For the duration of the course, students worked with one of two community partners to address a problem or issue that the partner organization was facing. Through lectures and guest speakers, students gained the terminology and technical knowledge needed to produce a final report. Students also gained professional experience aggregating their findings and presenting them to an audience in their end-of-term conference.
As the central focus of the class, students planned for, developed, and disseminated Knowledge Translation (KT) products to community partners. Along with the course instructor, students collectively monitored their progress over the semester and ultimately produced three projects each: an infographic, a taped media interview, and a newspaper/blog posting. Classes were a mix of guest lectures, workshop opportunities, instructor-led discussions and in-class assignments about evidence-based practice and knowledge translation.
Throughout the semester, students worked with a community partner to develop a website, database, mobile app, or other platform to meet the needs of the partner organization. The course was intensive in terms of time and involvement expected within the semester.
Throughout this course, students worked with a community partner to analyze and approach broad social issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. A unique aspect of the course was that there were no clear rubrics or mark breakdowns established. Students were informed about bare minimum requirements, but were encouraged to think beyond how to perform to meet expectations, and engaged in conversations with the instructors regarding appropriate learning goals and outcomes based on their discipline and year-level.
Throughout the course, graduate students developed knowledge, skills and values related to the principles and practices of community-engaged scholarship (CES). Working with one community partner (varies each semester), they applied their knowledge to develop a product to solve a problem brought forward by the community partner.
As a major component of the course (50%), the class partnered with Victim Services Wellington to conduct a literature review and ultimately create a safety assessment checklist that could be used by the community partner. Throughout the term, students worked in collaborative learning teams (3-5 people per group) to complete different elements of the project, before the class congregated to collaboratively construct the final product.
On Thursday, November 7th the Community Engaged Scholarship Instiutte hosted participants from a range of sectors to learn with and from international community engagement experts Dr. Emma McKenna (Queen’s University Belfast) and Dr. Henk Mulder (University of Groningen).
On Friday, November 8th 2019 the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute marked the 10th anniversary of the Research Shop by holding a public symposium to reflect on our work and continue to enhance our knowledge of community-university research practice and impacts.