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Community-based learning (CBL), also known as service learning (SL), provides students with an active and meaningful learning environment and has been studied in STEM courses for several decades. Chemistry for the Community is a novel chemistry curriculum that weaves service-learning projects throughout multiple courses, including gateway courses, and allows students to build self-efficacy and transferable skills. Over a three-year period, students experienced multiple projects while enrolled in two-semester general and organic chemistry courses, and one-semester organic survey, environmental, and analytical chemistry courses. Student experiences, gathered by surveys, reflections, and interviews were compared to those of students conducting equivalent non-SL projects, as well as projects conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public communication and community partner interaction emerged as major themes from the data and were explored through the lens of self-determination theory. Results indicate that students were anxious about their role, but were motivated by community partner interaction. Project completion corresponded to an increase in self-efficacy regarding similar future tasks, with students perceiving benefits of multiple experiences.
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Community-based Service Learning: Best Practices in Software Projects with Community Partners
Community-engaged learning is an emerging term for a wide spectrum of learning activities that bring together students and community partners in a mutually beneficial way. Service learning is a subcategory of community-engaged learning which traditionally involves the students using their skills or expertise on a project that will directly benefit the community partner. In computer science, service learning projects often include a deliverable, such as designing and building an application. Community-based service learning is service learning with a community partner, usually a non-profit, whose mission is to improve the social, environmental, or economic situation for community members. Undertaking service learning in general and community-based service learning in particular presents significant challenges. Some of these include the identification of an appropriate non-profit community partner and project, project skill alignment, managing partner expectations (failure is an option), and the reconciliation of the variable length of meaningful service-learning projects with the fixed length of a single term. However, given how these unique learning opportunities are known to be highly beneficial to students, educators continue to pursue them in spite of their inherent difficulties. This BoF seeks to gather together seasoned hands, novices, plus those interested in trying out community-based service learning to - Build a community of practice? among those who undertake community-based service learning, - share best practices, - present innovations, and - illuminate pitfalls and other practices to be avoided.
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- PAR ID:
- 10590538
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400704246
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1914 to 1914
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland OR USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Successfully implementing service learning presents many challenges. This is particularly true when working with community partners which are frequently small, understaffed non-profits, lacking in technical expertise. Participating faculty not only manage the student end of the partnership, but often need to manage/educate the community partner as well. Despite its challenges, community-based service learning is worthwhile for the profound impact it has for students. Many computing graduates only see the utilitarian aspect of computing as a tool to solve technical problems. By presenting and teaching CS as a discipline possessing key insights towards making headway on pressing social, environmental, and economic problems, students can be exposed to the impact of computing solutions on the betterment of their communities and improving the human condition. One step toward accomplishing this is by utilizing community-based service learning projects for non-profits and community organizations. In particular, since the community-based service learning partners are local, the impact of students' efforts is not abstract, but can be directly seen. It is hoped this may lead to a culture shift regarding CS, potentially also broadening participation. Clearly forming a community of practice for those undertaking or hoping to undertake service learning is an important step towards both greater adoption and approach success rates. It is hoped that this BoF can aid both current practitioners as well as provide a helping hand to potential new adopters. Our goal is to provide an opportunity to share best practices as well as the hard-learned lessons from previous attempts.more » « less
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Academia can engage with communities in a variety of ways, including an education focus (such as service-learning) or geared toward research (community engaged research, CER). These different forms of community engagement (CE) share many elements in common, while other attributes differ. This paper first compares and contrasts educationally-focused CE with CER. We then present a rubric that was developed to evaluate CER in environmental engineering, indicating what aspects are appropriate for community engaged education. The CER rubric proposes nine evaluation categories: centering on communities, capacity building, action-oriented outcome, shared leadership, shared funding, shared data, equitable valuing of CER scholarship, culturally specific assessment, and culturally specific communication and dissemination. For illustrative purposes the rubric is applied to two case studies. In the educationally-focused CE case study, a senior capstone design course in environmental engineering worked on a project defined by a community partner. The rubric did a good job revealing where improvements in the project could have been realized while also revealing that the non-profit facilitator was instrumental in engaging the community. In the second case study, a community sub-contracted an academic partner to explore residential indoor air quality. The project was at a higher level of the rubric for most criteria compared to the educationally-focused case study. Use of the rubric at the start of any project will open important conversations, thereby contributing to both the community and academic partners more fully meeting their needs.more » « less
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Recent publications strongly support refocusing undergraduate CS education toward competency-based learning. This shift places increased responsibility on departments to prepare responsible computing practitioners who appreciate how computing is inextricably intertwined with society. It emphasizes that content coverage is less important than authentic experiences that develop both ethical decision-making and industry-desired technical skills. One timetested successful strategy that helps meet these goals is communitybased service learning (CBSL). However, while CBSL has a strong track record, service learning can be challenging to implement and may not always guarantee successful student experiences. A key factor associated with CBSL's success or failure is the management of the community partner relationship. This includes initial project vetting, setting partner expectations, the role of the partner as a participant in the students' education, and final project hand-off. We introduce Scaffolded Projects for the Social Good (SPSG), a framework based on the software studio model that guides CBSL adopters through all stages of a CBSL experience. The SPSG framework pays particular attention to what are considered the most vexing aspects of CBSL: project scoping and skill matching, managing project timelines that extend beyond a single term, community partner engagement and relationship management, and project handoff and maintenance. Preliminary results from the adoption of the SPSG framework demonstrate that students were able to iteratively improve their competencies throughout the semester as a result of the regular formative feedback enabled by the SPSG framework.more » « less
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Scaffolded Projects for the Social Good (SPSG) is an adaptable service-learning framework with a low adoption threshold based on the studio model. Its goal is to enable instructors to easily embed externally sourced projects supporting Computing for the Social Good (CSG) concepts into existing software engineering or similar courses and addresses the barriers common to service learning, as well as other frameworks with similar CSG-related objectives. Establishing connections between computing and its societal benefits has proven to be an effective strategy for attracting students, especially those from underrepresented groups within the discipline. Furthermore, this work supports competency-based learning by offering students an opportunity to solve real-world problems in an authentic environment using current industrial practices and tools coupled with strong mentoring support from volunteer professionals and near-peers. Using a studio model helps overcome the timing impedance between the length of a single academic term and the timeframes required to complete real-world projects with student teams.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635374
