to provide
opportunities for students tothink about the work that
they're doing, how it's impactedhow it connects to the things
(11:08):
that they're learning in classor to other issues.
Their own ways of being, thekinds of ways that they
understand certain things, andso making sure that there's
reflection built into yourcourse, your curriculum, those
experiences for students.
Kristen (11:24):
You set up perfectly.
I feel like one of the spots Ialways like to go with this
question, which is making surethat if you're considering
adding a community-basedlearning pedagogy to your
course, to your teaching in someway, that it's aligned with the
course learning objectives.
So Shauna already talked aboutmaking sure it actually meets
that community need and thatwe're really thinking about
students working with, not forthe organizations, the
(11:47):
partnerships.
But there was a long time wherea lot of, I feel like the
literature in the servicelearning space would talk about
like hitting this magical 20hours, if you're gonna do it.
And I feel like thatunfortunately started a trend of
people just doing like adding onhours to a course and it was
find service wherever you wantand just have students complete
hours.
And if they do 20 hours in thecommunity, this like magical
learning thing will happen,
Rachel (12:07):
Magical learning! All right.
Our new thing.
Shauna (12:10):
Yeah.
Kristen (12:11):
Right, this magical.
And they'll take away all thesegreat things that we know can
happen.
But I think the more likelyscenario and most of the sort of
current research confirms thatit needs to be aligned with the
student learning outcomes, thecourse learning outcomes for the
course.
When students were, and this waseven from just sort of my own
graduate research, when studentsin interviews were talking about
(12:32):
when it was just randomlyassigned, they had to do things,
there was no connection betweenthe service that they were doing
with a partner and what theylearned in class.
But when you identify specificlearning outcomes or just one
outcome for your course that isachieved by virtue of doing a
service project or doing workwith a partner, those are the
places where the learning isreally maximized, where students
are applying those concepts.
And then to Shauna's point aboutreflection, you're seeing that
(12:53):
in the way that they're writingabout it.
You'll get better reflectionswhen students understand why
those two things are happeningin the first place, why they're
doing this experience.
And so it oftentimes, instead ofthinking of it as an add-on, it
truly can be a replacement foreither an assignment that was in
the course, a text today we'reusing.
An expression that we sometimesuse in the field is like"Service
as Text." Like that experienceis and should be thought of.
(13:15):
So you could remove an entirebook from a course if you're
gonna add service.
It shouldn't just be this thingthat you're putting on top of.
But really stepping back andlooking at what outcome am I
achieving through doing that?
And I think one other thing thatit's hard in the best practice
space, like saying flexibilityfeels like not saying quite
enough, but understanding ifyour course, your teaching
(13:36):
style, whatever this thing is,has enough flexibility that the
unpredictability of acommunity-based learning course.
When you open up to experientiallearning, you don't exactly know
what's gonna happen.
You're adding more variables.
If you're instruction style, ifthe course itself isn't flexible
enough.
You know you're teaching a let'ssay a core course that has these
very specific objectives, thenyou can't move those and there
(13:57):
isn't an obvious way that one ofthose can be, will absolutely be
achieved and can be achieved inthat case, then it's okay to
decide like, this specificcourse isn't a good fit.
But knowing if your style, yourwillingness for uncertainty, all
these different things, becauseit does require a lot of
flexibility and the willingnessto adapt with students as the
semester's going, adapt withpartners as the semester is
going, and just be willing tostep back and say, we need to
(14:19):
look at this a littledifferently and do that.
Having that approach andinvolving the partners as early
as you can in the design aresome of the other things that I
think really benefit.
I dropped like four thingsthere, Shauna.
Where is there something I youwanna pick more up on?
I feel like there is.
Shauna (14:31):
No! Because I think that that was perfect, right?
Because I think in, in all ofthis, in this conversation, when
we're talking about bestpractices, right?
We're touching on all of thethings that faculty are, and
that we've heard from faculty,from students, from our
community partners, and that weknow from research, as this
field has grown and has had moreattention.
I think that these are, theseare spot on.
We're, we're doing a good job.
Rachel (14:55):
Could you give us maybe a couple of examples?
You know, and we talk about, andespecially when your office
talks about, when I also, fromthe Teaching and Learning Center
side, talk with faculty, there'sdifferent levels for their work
with the CECiL office of theirprogramming within their
courses.
So, you know, we go from kind ofthat baseline overview to a
super high level servicelearning type of course.
(15:18):
Can you walk us through whatmaybe some of the examples of
that would be to give sometangible things of where people
can think about where they mightwanna be in the future?
Kristen (15:28):
Yeah, so when we were designing the office and our
kind of curriculum, coursedesignation process, we wanted
to make it really accessible forfaculty who haven't done this
work before and are interestedto have a place that they can
start.
And so we have three differentcourse designations essentially
from at the ground levelexploration and those types of
classes, we're looking forfaculty to incorporate civic
(15:50):
knowledge, civic identity, civicaction, those concepts into
their course, but it doesn'thave to be through a service, a
service learning, or communitybased learning experience.
So this is a great way for thatfaculty member who wants to get
started but isn't quite ready todo work with a partner or needs
time to build thoserelationships with a partner,
but realizes that, making surethat, let's say, an engineering
(16:11):
student, has the chance to learnabout how zoning laws were
written and how redlining maybeimpacted a community and how
there's still some work that'shappening in that way to kind of
undo some of those effects, howthat impacts you as an engineer.
Right.
It's just like a off the top ofmy mind example that you could
give.
Incorporating that, don't haveto use a partner right away, but
what are some texts, what aresome interviews?
What are some sources thatstudents can look through?
(16:32):
And having there be some kind ofdemonstration of learning
through a reflection or a grouppresentation or something that
shows the learning from thatcourse.
