Community Engagement: Theory into Practice
Module Summary
This module offers a rather different experience from other university courses. Whilst having the chance to investigate and reflect on your own aspirations and values, you will also complete 30 to 40 hours of volunteering in a local not-for-profit organisation or similar setting. This course will encourage you to reflect on and enhance your practical experience in a community-engaged setting. You will explore the links between academic study and community engagement within a framework of respect, reciprocity, relevance and reflection.
Past students have taken on a very wide variety of volunteering roles - we will work towards having every student having a suitable in-person role if that is possible and safe, and we will have online-only alternatives available for all if that is what is needed.
The module will combine theoretical understandings from your home discipline with new interdisciplinary perspectives and apply them to practical, real world problems in communities outside the university. We will investigate and reflect on what can be learned from engagement with communities and with community-identified problems, and you will test the relationship between theory and practice, reflecting collectively and individually on the emergent learning that results.
Module video
This video was produced in 2021 to advertise the module to students.
Key Information
| Module Lead | Mark Hinton |
Credits | 15 CATS |
| Host Dept | IATL | Level | Taken from the Warwick Course Catalogue |
| Module duration | 10 Weeks | Assessment | 100% coursework |
| Teaching | 30 hours Placement + 10 x 2 hour seminars |
Teaching Structure/ Pedagogical approach
Indicative weekly topics
- Introduction to community engagement: emergent learning and reflective practice
- Participation, democracy and development: the history of an ideal
- Listening to strangers (and to others) – a simple, radical, powerful activity
- Being human online - developing and maintaining 'real' community, virtually
- 'Race', power and community: inclusive practice and the invisibility of whiteness
- Reflecting critically, engaging fully – communities and universities working in partnership
- Assessed presentations
- Biological understandings of 'community'
- Trouble-shooting final assessment proposals; peer assessment of reflective writing
- Community engagement and you – your project experience and your future plans
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Critically appraise the relationship between different disciplinary contributions to community engagement, and practice
- Critically appraise and form own judgements on different perspectives on what constitutes important or relevant 'knowledge' and 'expertise/authority' – from different disciplines within the academy, as well as from perspectives outside the academy
- Develop complex and transdisciplinary ideas about community engagement, and communicate and justify these to specialist and non-specialist audiences
- Critically reflect on and evaluate own experiences in relation to engagement as a volunteer in a community setting or settings, in the light of ideas explored during the module
- Develop a sustained capacity to make use of peer reflection methods to develop own practice, and to pro-actively make space for others to also reflect and develop using such methods
- Distinguish own positionality and perspective from those of others, and critically consider the impact of this on reflective and academic learning and understandings
Assessment Structure
The module is assessed through two critically reflective pieces of work, a presentation and an essay, each of which brings together theoretical perspectives with emergent learning and reflection on your practical experience as a volunteer. Critically reflective student-devised assessments may be substituted for one or both assessed elements, and this can be discussed and negotiated with the module convenor.
Critical reflection in an academic context is new or fairly new for many students - effective approaches to reflecting on practice will be developed through classroom exercises and peer support throughout the module, and formative work and resources will be used to support the development of your academic critical reflection skills and capacity.
For 15 CATS
Critically reflective presentation and essay; or Student devised assessment
25% Individual presentation which:
- synthesises ideas explored during the module and
- applies them to experience working in/with a community setting
75% Reflective submission - a critically reflective piece bringing together:
- perspectives from ‘home’ and other disciplines;
- discussions and literature from the taught module; and
- reflection on your volunteering experience, and the unplanned learning that occurs through that.
This may take the form of an essay, but students are also welcome to submit submissions in a form of their own devising, as agreed with the module convenor in advance of submission.
Student Feedback
"Everyone participated equally and this was very successfully facilitated by Mark. I feel genuinely enlightened by the ability to challenge my preconceptions of the world through other disciplines. Very nice to have some assessed presentation and self-reflection - made a wonderful change from the norm."
"A very welcoming atmosphere was created which made it easy to share and develop personal ideas. I enjoyed the great speakers from a range of departments as this really expanded my thinking - and I especially enjoyed the group discussions, because these allowed me to explore, question and consolidate my thinking"
"The content catered to every single individual in the class and included the interdisciplinary aspect in every single session."