Community-Based Learning Courses

Students can take courses across majors that contain a Community Based Learning component. Building upon the foundations established in CIVC 101, these courses provide students with an opportunity to gain real world skills by partnering with a community organization.

To view current and upcoming courses, please see below. CRNs link to the Term Master Schedule

Questions? Please email Carrie Hutnick at cah426@drexel.edu.

Fall Term 2019-2020

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Westphal	DANC 102-004	15661	Yoga Philosophy and Practice	Jennifer Morley	Monday and Wednesday 12:00pm-1:20pm	Kirkbride
Course Description This unique course format brings college students and community residents or organizations together in a yoga class taught by a member of the Drexel dance faculty. The primary objective of this class is to utilize our emerging yoga practice as a tool to come together in a mutually respectful learning environment. Students experience basic mindfulness practices including meditation and breath techniques. Participants will utilize these mindfulness practices as the foundation of our physical yoga practice. Each class will include either deep relaxation or a dialogue to share experiences and perspectives. No prior yoga experience necessary.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAs	BIO T280-001	15960	Connections in Life Sciences	Monica Togna	Monday and Wednesday 3:30pm-4:50pm	Alain Locke Elementary
Course Description Connections in Life Sciences is a new open enrollment course designed and intended to allow students to build connections with fundamental biology and their community which together will develop their future professional and personal pursuits. Each week a new insight into genetics that ranges from plants to the human brain will give students the opportunity to learn and to share that knowledge with the Philadelphia community. The course is designed on the Community Based Learning platform (CBL) and is scheduled to meet twice a week: one meeting will be a formal lecture on campus and one meeting will be at a partnered elementary school with the instructor and Drexel students leading an 8 week after school science club. Course assignments focus on taking a particular concept or skill learned in one of our Drexel courses, connecting it to the lesson demonstrated at the elementary school that week, researching real world applications of that technique, and identifying careers which would utilize that technique or concept. Students will gain an introduction to civic engagement, benefit from community based learning practices and connect their Drexel course material to the bigger picture in their lives.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	CJS 261-001	12700	Prison, Society and You	Cyndi Rickards	Thursday 1:00pm-4:00pm	Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description This course utilizes the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program to explore the relationship between individuals and the prison system. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an evolving set of projects that creates opportunities for dialogue between those on the outside and those on the inside of the nation’s correctional facilities. The program demonstrates the potential for dynamic collaborations between institutions of higher education and correctional institutions. Most importantly, through this unique exchange, Inside-Out and this course seek to deepen the conversation- and transform ways of thinking about crime and justice (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004). At the most basic level, this course and program allows students to go behind the walls to reconsider what they have learned about crime and justice, while those on the inside are encouraged to place their life experiences in a larger framework. Students will exchange ideas and perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, corrections and imprisonment. It is a chance for all participants to gain a deeper understanding of the criminal justice system through the marriage of theoretical knowledge and practical experience achieved by weekly meetings and extended throughout the semester (Crabbe, Pompa, 2004).

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Pennoni Honors College	HON 302-001	16024	Places of Justice	Cyndi Rickards	Mondays 2pm-4:50pm	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description We often debate the theory and praxis of justice and do not analyze the very places and spaces that encourage (or discourage) justice. Throughout this course students will practice justice by engaging with faculty, students, and community. This course will begin by analyzing classic and contemporary theories of justice. Upon the development of a theoretical foundation, students will explore and engage with the built environment and other social structures which support justice or create unjust places and practices. Topics include the built environment and infrastructure, climate, housing, education, the economy and correctional facilities.This is a Side-by-Side course and will be comprised of half Drexel students and half community students. Collectively the two groups of students will utilize their life experiences to inform and create definitions of justice. The goal of this course is to create its own place of justice in education.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	COM 376-900	12425	Nonprofit Communication	Lawrence Souder	Online	Online
Course Description All nonprofit organizations must develop and maintain effective communication strategies in order to survive in a competitive economy. Nonprofits have unique needs and limitations in their long-term goals and short-term operations that relate to communication. This course introduces students to the ways nonprofits communicate with both their constituents and their benefactors and the ways researchers have examined these practices. Students will explore these two perspectives on nonprofit communication through a combination of scholarly readings, dialogues with local representatives in the nonprofit sector, and direct contact and work for a local nonprofit organization. This course articulates with the content and goals of other courses in the Department of Communication, specifically COM280 (Public Relations), COM220 (Qualitative Research Methods), COM282 (Public Relations Writing), COM286 (Public Relations Strategies and Tactics), COM675 (Grant Writing for the Arts and Humanities), and COM680 (Public Relations Writing and Strategies). Questions of interest are: What is the nature of a nonprofit organization? How are nonprofit organizations governed? Who are the various stakeholders in a nonprofit’s community? What particular and unique kinds of formal communications do nonprofits engage in?