That's what we're looking at,that introductory level.
And then moving up to acommunity-based learning course.
Of course, so this is for afaculty member who wants to
start involving a partner orpartners with their course,
having students do somethinghands-on.
The kind of changes during COVIDI think have really expanded.
(16:55):
And so sometimes I feel like myanswers are like, if this isn't
good for you, don't do it.
Not discouraging, this is gonnabe a more encouraging answer.
I think there's a lot more ways,and we've gotten more creative
in how service learning can beincorporated in a course.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto look like students going two
to three times a week to a site.
We do encourage them to go whenpossible, but some work can be
done virtually.
So I think there's a lot morecourses that can do this kind of
(17:17):
work than could before'cause wegot creative during this time in
different ways.
But anyway, so that, that middlelevel yeah is looking at
students who are doing what wethink of as a more
community-based learningexperience.
They're probably working with apartner either individually or
as a group on some kind ofproject that both meets that
student learning outcome andmeets the community identified
need.
And we're trying to find thatsweet spot.
And then the highest level arekind of capstone like courses.
(17:39):
We call it like a Mason Impactplus civic engagement course.
But this is where students aregenerally doing original work
with a partner.
They have a research questionthat they co-designed with that
partner.
They get to produce somethingnew for the first time.
They get to do kind of thathigher level.
These are generally gonna be,again, smaller classes, major
specific opportunities wherestudents get to really, really
dig in in that space.
(18:00):
And so if you're a facultymember just wanting to try it
out, think about redesigningyour course with that civic
learning component, or ifyou're, again, operating at a
really high level, maybechallenge yourself to think
about how you could incorporatecommunicated research or
something like that into theexperience.
Rachel (18:14):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's important to also
highlight here, we're oftentalking about, or almost all the
time talking about our localcommunities.
So, yeah.
But as we talk about this, thereare a lot of barriers.
You know, we might be thinkingabout time, you know, the kind
of learning curve for faculty toget into that service learning,
community engaged learning typeof instructional space, funding,
(18:37):
all kinds of things.
So how might your office besupporting Mason faculty with
some of these common or thesefrequent barriers?
Kristen (18:49):
Yes.
I'll start us off.
So those three that you named,we find time, money, and
knowledge about the pedagogy arereally the three things that
kind of stand in the way and wedo the best we can.
We've designed a lot of ourfaculty benefits programs,
experiences with those threethings in mind.
So from a knowledge perspective,as I alluded to a little bit
earlier, but we have kind of ahandful of faculty training or
(19:11):
faculty development resources,many of which we partner with on
the Stearns Center on to helpprovide that knowledge.
If it's purely, I don't exactlyknow what incorporating
reflection into my course wouldeven look like, or I'm not sure
that I'm connected enough tothink of what issues would work
with my course or definedpartners.
We have a lot of differentsessions, again, from one time
we have some content just livingon our website, CECiL.GMU.edu,
(19:34):
that has just basic videos thatfolks can watch right away and
get some primers on what is thiswork, even lessons that they can
do in their class that help withfacilitating reflections and
that sort of thing.
Up to longer, I'm thinking ofredesigning my course.
Can you support me step by stepthrough that process?
Through our cohort experiences,we have everything in that space
to try it again, provide thatknowledge, and even some of the
community around it.
(19:54):
'cause we can then connect thosefaculty with others who have
done this work before and cangive some suggestions, tips,
things they learned, that kindof thing.
From a money perspective, wehave a couple different process
in place.
One is a thing calledMicrogrants.
For any of the courses that gothrough our designation process,
it's up to$500 for your course.
And that can cover things likespeaker fees, if there's someone
you wanna bring in, money totake students somewhere, if they
(20:16):
need to reimburse a few studentsfor travel, if that's a barrier
for the students in the coursewho are taking the course as
well.
So to be able to provide thatkind of resource for folks is
something that we have.
And then there are stipendedexperiences through things like
our cohort.
So if it's a little bit of moneypersonally to be able to invest
in this kind of professionaldevelopment, that's something
that we can offer as well.
And then from a timeperspective, we are able to
(20:37):
assist folks in some of thoselogistics of the course.
So if a course goes through ourdesignation process, we can help
with finding partners gettingmatched even coming in and if
there's content you would wantsomeone from our team to be able
to facilitate for your class, wecan do that.
To be able to remove one lessonthat you have to plan, say for
your course, and we can step inand do that.
You know, to remove a little, acouple of those barriers.
(20:58):
And so we've really tried todesign the office with thinking
of those different things inmind.
Rachel (21:02):
Yeah, that's great.
So I think here what we'rereally looking at today with our
keystone concept is connection.
You know, we have, obviously theconnection with community.
They're building authenticconnections with our
communities, our communitypartners, or even just building
those connections into ourcourses, the relevance.
But also, of course as we talkabout this, the connections with
(21:23):
the CECiL office for support andreally that peer element that we
were just discussing.
Having instructors talk witheach other.
You know, teaching can be veryisolating and especially when
you're trying out something new,you know, getting some of those,
Hey, I learned this, I triedthis.
Maybe here's some tips andrecommendations can be really
valuable.
So talking with each other aswell.
(21:44):
So thank you both for joiningus.
I really appreciate your timeand your insights.
This was, been a lot of fun, atleast for me.
Hope it was for you, too.
Shauna (21:52):
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I had a great time talking aboutthis work.
Kristen (21:57):
Yeah.
Same.
Thank you so much for having us.
Rachel (21:59):
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you everyone forlistening.
Please catch our next episode.
We're posting every two weeksduring the fall and spring
semesters.
So I hope we'll have you back inthis space in whatever way that
you listen, and we'll talk aboutother keystone concepts in
teaching.
So thank you so much.
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