Module 1: What is Community Engagement?
This module provides an overview of community engagement and experiential education: definitions, uses at McMaster, and benefits/advantages of experiential forms of education.
Module 1 Learning Objectives
At the end of Module 1, learners will be able to:
- Differentiate between community engaged and experiential education at McMaster University
- Generate examples of potential community engaged and experiential education opportunities at McMaster
- Reflect on how community engaged and experiential education can benefit a student’s personal learning journey at McMaster
In order to engage in this learning intentionally, please spend a few minutes answering the following questions. If you are reading this Pressbook in connection with a class, your instructor may ask you to download and submit your answers to some or all of these exercises as an assignment. To facilitate this process, you can select “Download My Answers” in the top left corner of this activity when you are finished.
In this section, we introduce the ideas of community-engaged learning and begin by defining a set of terms central to practicing effective community-engaged learning.
But first, please complete the following activity.
Benchmarking Activity
It is common practice in Experiential Learning and Community-Engaged Learning to use a benchmarking activity: it occurs at the beginning and end of a course or unit so learners can do a pre-assessment of their knowledge and then, afterward, they can see how their thinking and skills have changed as a result of their learning.
Here is our opening scenario. Don’t worry if you don’t think you have the right answers now – you will be returning to the scenario at the end of the Pressbook when you will have learned how to deal with community-engaged experiences more effectively and see how your answers to the questions have changed.
Benchmarking Scenario
Part 1
A local elementary school has contacted your university class about meeting with their Grade 8 students before they fill out their high school options forms. They would like members of your class to meet individually with small groups of their students to discuss your high school and post-secondary educational experiences. Your group will then ask you questions as they plan their next steps.
You have been assigned to a small group of students and you will talk with them for one hour to give them advice. You receive short descriptions of your assigned students.
After reading the student profiles, please move on to the following questions.
Part 2
At your meeting with the students, you discover that only Lara pays attention to your advice, anxiously listening to everything you say. The other two students have already learned that adults in positions of power do not take the time to listen to them and cultivate a relationship; instead, adults tell them what to do. You sense they already feel boxed in by the educational system that only nurtures certain types of students.
Please save the answers to these questions so that when you get to the end of the Pressbook and revisit the scenario, you can compare your responses.
