Resources
Course & Curriculum Design
When faculty, students and community partners use their collective expertise to tackle real-world challenges, learning and problem solving can reach entirely new levels. That’s why one of the top objectives of the Office of Engagement Initiatives is to create opportunities and generate demand for students to participate in community-engaged learning courses.
Community-engaged learning coursework, projects, partnerships, goals and outcomes will look dramatically different across different disciplines. What’s most important is that you find a model that works best for your students and your partners.
Just look at how much variety there is in Cornell’s community-engaged learning curricula:
- The community food systems minor and the crime, prisons, education and justice minor connect community-engaged learning courses and learning outcomes so students have a pathway of engagement to follow.
- FDSC 4000: Capstone Project in Food Science allows students to apply their learning in real-life situations with local food entrepreneurs.
- Traveling over winter break, the Cornell Wind Symphony (CU Winds) visited partners in Haiti and the Dominican Republic to find out the transformative power of music for cultural and economic development.
No matter how your course takes shape, you’ll want to have it tagged as community-engaged learning. If you meet the criteria, contact the registrar in your college or school to ask about course tagging.
Tool
- Check the list of community-engaged learning courses at Cornell to see what’s currently offered.
- Watch the six modules (about 20 minutes each) in the Designing and Delivering a Service-Learning Course video series from the UMass Dartmouth Leduc Center.
- Review Six Models for Service-Learning to see which approach is right for you, your students and your community partners.
- Filter and browse engaged course syllabi in the Campus Compact database.
- See university policies for awarding credit if you’re asking students to complete community-engaged learning over the summer or winter break.
To take a deeper dive into course and curriculum design resources, visit the Canvas site. (Don’t have access? Let us know!)
You may also be interested in:
- Attending the two-day Faculty Institute on Community Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT)
- Applying to join the yearlong Engaged Faculty Fellowship Program
- Applying for an Office of Engagement Initiatives grant
Questions?
Get in touch. Anna Sims Bartel, (607) 254-4510, and Amanda Wittman, (607) 255-1478, from the Office of Engagement Initiatives are eager to connect — on the phone, over email or in person.