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	PHIL 105-006	11132	Critical Reasoning	Stacey Ake	Thursdays 12:30pm-3:20pm	Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description Critical Reasoning introduces and develops the skills involved in reasoning effectively about experience, and being able to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones. This course utilizes the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Drexel students will travel each week to the jail to meet with the other half of the class, men who are incarcerated. Collectively, Drexel and incarcerated students will learn critical reasoning as colleagues for the ten-week term.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	WRIT 215-001	12694	Story Medicine	Nomi Eve	Tuesday and Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm	CHOP
Course Description This is a Community Based Learning Course in Fiction Writing and Collaborative Creative Processes. Students go to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to perform in the Ryan Seacrest T.V. studio. Drexel Students write, perform and produce live shows for patients. Students will always use a teleprompter, so no memorization is necessary. Students regularly interact with patients who come down to participate in the Story Medicine show. All writing exercises are suitable for beginning and intermediate fiction writers. Ultimately, students will undertake self-reflective writing, and become active participants in building this course for future quarters.

Summer Term 2018-2019

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	BIO T280-001	42164	Science of Science Fiction	Susan Gurney	Thursdays 1pm-3:50pm	Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility
Course Description Do you watch science fiction films or tv shows or read science fiction books and wonder about the science which underpins the plot? Want to reflect on the scientific themes, while also considering social justice and the impact on society? Through class discussions, including incarcerated men at the Curren-Fromhold Correctional Facility, we will review these issues through a scientific lens. Prior knowledge of science fiction is not required, just a curiosity in this genre and a willingness to participate in this unique course. Different forms of science fiction media (film, tv shows, comics and stories) will be analyzed during this course.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
CoAS	PHIL 105-002	41826	Critical Reasoning	Stacey E. Ake	Tuesdays 5:00pm-7:30pm	Dornsife Center for Neighborhood Partnerships
Course Description This course will introduce and develop students' thinking skills as well as examine those things that impede our thinking clearly. It will help give students the ability to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones, identify points of vulnerability in reasoning as well as the value and reality assumptions that lie behind our everyday thoughts and actions. Students will learn to recognize logical fallacies and understand the difference between deductive and inductive arguments. Other topics include defense mechanisms and syllogistic arguments. The main theme of the course will be race in America.

College	Course #	CRN	Course Title	Instructor	Date/Time	Location
Pennoni Honors College	HON 302-005	42678	Fashion and Memory	Jennifer Ayres	Wednesdays 2pm-4:50pm	Mantua Presbyterian Apartments
Course Description In this 10-week Summer course, students will investigate their personal and collective relationships to fashion through readings and film screenings, as well as hands-on visits to Drexel's Fox Historic Costume Collection, archive appointments, and museum visits. Students will partner with community members and learn the basics of conducting interviews for oral history research methods and techniques. Following the groundbreaking fashion blog Advanced Style as inspiration, students will generate a collaborative blog, as a class, documenting their findings in the archive and interviews in order to create public scholarship and community knowledge about how fashion has impacted the lives of everyday people in Philadelphia and beyond. The summer course meets Wednesdays 2-4:50pm from Jun 26th- Aug 28th.