Community Based Resources During Crisis

What is Virtual Community Engagement?

How does Technology Impact Community Engagement?

The introduction of technologies in experientially based curricula allows for the effect of service to extend well beyond the classroom (Guthrie & McCraken, 2010) 

Online education brings students together from diverse geographic, cultural, social, and economic areas of the country and world. 

Collectively, this adds great variety and diversity of experiences that inform social action, ethics, and leadership within the framework of community engagement activities.

Tasks are carried out differently compared to traditional in-person community engagement activities. While different, technology allows for the virtual communication, development of content, and progress management etc.

Below are two toolkits to digitalize common community engagement tasks:

Toolkit to Digitize Service Learning Tasks

A list of resources that support educators and students transition to digital spaces to communicate, develop content, manage progress and carry out common service learning tasks. For more information about CSUSB's software, visit csusb.edu/its/software

Communication

• Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp

Community Data Collection

• Google Forms, Qualtrics, Social Media Surveys (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

Collaborative Authoring

• Google Docs, Slides, Sheets; Adobe Creative Cloud

Collaborative Resource Sharing

• Google Drive

Media Sharing

• Instagram, Facebook, Portfolium, Camtasia

Presentations

• Zoom, Google Slides, VoiceThread, PowerPoints with Voice Record Feature

Digital Service Learning Reflection Tools

Review this guide to help identify software that best suits your service learning reflection activities. Software is categorized by its ability to share the reflection activity with different audiences.

Individuals (Only student and faculty)

• Inside Blackboard: Assignment tool
• Outside Blackboard: Email, Google Drive

Teams or The Entire Class

• Inside Blackboard: Group Discussions, Class Discussions, Group Journal, Group Wiki, Group Blog
• Outside Blackboard: Google Documents, Voice Tread, Vimeo, Microsoft Office

Anyone

• Inside Blackboard: N/A
• Outside Blackboard: Online Gallery (Flickr), Online Portfolio (Portfolium), Short Video Reflections (FlipGrid), Long Video Reflections (YouTube), Publications (ScholarWorks)

Benefits of Virtual Community Engagement [Strait &Sauer]

When conducting online courses, virtual community engagement offers excellent outreach to community organizations and fills a void in meeting community needs. Students will get the opportunity to gain real-world work experience and build long-lasting partnerships with their communities that will benefit their future careers. The experiences provide rich, authentic, hands-on training for students.

Virtual community engagement challenges students to think in new ways, explore new ways of problem solving, and raise critical questions about their learning and service. Students get the opportunity to wrestle with complex issues right in their own communities and to become a part of the solution. These solutions are shared with peers statewide, assisting other small towns and businesses that may have similar needs.

Best Practices to Overcome Barriers

Faculty Support Services provided by OCE

Planning Virtual Partnerships

For those of you wanting to virtually redevelop the strong relationships with your current partners, and those of you looking to develop new online partnerships, we have compiled a list of ‘best practices’ and resources for developing and maintaining remote partnerships. 

The three main categories below identify ‘best practices’ and should be addressed during the partnership development phase:

Technology

• Training for students, community partner, instructor
• Bridge synchronous and asynchronous methods
• Trial runs prior to live sessions
• Assess community partner and student technical capacity

Communication

• Clear expectations in memorandums of understanding
• Community partner access to course shell
• Use of groups; group space on course management system (eg. Asana)
• Community partner "reveal"

Course design

• Service related to learning objectives
• Appropriate typology
• Reflection
• Community partner and student feedback

Follow this 3 step resource guide to cultivate successful virtual community partnerships:

Step 1 - Learn Key Tips for Online Community Engagement

Step 2 - Approaching a Partner with a Virtual Project

Step 3 - Complete a Remote Self Assessment Survey

Virtual Service Suggestions

When considering the development of a virtual community engagement component for online courses, consider the following suggestions:

• Start small.
• Train the students.
• Plan for community partner contact.
• Plan extra time for unexpected outcomes.
• Include a reflection component

Continue Reading about Virtual Suggestions HERE

Taking Virtual Community Action

There are alternate ways to connect your course to the community. These resources below can help explore concepts of community with your students.

Remote Community Engagement Opportunities

Digital Service Learning Ideas

Here is an example of a Class Incorporating Virtual Community Engagement: 

Student-Generated Science Podcasts for a Community Partner

Reflection Resources

Reflect timeline (CSU Channel Islands - Reflection & Service Learning):
1) Before, 2) during and 3) toward the end of the experience
 
Reflection focus (Indiana University - Reflection Questions): Issue, Client, Self, Course
 
Reflection topics (Gateway Technical College - Service Learning Reflection Toolkit): What? So What? Now What?
 
Different levels of reflection (Oregon Campus Compact - Guide to Reflection): 1) Room to grow, 2) Quality reflection, 3) Mastery in reflection
 
Emotion and reflection (Felten, Gilchrist & Darby, 2006)