Interested in helping your students gain meaningful fieldwork experience? Want your students to begin having a positive impact on the community right away?
Community-Based Learning (CBL) is program that allows your students and community partners to work together to complete research projects for the partner organizations while meeting the academic requirements for your course. Partners, which have included non-profits and city agencies, identify projects of research, analysis, or evaluation that would support them in their missions. These projects, when relevant, are then matched to your course, and students complete the projects typically in place of the final paper for your class.
TYPICAL CBL TIMELINE
- Before the semester, class coordinators collect research projects for pre-designated CBL courses. Within the first two weeks of classes the project list is presented to enrolled students, and they elect whether to participate in the program.
- During the semester, CBL students attend a CBLorganized workshop on making their research practically applicable to community partners. Students make first contact with their organizatoin partners and arrange a work chedule. CBL class coordinators check in with students, professors, and organizations throughout the semester to ensure healthy working relationships.
- At the end of the semester, CBL students turn in their work to their professor, their partner organization, and the CBL coordinators. After incorporating professor feedback, student work is eligible for publication in ENACT, the CBL Journal.
- After the semetser, CBL class coordinators continue to follow up with community partners to ensure that CBL research is being used effectively and fully.
ACADEMIC REQUIREMENTS
Students enrolled in CBL do not replace time spent in class with time spent at their partner organizations. However, the CBL research project should replace the final paper/project — or another comparable assignment — for the course.