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 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.
As a capstone course for several streams of geography students, students worked in small groups to contact community partners and organize projects that aligned with their interests and the course learning objectives. The core of the course was a group project; in small teams, students identified a problem, designed a solution, gathered the necessary data, implemented the solution, and presented their results.
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.
Systems for faculty career advancement – including promotion, tenure, and professional development – have often not kept pace with changing faculty roles. They further have not met the demands of major funding agencies or the mandate that publicly funded research benefit all citizens. To address this topic, the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences and the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute hosted a 3-hour workshop on May 6th, 2016. This workshop guided participants on how to document and assess engaged scholarship and impact in the context of tenure and promotion application.
This guide was completed as part of a collaborative project co-led with Sustain Ontario, and is aimed at educators or community organizers who are interested in helping connect children and youth to good food.
Author(s):
Erin Nelson, Monika Korzun, Sophie Maksimowski, Rachel Salt, Robbyn Sargent, Kelly Janz, Kimberley Stemshorn