Mobilizing Hope
Already volunteering and want to get credit? Have an internship and want to combine that with your capstone? Curious about what is possible? This course is designed for students to to develop their own community projects and work in partnership with them to effect change. This project may be an existing relationship or one sought for the purposes of this class. A minimum of 30 working hours with the organization or project is required and can be flexibly designed by you and your community partner/project needs. During this course, students will be supported and challenged to develop skills in speaking, listening, building relationships and coordinating action. Through class discussions, student presentations, a small group book club, an interdisciplinary class project, readings and self-reflection, students will recognize and explore the four University Studies Goals and make meaning of how they apply to both our community partnerships and our everyday lives. Please contact the instructor by email (petzoldh@pdx.edu) for more information. For more community partnership and project ideas please visit the class website (ecapdx.weebly.com) and view the Terms tab.
Learning Objectives
--To enhance learning by creating space to practice skills and test classroom knowledge through related service experiences in the local community.
--To identify the skills needed to effect change in your community and to support you in providing needed assistance to community agencies and to the people and/or community environment served by the agencies.
--To articulate, promote, and collaborate on a group vision for mobilizing hope.
This class project is an opportunity for us to pool our unique talents and skills in a way that will benefit both ourselves and our community. Each of you will be responsible for collectively developing a community- based project that will lead to effecting positive change for the community in which we serve.
*There will be time given in class for brainstorming and discussions. It is expected that each of you will be present and fully engaged in this process.
Goals for community project:
- Understanding the concept of community and service learning
- Needs assessment and project selection
- Planning the project
- Completion of project
- Documentation
- Reflection and Evaluation
Individual Responsibility
Initial brainstorm idea: You will hand in a short paper addressing your project idea and bring it to class as a tool to start the brainstorming process of this project. You should thoroughly think through your decision and include the answers to the how, why, what, where and when of your idea. (We will have limited, if any, resources to accompany this project so please think about the overall feasibility of your idea as well).
Group Responsibility
Project Teams: It is expected that this project will be multi-faceted and will require smaller groups to take on certain responsibilities. To that end, each of you will be assigned to a group that will work towards completing one or two of these components.
Points will be awarded on the basis of attendance (being on time included), showing evidence of being prepared, overall contribution and completed assignments.