CET Highlights: First-Year Seminar “Be the Change”
Lynn Boettler, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the
Department of First-Year and Transition Studies, shares how communityengaged teaching is implemented in her first-year course, “Be the
Change.” Professor Boettler utilizes a project-based model in her
community-engaged pedagogy that can be adapted to diverse courses in
various disciplines. lboettle@kennesaw.edu
Be the Change partner with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to host
arts and crafts day for critically children.
Description
Describe your engaged-teaching.
My commitment to community engagement in all aspects of my professional life as a
faculty member is both comprehensive and enduring. I have incorporated engaged
pedagogy since I began teaching full-time in 2004 and have advocated this methodology
for a number of years. As a tenured, Assistant Professor in the Department of First-Year
Programs, I teach a 3-credit hour, first-year seminar called Be the Change that is one of
the options students may select to complete the first-year course required of all first-time,
full-time students at our institution. In a nutshell, Be the Change offers an applied
approach to learning academic-, life-, and career-success strategies as assignments are
intertwined with community engagement experiences, which I will elaborate upon later.
But, I think the philosophical foundations driving the course are worthy of noting for they
are what truly drive my pedagogical design and the community-engaged learning I strive
to infuse in the course.
Many first-year courses incorporate community engagement, typically as volunteer
experiences and sometimes service-learning; however, they are not often central to the
course. In the course I designed and teach, community engagement, for the purpose of
effecting change, is the centerpiece. Although the course did not start this way (it was
more service focused), as I began creating it, I not only modified the curriculum and
instructional strategies, but the language I used to refer to the community-based learning
we were doing as well. I intentionally moved away from the term “service-learning” to
“community engagement.” I found that the use of the word service by its very definition
usually implies a “doing for” rather than a “doing with,” and I discovered that when using
this terminology, students, especially many of them whose frame of reference for service
is missionary work, often adopted a sort of “those poor people; we need to rescue them,”
and “we in the US are the ideal, and we need to help people UP to our ideals” mentality. I
wanted my students to see themselves as part of the community and to lay the
groundwork for them to understand the notion of reciprocity that is essential in engaged
work.
These philosophical concepts and nomenclature are now part of a discussion I have with
students that set the tone for the course. This is not to say that I dismiss “community
service” as valuable, but the focus of the course is on community engagement for the
purpose of “effecting change,” which includes advocacy and activism models as well.
With this foundation laid, I incorporate two different community-engaged learning
experiences in my class. One is an individual project and the other is a group project.
Be the Change
students work
to make
poverty history
by raising
awareness
about poverty
in their
community.
What is the process for facilitating your engaged-teaching experience?
The first couple weeks of the semester are spent on instructional activities and
assignments that are intended to gradually introduce students to the skills and knowledge
they will need to complete later assignments affiliated with the community engagement
projects they design and enact. In addition, they are introduced to concepts and
vocabulary of community-engagement such as community service, advocacy, activism,
reciprocity, community partners, solidarity vs. charity, and others. In particular, as I
mentioned before, there are two community engagement projects that students complete
in the class. One is an individual project and one is a group project.
For the individual project, students are asked
to design a community engagement
Some of the Issues Students in
experience that can be community service,
Be the Change have addressed
advocacy, or activism in nature. The
with their Communityrequirement is that the time devoted to the
Engagement Projects
project equals 10 hours. Prior to doing their
project, they have an assignment in which
Human Trafficking
they complete a proposal that asks them to
Animal Overpopulation
identify their community partner(s), goals,
Poverty
Human
Rights
and the change they would like to see happen
Homelessness
as a result of their experience. Following the
Obesity
completion of their project, they are asked to
Childhood Cancer
write a reflection on their experience and to
Bullying
share those with their classmates. For the
Mental Health
Autism
project itself, students are encouraged to do
Illiteracy
something that is different from something
Child Abuse
they have done already and to consider a
Racism
project that allows them to explore potential
Educational Inequality
careers. Many students do volunteer work for
Environmental Issues
Disability Advocacy
an organization or cause they are passionate
Substance Abuse
about, but others approach the experience
Domestic Violence
more creatively. For example, one student
who was an art major spent his 10 hours
producing some artwork that he donated to a silent auction for a local arts advocacy
organization. Laura Stewart, a student in my class a couple of years ago and a cancer
survivor at the time, decided to start KSU’s Relay for Life Chapter for her individual
project. In her final reflection paper credited Be the Change for giving her the push to
bring an idea she had to fruition. As a result of Laura’s leadership, the first kick-off
event for the KSU Chapter raised over $28,000 dollars. There are several great video
clips on YouTube of Laura the first Relay for Life Event at KSU. Although Laura sadly
lost her battle to cancer at the age of 20 in 2012, her legacy lives on at KSU and in the
community. In fact, I just found out that the City of Kennesaw has declared April 12 as
Laura Stewart Day.
