WORKSHOPS

 

The Sixth Annual Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Conference will be offering 9 workshop options for the conference on April 6th.  On the EventBrite registration form, please indicate which session you will be attending.  *Sessions will be running simutameously so you can only attend one.*

From Baltimore to Brazil: Engaging Teens in Civic Engagement & Community through English Language Learning Online

Heidi Faust, Dr. Joan Shin, Dr. Joby Taylor, Thomas Penniston, and Jared Kebell

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

What are the assets of a community? Who gets to decide? In the spirit of broadening University perspectives on community, this workshop will engage participants in community assets mapping activities and dialog around contested concepts of community, culture, civic engagement, leadership and social change in transnational partnerships. This student and faculty presentation will put workshop participants in dialog with voices from participants of the ACCESS Community Leadership Course (ACLC) through sharing student work. ACLC is an online, content-based English course on civic engagement for youth from economically disadvantaged communities offered in Partnership with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, US Department of State, Local Maryland High Schools and Embassies Abroad. The course design and related student and faculty research consider critical pedagogy, as well as critical contested concepts. Workshop participants will gain an understanding of the course model, sample activities, and how community partnerships were fostered across diverse geographic, linguistic, cultural and political spaces.

 

Writing Beyond Bars: Turning the Community Writing Workshop Inside Out             

Barbara Roswell, Katherine Dehler, Natalie Guajardo, Zoe Miller, Kaitlyn Pavia, Hallie Yarmus, and Evan Wisnowski

Goucher College

Goucher’s Writing Beyond Bars first year seminar brings together students from Goucher’s main campus and incarcerated students in the Goucher Prison Education Partnership to participate in a semester-long, co-enrolled for-credit writing course held in prison. Students on both sides of the prison walls write essays, stories, poems and reflections, while engaging in a collaborative, dialogic examination of social justice issues and developing individually and collectively as agents of change.  In this workshop, student presenters will briefly reflect on their experience in the course and then will invite all attendees to participate in a cluster of activities that provide a “taste” of this innovative approach to writing creatively while provoking reflection, challenging stereotypes, and building community.  Participants in this hands-on workshop will leave with a pathway through which to become involved in prison education and set of innovative writing and discussion strategies that can be adapted to diverse community settings.            


Working at the Intersection of University, Community, and Public Schools

Rachel Carter and Dr. Helen Atkinson, Baltimore Teacher Network and UMBC

Dr. Eric Rice, Johns Hopkins University

How do we form collaborative partnerships to support connections between educational theory and the reality of the public school classroom?  What kinds of topics will bring teachers to the discussion, and what kinds of readings and discussion formats (blogs, face-to-face, etc) produce the most meaningful results? The members of the Baltimore Teacher Network's Committee for Teacher Voice are engaged in answering this question.  We are university faculty members, doctoral students, public school teachers and administrators, and community activists with a shared mission of empowering Baltimore teachers through having a voice on policy issues and engaging in meaningful action research.  Please join us for a discussion of how we formed and the work we're doing to support holistic, authentic education in Baltimore City.  Our workshop objective is to explore answers to our essential question through guided discussion, examples, and a focus on the various perspectives of the workshops participants.

 

Connecting Communties with Food

Ryan Donnelly

Community College of Baltimore County

This workshop will discuss the Real Food Challenge as an opportunity for members of the community to engage with the surrounding local food economy by evaluating food sources available on local college campuses.   Real Food Challenge is a student initiative aimed at increasing the availability of food that is “local/community based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane” on college campuses.  Using their Real Food Calculator, this program works to assess the percentage of “real food” available on a college campus, and then works with the institution to reach a goal of 20% real food.  Workshop participants will be apprised of the process of becoming a pilot program, have the opportunity to discuss the feasibility of such a program on their campus/institution, explore coordination between institutions, and examine potential links with other community based service/leadership programs.

  

Putting the Social Change Model to Work: Implementing Civic Engagement in Social Work Courses

Dr. Jessica Guzmán-Rea, Erin L. Berry, and Kathleen Algire-Fedarcyk

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

As a recipient of a curriculum development grant, which supports faculty in modifying existing courses that empower students as civic agents, this workshop will focus on the use of the Social Change Model and implementation of civic engagement in a Social Work course. By utilizing the Social Change Model, an assessment of the SOWK 200 service-learning course re-design, the impact of civic engagement on the students, the role that the local community partners played in creating agents of change, and best practices will be explored. The purpose of this workshop is to engage the audience in dialogue about what they consider to be positive social change, what does it look like, and how can it be applied in future academic courses.

 

Building and Nurturing Reciprocal Community/University Partnerships

Diane Kuthy, Towson University

Cait Byrnes, 901 Arts

Casey Hagerty, Woodlawn High School

Join a service learning fellow, a student, and a community representative for an interactive presentation to learn about best practice strategies for building and maintaining long term reciprocal partnerships between community organizations and universities. 

Towson University’s Community Based Arts Teaching a course that prepares art students to teach in community contexts will be discussed. As part of the course, students select service learning placements among community-based organizations in Baltimore city. Students spend time each week at their community placements and collaboratively create an action plan and write a service learning grant for their project.

901 Arts in Better Waverly will be featured as a model case study through a student’s and community representative’s perspective.  Wisdom gained through other university/community partnerships will also be shared. 

 A guide for creating an action plan to establish and maintain community/university partnerships will be disseminated and discussed.   

 

From Visitors to Activists: A Case Study of Alternative Breaks in Rwanda

Caroline Brazill

American University

Familiar with the alternative break movement? Come learn about the framework of a successful alternative break trip as outlined by the national organization Break Away. We will then elaborate on its implications in the context of an alternative break to Rwanda which studied healing and justice after genocide. The goal of the presentation is to introduce the alternative break framework, demonstrate its effectiveness through personal story and case study, and inspire audience members to pursue their own areas of interest in terms of investigating a cause, advocating on behalf of others, or planning their own alternative break trip.


World War Words - Saying More than you Meant

Shawntay Stocks

Carroll Community College

The focus of this workshop will explore how microaggressions impact our service to people, communities and organizations. Often, we may think we are communicating one thing, but what people receive can be different than what we intended. The workshop will address questions such as:


SOURCE Service-Learning Faculty Fellows Program: Formalizing Academic Service-Learning

Mindi B. Levin

Johns Hopkins University

In 2012, Johns Hopkins University’s (JHU) SOURCE (Student Outreach Resource Center) – the community service and service-learning center for the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health – launched its inaugural SOURCE Service-Learning Faculty Fellows Program (FFP) cohort.  The program is designed to support faculty to integrate service-learning pedagogy into their curriculum while partnering with Baltimore City non-profits.  During this inaugural cohort, faculty have engaged in a collective reflective process in order to answer difficult questions about engaging with communities, overcoming challenges and improving student and community experiences.   Through this process, the cohort has gained an appreciation for the collaborative process as well as the need for institutional level change for innovative models of learning and engaging with the community. This workshop intends to provide an overview of the program, offer examples of courses and partnerships, discuss key values and approaches, and articulate the importance of a cohort model for faculty engagement in service-learning.