Experiential Learning Inspirations: Focus on Community 

As we begin redesigning our programs and courses for a semester-based academic schedule, many of us are taking this (rare) opportunity to reflect on our current offerings and to experiment with fresh pedagogical approaches. One idea worth considering is integrating community-based/community-engaged learning (CBL/CEL) into course and program design. CBL/CEL pedagogy places students at the center of the learning experience, aligning with our university’s twin commitment to experiential learning and educational equity. From citizen-science air quality monitoring initiatives, to community garden engineering projects, to engaging neighbors through dance and theater, CBL/CEL courses are as diverse as the people who create and participate in them—but they all share a commitment to three core principles: (1) authentic learning, (2) right relationships, and (3) reflection.

1. Authentic learning
   Community-based/community-engaged courses encourage students to apply academic knowledge and skills in authentic settings. This orientation towards on-the-ground application helps flesh out (and complicate!) academic theory, helping students appreciate multiple forms of expertise and multiple sites of knowledge production beyond academia.
2. Building “right relationships”
   Community-based/community-engaged pedagogy integrates analytical learning with relational learning, prompting students to examine structural conditions that shape the communities they engage with—and to reflect on their own positioning in relation to those structures. CBL/CEL courses facilitate opportunities to cultivate “right relationships” with community partners (and within the classroom!), helping students develop key professional and citizenship skills including collaboration, active listening, cultural competency, and cultural humility. Drawing on democratic models of learning developed by educational visionaries like Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and Septima Clark, CBL/CEL courses have as their goal not only student learning but also building collective capacity for students and community members to make social change together.
3. Reflection
   Community-based/community-engaged pedagogy centers reflection as a powerful tool for connecting academic concepts to lived experience. Reflection helps students locate themselves within the structures they study and to consider the role they play in social problem-solving. Because of their commitment to reflexive, relationship-oriented, authentic learning, CBL/CEL courses prepare learners for the intractability of the world’s wicked problems: complex, multifaceted challenges (like poverty or climate change) that require complex, collaborative, creative solutions.

CBL/CEL are highly flexible modalities that can structure an entire course (for example, side-by-side or community-engaged courses), influence the design of a single assignment (for example, a community-facing final project), or inform the quality of internal relationships within the class community itself (for example, via power-sharing/democratic pedagogies, class community agreements, un-grading, etc.).

Drexel University already boasts a strong contingent of educators engaging in CBL/CEL pedagogies, who offer a diversity of exciting courses across disciplines: West Africa to West Philly (Parfait Kouassi Kouacou); Community Arts Practicum (Valerie Ifill); Food and Land Security in Philadelphia (Steve Vásquez Dolph); Aging, Design, and Healing (June He); Writing for Social Change (Liz Kimball);  Climate Change and Human Health (Usha Sankar); Multispecies Perspectives on Science, Environment, and Health (Alberto Morales); Introduction to Peacebuilding for Engineers (Mira Olson); Policing: Theory and Practice (Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis & Debra Ruben), and many others.     

Drexel’s Lindy Center for Civic Engagement offers multi-level support for faculty interested in Community-Based Learning, from trainings, to assistance in identifying and fostering community partnerships, to syllabus development, to ongoing pedagogical support. Instructors interested in integrating CBL/CEL into their pedagogical practice can also benefit from the comprehensive Toolkit for Initiating University-Community Relationships (2024) developed by Drexel STAR student Abby Holmberg and from R. Riccio, B. Berkey, and G. Mecagni’s whitepaper Principles of Anti-Oppressive Community Engagement for University Educators and Researchers developed by Northeastern University (2022).