The other community-engaged learning experience, a group community engagement
project, is a major component of Be the Change. When I first began teaching and using
engaged-pedagogy in my classes, I would have the whole class design one project. While
the projects were engaging, the development and execution of the projects often placed
me at the center, and students’ reaction to their experiences fell along the lines of “having
fun with their classmates” and “feeling good” about what they had done. While these
outcomes are somewhat worthy when helping first-year students transition to college,
they were not creating the significant and transformative learning experiences I had
hoped to achieve. Thus, I redesigned the community-based learning I do in my classes
into small group projects that students choose and develop themselves.
There are a series of instructional activities and
assignments that address the learning objectives for
my class and that take students through the various
phases of developing and executing their projects.
One of the first assignments students have is to find
an article on a global issue and write summary of
the article, which is graded and which they share
with other students in small groups. We then use
that assignment to begin generating a list of societal
issues (along with others) that I write down on the
board. There are usually about 30-40 issues. I then
introduce the concept of qualitative data analysis
and the idea of sifting through data to identify
themes. We group similar issues, narrowing the list
to about 10-12 issues such as poverty, environment,
human rights, animal rights, childhood illness, etc.
Students working with Kirby the dog from
Georgia Canines for Independence to raise
funds to train assistance dogs.
After the list is narrowed down, I usually do about 2 rounds of voting until we have 4
topic areas. These four topics then become the four areas around which projects are
designed. Students choose which issue/project focus they would like to join, usually
getting their first choice. My class size is around 25 students, so this usually puts 6-7
students per group. I do change the number of projects if the class size is smaller or
larger and have found optimum group size to be 5-7 students.
After they choose their project topic, the groups start to narrow down their focus, much
like fine-tuning a research problem. Once they have more of a focus, they are asked to
develop a research plan for their group. The plan involves the completion of form that
asks students to designate who will be gathering evidence from various perspectives,
including global, national, local, regional, that support that there is need for their project.
There are two assignments attached to the research piece of the project development, one
is a Secondary Source Research Report and one is a Primary Source Research Report.
With the secondary source report, each student must provide summaries of two pieces
secondary of evidence that verify the existence and extent of the problem they hope to
address with their project. With the primary source report, each member of the group is
expected to interview someone from the community who is connected to the issue they are
addressing with their project. For example, if a group is working on a project to help the
homeless, group members might interview a homeless person, someone who works with
homeless people, a politician lobbying for laws to protect the homeless, a social services
professional who works with the homeless, or a police officer. In the interviews, students ask
questions about the person’s experience with the issue as well as questions surrounding ways
in which change might be effected. Each member of the group then reports back about what
they have learned from both the primary and secondary sources. Thus, each has an
opportunity to learn about the issue from multiple perspectives, and as a whole they gain
greater insight into the problem and possible solutions, which ultimately informs the design
of their project and which usually generates their community partner. Naturally, instruction
involves topics such as types and credibility of sources, interviewing skills, academic writing,
library resources, and others.
Their research then becomes fodder for another assignment, the Group Project Proposal.
With this assignment, students must work together in their groups to synthesize their findings
and present an argument that their problem is indeed one worth addressing and that the
solution they are proposing through their project is connected to their evidence. This proves
to be very challenging for first-year students, and during the development of their proposals
and project ideas, I tend to do a great deal of coaching, including helping them to enact
projects that are manageable within our allotted time frame. Part of their proposal also
requires students to construct goals, objectives, and strategies for the execution of their
project and to formulate a plan for how they will measure whether they deem their project as
a success. It is important to note here that I do not grade students on the success or failure of
their community projects, which is common practice in engaged-pedagogy. Rather, their
grades for the class come from assignments that require them to demonstrate their mastery of
the course learning objectives.
After their project proposals are reviewed, each group develops a timeline for executing their
projects, teaching them the skills of project and time management. And, they are also
required to submit weekly summaries (on a template I provide) of their activities to the
discussion boards I’ve created in D2L for each of the project groups. Doing this allows me to
keep track of what is going on with the groups and teaches students the skill of keeping
meeting minutes that provide a record of what was agreed upon and who volunteered to
complete different tasks. After they have executed their projects, they present what they did
including the background research to the rest of the class (another graded assignment) and
compile a portfolio of their group’s work on the project. And, as is customary with engagedteaching practices, part of their final for the class asks students to write a paper reflecting on
their experience.
Be the Change
students partner
with local
nonprofit
organizations to
raise awareness
and financial
support to fight
human trafficking
Over the course of the project development phase, instruction involves mini-lectures in which
I teach students the content and skills necessary to complete the assignments on which their
performance is evaluated. Once the project development phase gets moving in class, a
typical class period will involve a mini-lecture (15-20 minutes) followed students working in
project groups to complete assignments or activities that require them to apply what they’ve
learned through the instruction for that day. During that time, I travel around to the groups
coaching them and facilitating their learning.
Also, intermingled through the project planning process are activities in which students learn
different work and leadership styles, stages of team development, tactics for addressing
conflict and building consensus, elements of group dynamics, and behaviors expected when
working in groups. And, toward the beginning of the group project, students are introduced
to Self- and Peer-Assessment Rubric outlining expected group behaviors. Students will
complete the assessment for each of their group members and themselves when their group
projected is completed. The scores on these assessments are then averaged and students
receive that score.
Every year, I am continually amazed by what first-year students (typically 18-19 year olds)
can produce… almost as amazed as some of them are about what they could do!
Student advocacy
project to abolish
puppy mills.
What are your teaching and learning goals for this activity?
All first-year seminars have four main areas of learning emphases. These are: life skills,
strategies for academic success, campus and community connections, and foundations of
global learning. As with all first-year seminars, faculty strive to help students transition
smoothly into college life and the rigor of academic work and to get their feet wet on the
skills necessary to succeed in college. We provide instruction and learning activities on
writing, reading, research, and thinking and we intentionally construct our learning
environments in such a way to help students connect with each other and the campus
community.
In Be the Change, these learning goals are expanded and include asking students to:
 demonstrate an understanding of the similarities and differences of the concepts
of advocacy, activism, and community service.
 demonstrate research skills by addressing a specific social problem from local,
regional, national, and global perspectives.
 practice collaboration skills by working together to develop a plan for a
community project that addresses a social problem.
 demonstrate problem-solving skills by implementing a community project.
 demonstrate critical thinking skills by analyzing and reflecting on how their
experience in developing a community project applies to their own life, their
prospective field of study, and their potential career.
 explore concepts of personal growth by examining and evaluating their personal
characteristics and behaviors for their impact on group dynamics.
Although not directly articulated in
these learning goals, I would have to
say that another major aim, one that is
more on the affective side of the house,
is to evoke in students a sense of selfefficacy in their ability to effect change
and sense of solidarity with the greater
community. I hope when students leave
my class that they will see themselves
as part of communities with which they
engage and that the work they do is not
FOR but WITH them for the greater
good of all.
Pledge
Be the Change student project at local high school.
Suicide awareness and pledge drive.
Analysis
Were you successful in reaching your teaching goals?
Although there are always different levels of student
performance, I would say the majority of students who
participate in my class are successful in demonstrating
the their proficiency in meeting the learning goals for the
course. Also, data I have been collecting on student
perceptions of their experience indicate that affective
learning is being influenced as well with over 85% of
them indicating they are more confident in their ability to
effect change after taking the course. So, yes, I would
say I’ve been successful in reaching my teaching goals.
Of course, there’s always room for improvement, and I
am continually tweaking assignments and instruction.
What were the factors that contributed to success?
I think that there are many factors that contribute to the
success of this course, but like most successful teaching
endeavors, it is the practice of evidenced-based pedagogy
that makes for the best student learning. My approach to
community-engaged teaching is founded on the theories
of motivational teaching. Many have examined factors
that motivate college students to learn [Sass (1989),
Christophel (1990), Partick, Hilsey and Kimpler (2000), Svinicki (2004), Ambrose
(2010)]. In a nutshell, students’ perceived value of course assignments or content, their
perceptions of their ability to succeed (self-efficacy), and their perceived level of support
from the learning environment form complex interactions that when in sync fuel students’
motivation (Ambrose, 2010). In teaching practice, this means doing such things as
providing course activities and assignments that are relevant and meaningful to students,
giving students choices, providing rubrics and clear expectations, scaffolding
assignments, offering active learning opportunities, and exhibiting immediacy behaviors.
Because the first-year seminar is often viewed by many students as something they
“don’t need” and “a waste of time” and because it is a required course at our institution,
student motivation for learning is usually not very high. I see engaged pedagogy and the
way that I intentionally enact it in my teaching as a means to address many of the
practices necessary for motivating students. For example, students in my classes
generate, vote on, and select the focus of their projects. Doing this allows students to
choose things they value and find relevant. Because they are doing project work, they
experience active learning, and because assignments and instruction are delivered
gradually and with rubrics, students are able to experience success and self-efficacy.
What were the obstacles to the project’s success?
Whenever you require students to do group work, there are always challenges. There are
slackers, over-achievers, negative nellies, protesters and all sorts of other behavior types
that make project-work difficult and can be frustrating for students. Also, getting
students to think beyond doing a project on campus and inspiring them to do something
more than volunteering or holding a bake sale… something that really gets to the idea of
effecting change can be challenging. For example, in most of my classes one of the
projects usually revolves around animals. When first starting their projects, students
typically want to help with animal adoptions or hold a bake sale for a rescue group.
While certainly not an unworthy endeavor, I usually prompt them to figure out why there
are so many animals that need adopting or why there are so many animals euthanized.
Usually through their research and some probing questions on my part they discover that
animal overpopulation is at the root of the problem, that we have a bigger problem in the
south than there is up north, and that effecting change means spaying and neutering pets.
It’s this sort of paradigm shift of students seeing themselves as change agents versus dogooders that I’m really aiming for with this course and my community-engaged teaching.
Reflection
What did the students gain from this project?
In addition to learning and honing a number of academic and life skills, students gain
exposure to societal issues from global, national, and local perspectives. In fact, as
mentioned earlier, in survey data I’ve been collecting over 85% of students report being
more confident in their ability to effect change after taking the course. In addition, over
90% of the students reported being more knowledge about the societal issue they
addressed in their group project, and 85% reported being more knowledge about issues
address by other students’ group projects.
Students also comment positively about their experiences in my course evaluations:
“This class was one of the best classes I have taken this semester. I loved how the main
project for this class was to get out and project change or awareness in the community in
hopes to change the world. We looked at a specific problem at a local, state, national and
global prospective and it really opened my eyes to all of the global problems the world is
facing today and it is really tragic.”
“Our global community project was a great experience to put myself out there and help
others in need. It showed me that I can accomplish a lot more than I thought I could to
contribute to the community and even overseas.”
“This class taught me a lot. It has taught me lots of skills such as memory,
communication, teamwork, and leadership skills. We had to incorporate all these skills in
a community project, and we will need these skills all our lives.”
What did the community gain from this project?
In the 9 years I’ve been using community-engaged pedagogy in my classes, my students
have produced over 120 projects, interacted with over 75 different community
organizations, and raised over $10,000. More than these countable achievements, I think
the community is gaining a new generation of young people who see themselves as
integral members of their communities, responsible for and capable of effecting change.
What are your future plans for this project?
There are a few things I’d like to enhance the experience for students. One thing I have
been toying around with is making it a requirement that students work with a community
partner on their group projects. While many groups do this anyway, I think that until I
make it a required element, some will choose to do projects on campus and “for” rather
than “with.” Granted, this is not a terrible thing, but I get concerned that it perpetuates a
mentality of charity versus solidarity.