Jan. 04, 2012 - Issue #846: Year in review

Outside the classroom

UofA students are increasingly taking advantage of community learning

Felix DuBourdieu-Greig runs a basketball camp at Inglewood School. He has a binder full of rules that he uses to teach the young students and organizes games even when only two or three show up.
DuBourdieu-Greig is a patient at SKILLS, an organization in Edmonton that helps mentally disabled people contribute their skills to the community. And while his story is something special, the tale of how a video about his life came to be is just as interesting. It was put together by a group of students at the University of Alberta who are becoming increasingly engaged in the community.

The students are taking community service-learning modules in their classes at the university, a program that's been slowly expanding its scope on campus. While the department offers separate courses for community engagement, CSL units have been developed to fit into other classes such as sociology or philosophy.

Ben Weinlick, the senior leader of research and organizational learning at SKILLS, has been working with about 10 students this semester to tell the stories of clients from his organization. He said it's important that the organization is able to talk about what they do in the community, and how people with developmental disabilities benefit. Working with the CSL program is allowing SKILLS to engage students' abilities and tell that story.

"The big benefit is helping our whole organization with meaningful work. Sometimes we get caught up in supporting medical needs," said Weinlick.

In the first year of a two-year program, students from classes ranging from English, anthropology and women's studies have come through the door to help tell the stories of people at SKILLS.

Increasingly, students at the university are choosing to take the CSL components of their classes. Last year there were 459 students taking CSL components of some sort, up from 136 participating students when the components were introduced in 2005. The number of courses offering the components tripled over that period, increasing from 13 in 2005 to 46 this year.

Jill Flaman, program co-ordinator for the CSL office, said professors are increasingly asking for the chance for students to engage with the community in lieu of regular coursework.
"Initially, I think everyone is excited about the idea. Not only is it a different way for students to learn, but it's a different way for them to teach," said Flaman. "We do help them with syllabus-building workshops."

And while the CSL department is part of the faculty of arts, Flaman said there is increasing interest from other faculties. What these faculties are looking to leverage is CSL's connections in the community with non-profit and charitable organizations.

Making those connections is Auralia Brooke, the partnership co-ordinator for CSL. She works with professors who want to add a CSL component to their course to find the right fit in the community.
"We have about 60 core partners that we always work with," said Brooke. "There's a lot of fluctuation. We rarely take people off the list. What we do is rest them out for a term."

Those partners range from organizations such as SKILLS Edmonton to the Northern Alberta Brain Injury Society and the Youth Emergency Shelter Society.

"We're here as a resource for instructors in some ways. Any instructor that wants to teach with a CSL or has a community component can just come by. We offer brown bag sessions," says Brooke. "We work with them to find out what their needs are."

CSL continues to expand and in the next semester the office has a wide list of courses offering CSL components from agricultural, life and environmental studies to history, French and linguistics. vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus