2 page essay paper
Begin it Now: Critical Service Learning in the First Year of College
J. R. "Jones" Estes, Chris Carey, Debra Tavares, David Peterson Del Mar
The Journal of General Education, Volume 67, Numbers 3-4, 2018, pp. 178-193 (Article)
Published by Penn State University Press
For additional information about this article
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/742715
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Begin it Now: Critical Service Learning in the First Year of College
J. R. “JONES” ESTES, CHRIS CAREY, DEBRA TAVARES, AND DAVID PETERSON DEL MAR
ABSTRACT | While
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there is a rich array of community-based learning activities and approaches across the Portland State University campus, the authors assert that integrating a critical service learning (CSL), rather than traditional service learning (TSL), model in the first-year curriculum benefits both students and community partners. They advocate for scaffolding CSL throughout the college curriculum beginning in the first year so that as students move through their courses they repeatedly practice the dynamic skill set CSL develops. To that end, they utilize a CSL Process Framework of five essential steps to consider when scaffolding it within the first year: The Plan, Etiquette of Collaboration, Critical Reflection, Engaging Student Agency, and Civic Professionalism (Estes, 2018). The authors describe how each element manifests in three very different examples of CSL within their respective Freshman Inquiry courses. Although this article focuses upon CSL in the first year of college, the CSL Process Framework is applicable across course levels. After presenting examples of how each element manifests as they integrate CSL into their courses and careers, the authors discuss the challenges and implications of this work within their courses, University Studies, and general education.
KEYWORDS | critical
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- service learning (CSL) Process Framework, scaffolding
As
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a high-impact practice, an increasing number of colleges and universities are developing community-based learning (CBL) course opportunities (Hart Research Associates, 2016). Estes, Gerwing, and Fitzmaurice (2016) contend that CBL opportunities should begin in the first year and be plentiful through- out the undergraduate experience. Specifically, that when scaffolded from the beginning, CBL opportunities facilitate student understanding of complexPdf_Folio:178
DOI: 10.5325/jgeneeduc.67.3–4.0178 Journal of General Education: A Curricular Commons of the Humanities and Sciences, Vol. 67, Nos. 3–4, 2018 Copyright © 2019 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
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course content and their ability to generalize and transfer that knowledge to new contexts. While there is a rich array of CBL activities and approaches across the Portland State University campus, we assert that integrating a critical ser- vice learning (CSL), rather than traditional service learning (TSL), model in the first-year curriculum benefits both students and community partners. Here we provide a CSL Process Framework for effectively scaffolding it within the first year and suggest that it is a useful framework for integrating CSL into courses across a variety of contexts.
Our
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perspective on CSL is informed by the context of working in Portland State University’s Studies program. As Dillon, Bluehorse Skelton, and Reite- nauer (2019) note, Portland State University intentionally placed the Senior Capstone within University Studies and the Program’s four learning goals. Two of which: Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice and Ethics and Social Respon- sibility, foster CSL in the curriculum. Mitchell describes the distinction as “working to redistribute power among all participants in the service-learning relationship, developing authentic relationships in the classroom and in the community, and working from a social change perspective” (2008, p. 50). However, a critique of CSL is that students are underprepared for the com- plexity, nuance, and self-awareness required of such work (Cipolle, 2004). This is a fair criticism. As Mitchell noted, “Social justice will never be achieved in a single semester nor systems dismantled in the two-to-four hour weekly commitment representative of many traditional models of service learning” (2008, p. 54). We agree that the transformation required for effective social justice will not occur for most students because courses are too often a “one and done” requirement. Expecting a student to engage with the structural causes of the community need, themselves, their classmates, and a community partner on the multiple levels required for effective self—or social change—is disingenuous. Consequently, we advocate for scaffolding CSL throughout the college curriculum beginning in the first year so that as students move through their courses they repeatedly practice the dynamic skill set CSL develops. Moreover, although this paper focuses upon CSL in the first year of college, the CSL Process Framework can be adapted across course levels.
Development
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of the Critical-Service Learning Process Framework Knowing
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that the authors approach CBL in their courses differently, Estes developed ten questions for the authors to answer individually (Appendix). Compiling the responses, Estes conducted a content analysis to identify themes and shared practices. At this stage she identified the student-centered themes of collaboration, process, engagement, and choice. The correlations ended there. Pdf_Folio:179
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Her analysis revealed that each author employed dramatically different tools and methods, as well as learning outcomes, to integrate CBL in their courses. Simultaneously, while the authors had planned to situate their work in the lit- erature on scaffolding of CSL, a review found a rich literature (e.g., Cohen, McDaniels, and Qualters, 2005; Grossman, 2008; Maree McNaughton, 2016; Mitchell, 2008; Ryan, 2013) that lacked a piece bridging scaffolded course design, CSL, and critical reflective practice. This led Estes to revisit the author reflections with a new research question: How do we scaffold CSL into our courses? This second round of content analysis was the most immersive and reiterative stage of the methodology. Out of which, the common variables among the faculty processes were identified.
At
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this point, Estes began to conceptualize the faculty process variables as a possible framework for other faculty to utilize. The final phase of developing the CSL Process Framework was determining the number, name, and description of elements to be applicable across academic disciplines. The result is the CSL Process Framework’s five essential elements to consider when integrating CSL into your course or program (Estes, 2018):
1. The
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Plan: refers to what you are doing, how you are doing it, and why you are doing it that way. Not having a plan is also a plan—this information should be shared with students.
2. Etiquette
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of Collaboration: refers to how you will explain, scaffold, facilitate, and practice how to work well in community. In contrast to “rules of collaboration,” an Etiquette of Collaboration focuses on how to be in relation to others and includes everyone involved, from community partners to small groups to the class as a whole.
3. Critical
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Reflection: refers to the intellectual work required to create the vital link between a service experience and a transformative experience.
4. Engaging
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Student Agency: refers to when and how you plan to draw students into the project as well as when, and how, you are going to decide to turn the project over to them.
5. Civic
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Professionalism: refers to grounding and growing CSL into the work you already do and the resources you already have as well as the ways CSL contributes to professional fulfillment.
Beginning
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with a CSL project without a formal community partner, followed by a CSL hybrid, and concluding with a deeply integrated community partner- ship, what follows are three very different examples of CSL within the Fresh- man Inquiry (FRINQ) courses of Estes, Carey, and Peterson del Mar. After presenting examples of how each element manifests as we integrate CSL intoPdf_Folio:180
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our courses and careers, we discuss the challenges and implications of this work within our courses, University Studies, and general education.
Anarchy
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in the Classroom (CSL without a Community Partner?) —J
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. R. “Jones” Estes, Portland State University
The
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Plan
My
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process framework; Site-Service-Action, developed from 10 years of a messy, nonlinear mixture of trial and error. When I began teaching in Univer- sity Studies, I believed only a platinum standard of CSL, such as a Capstone where it was the full focus of the course, was worthwhile. So when creating my Freshman Inquiry course on Sustainability, I did not include community- based or service-learning elements and focused on interdisciplinarity and aca- demic skill-building; however, this quickly became professionally mundane. One year, I took the first topic on the syllabus, food systems, and I searched for farms to visit. That decision led to the discovery of a permaculture farm close to campus that was also on a bus route. A trip to Tryon Life Community Farm is now a regular event, and each year the experience provides students a vis- ceral example for the course content at the time, as well as a reference as the course moves to new material. It is common for students to draw on that site visit from the fourth week to exemplify a theory in the thirtieth week. A few years later, I crafted an assignment to put their research into action: working in small groups, students would create, plan, and execute their own culture jam. The culture jam may take any form as long as it meets the criteria of identifying and publically disrupting a form of hegemonic power.
Etiquette
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of Collaboration
I
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learned the hard way that providing students with a framework for under- standing and doing group work improves the learning outcomes of CSL assign- ments exponentially. Because students did so much small group work in class, such as discussions and presentations, I presumed they would be prepared to apply that practice to the culture jam towards the end of the class. However, few students were able to generalize those experiences and apply them to a more complex task. The following year I began explicitly illustrating what group dynamics and communication look like in more complex scenarios. Short clips from movies of dysfunctional groups (e.g., Office Space) provide a disarming gateway to frank discussions about individual roles and responsibilities within a group. These conversations happen repeatedly during the course and are sup- ported by formal assignments, such as reflecting critically on a previous group experience and connecting these reflections in writing to an article, or podcast, on group dynamics. The flexibility of this formula (disarming example paired Pdf_Folio:181
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with discussion and request to connect personal experience with course mate- rial, results in analysis) makes it adaptable across courses and disciplines.
Critical
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Reflection
Student
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experiences become known through reflection; I distinguish between formal and informal forms of critical reflection. Students practice informal crit- ical reflection regularly when I ask them to write their responses to a variety of questions, texts, and experiences, that they have opportunities to share with classmates. Students practice formal critical reflection when asked to connect their observations to course readings, and then contextualize and argue that connection as one would do in any analysis.
I
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find asking students to engage repeatedly and regularly in formal critical reflection is beneficial because it provides them the opportunity to create path- ways to understand the material they would otherwise skip over or learn only to forget. Any assignment requiring students to turn in a typed piece, from project proposals to individual reflections, includes an element of formal criti- cal reflection. Scaffolding across different assignments facilitates this practice. For instance, at the beginning of the year, I provide a choice between two texts for students to connect. Later, I specify several options including at least one from early in the course. Towards the end of the course, they must identify the connecting texts while meeting the stipulation that at least two be from ear- lier in the year. Providing parameters that increase their role in discovering and articulating connections among the readings and their experiences cre- ate higher quality and more meaningful connections than overly structured or unstructured options.
In fact, it was through students’ critical reflections that I found the piece missing from my “Site, Service, Action” schema. When Portland State Uni- versity began participating in a multi-campus Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, I only saw an opportunity for my students to “do something.” As they critically reflected on their participation, students identified the event’s short- comings as those of a TSL activity. For example, during an election year a politician, rather than a student leader, gave the inspiring kick-off speech, many students articulated its connection to DeBord’s Society of the Spectacle (1967). Similarly, students observe de Beauvoir’s theory of the One/Other when much of the day is spent making the One feel good about helping the Other, with no time spent equipping them with information on how to avoid “othering” the community they have entered.
Engaging
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Student Agency
Initially
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, I did not think about student agency or provide class time for problem- solving within the culture jam groups. Over time, I noticed a shift in students’Pdf_Folio:182
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willingness and ability to engage in the assignment. I became determined to rattle their cynical malaise and refocused the culture jam on operationalizing philosophical anarchy. By participating in a group process (i.e., in commu- nity) and learning what it is like to make a statement, to experience a flicker of agency, students leave the course with at least an emergent understanding of their power. Gathering evidence and providing feedback during the project, rather than at the end, is imperative because emphasizing group process is diffi- cult for students whose previous education emphasized individual testing. Sim- ilarly, time for in-class processing must be built into the syllabus. It is a simple thing, and thus the easiest to forget.
Civic
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Professionalism
My
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hindsight-driven schema developed out of a desire to provide interesting, hands-on opportunities for students to engage with theory few of them were otherwise understanding. Discovering how CSL enriches a course, rather than adds on to it (e.g., “I should...” or an institutional mandate), is the secret to keeping it from becoming hard, complicated, and messy. For me, that discovery came through my practice of critical reflection when I realized that we do CSL, students, and community partners a disservice when we operate on the premise that students are whom we imagine they should be, rather than who they are. I expected students to come prepared, knowing how to do the things I expected of them. In looking back through my reflections, I realized I expected them to know how to do the very things they came to college to learn. With this realization, an essential shift occurred, not in my expectations of the students, but in my rationale for having those expectations. The clarity that came with this shift made figuring out how to structure, scaffold, and integrate CSL into my curriculum straightforward.
“Do No Harm” (Entering and Exiting Communities) —Christopher
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Carey, Portland State University
The
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Plan
I
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have always considered myself a “pracademic,” which Posner (2009) identi- fies as a person whose career spans the boundaries of academia and practice. Through this work, I find that how one enters and exits a community deter- mines much of the success of those partnerships. Most recently, I teach a course called Health, Happiness, and Human Rights. Focusing on social determi- nants of health and the intersections between healthy communities and human rights, over the years, we have engaged with community partners in projects ranging from transecting timber sales as part of a public comment period toPdf_Folio:183
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working with Portland Public Schools on educational issues. Regardless of the project, we begin them all at Mercy Corps.1 They employ a human‐centered design, Do No Harm (DNH) model in all of their community work and they operationalize the value of stakeholder empowerment by engaging local com- munities as the primary drivers to solve local problems.
The
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DNH model requires the students to try to understand the consequences of their actions through a series of role-playing and problem-solving experi- ences. For example, we teach the students that the first lesson of community engagement is listening without judgment or attempting to “solve” a problem. A significant portion of this process is for the students to take inventory of their values and beliefs around development so that they can try to understand how one’s perspective influences what they hear from the community.
Etiquette
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of Collaboration
Once
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students have this groundwork, they focus on how to enter and exit com- munities. DNH serves as the guiding principle for students to understand the ethics of collaboration and the interaction between the CSL experience and the community issue by asking two key questions: (1) what are the impacts (unin- tended or intended) of the project, and (2) how can we increase positive impacts and decrease negative impacts?
Boyer
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writes, “our most consequential human problems will be resolved, not through competition, but collaboration . . . what we need in education is a learning climate in which students work together. In such an atmosphere, truth emerges as authentic insights are conscientiously exchanged” (AZ Quotes). To this aim, the first workshop with Mercy Corps is a role-play involving the stu- dents working in teams to solve community problems. The examples are based on real-world events like putting together a water system after a natural disaster. Decisions about sourcing of the water, such as who has access to it, how much water can be used and for what purposes, are all issues that the student teams problem-solve. After the students experience the role-playing, they understand how the DNH model is critical to the etiquette of collaboration.
Critical
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Reflection
Empathy
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mapping is another DNH tool that involves a collaborative visualiza- tion to help students develop a deeper understanding of a community or group that they are working with that includes observing, interviewing, and research- ing within a community. For example, in election years, I challenge students to empathize with a political viewpoint other than their own by having them attend local political debates and then spend time with the candidates and the
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moderator afterward. Activities like this illustrate that presence is an important resource to develop empathy. As Brene Brown suggests in Braving the Wilder- ness (2017), we should all move closer to each other, because people hatred is hard to hold onto close up. Indeed, many of the students report that meeting and talking to the candidates gave them a much different perspective.
Engaging
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Student Agency
While
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the projects students engage in have taken different forms, much of our work over the last several years supports improving connections between the university and the local community and improving the experience of Port- land State University students. Examples of this work include development of a community map and support systems for Portland State University Housing and Student Affairs for incoming freshmen living on campus, working with the Portland Menstrual Society to raise awareness and ensure free access to femi- nine hygiene products on campus, and working with high school and middle school students to help them expand their educational goals and demystify the “college” experience.
One
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such project has been working with high school students enrolled in the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Program.2 Through- out the year, Portland State University and AVID students engage in projects focused on critical thinking and social development. Students exchange letters, visit one another’s campus, and talk about their experiences as learners while my students share how they prepared for college and coping with the attending stress, anxiety, and anticipation. A key component is when both groups of stu- dents and their teachers work together on a collaborative research project that explores learning. This collaborative research is followed up with a final joint session at Mercy Corps where that work is presented to school administrators from Portland State University and Portland Public Schools. The collaboration wraps up with my students writing letters reflecting on the experiences that they include in their ePortfolios.
Civic
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Professionalism
I
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have been integrating the elements of CBL and CSL into my Freshman Inquiry course for over a decade. For me, CBL is fundamentally about engagement and that means working with whatever the students’ bring to their learning expe- rience and meeting them at that level to coalesce around a community issue or organization. Boyer writes, “education must prepare students to be inde- pendent, self-reliant human beings. But education, at its best, also must help students go beyond their private interests, gain a more integrative view of Pdf_Folio:185
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knowledge, and relate their learning to the realities of life” (AZ Quotes). Con- sequently, learning is about engagement and that extends far outside of the traditional classroom.
As
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the years progress, I find that we spend more time on preparation and the process and less time working on separate projects. This change developed through student reflections and my observations because, while working on a particular project can alleviate an immediate need, a process-focused approach, like the DNH model, has more long-term benefits. With years behind me, I see students carry it forward for application within a variety of situations.
Shared
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Acts of Vulnerability (The Significance of Stories) —Debra Tavares, Reynolds
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High School —David Peterson del Mar, Portland
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State University
The
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Plan
Debra
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Tavares has been teaching language arts to students who are sheltered (needing scaffolding and vocabulary support) in grades 9 through 12 for eight years at the second largest high school in Oregon. Through a partnership with Peterson del Mar’s Portland State Freshman Inquiry class, we connect high school and college students through the writing process and story exchanges and build agency through complementary scaffolded processes. Using the work of Narrative 4, an international organization that promotes radical empathy through the simple yet powerful mechanism of inviting a group of people to share a meaningful story with someone else, in small groups, we ask each per- son to share a story and then to retell the story she or he has heard in the first person (Beam, 2018, pp. 119–123). The magic of this approach is the connection that the technique elicits.
English
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language learner students tend to lose confidence throughout the system of “tracking” with the same English level students year after year. Exchanging stories gives them a voice to express the unique obstacles of nav- igating two cultures: theirs and the new one. It empowers and adds value to their humanity, and their stories inform Tavares’s curriculum. Scaffolding and explicit instruction of both language and content (which is a natural sequen- tial process) is refined through the rigor of writing; reading at grade level with support; and connected through the oral expression of story to gradually give students the ability to accept the “release of responsibility” for their learning from the teacher to themselves.
In
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addition, high school student members from the Students 4 Equity Club and the Portland State students experience a sense of purpose and belonging as Pdf_Folio:186
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authentic opportunities to mentor through the practice of exchanging stories emerge. The act of exchanging stories through the Narrative 4 model transforms the speaker and listener in ways that inspire students to take leadership roles and to become change agents in their school communities.
Etiquette
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of Collaboration
An
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etiquette of collaboration is embedded within story exchanges: be honest; try to capture your partner’s story as best you can; listen carefully; avoid forming judgments. The rules serve to focus the participants on each other. Through the process of coordinating story exchanges after school, Students 4 Equity mem- bers learned how to express their passion for changing the school climate by building deeper relationships rather than “scaring off potential club members.” They refined their delivery. The empathy that initially transformed their per- spectives became the foundation for the way they facilitated story exchanges with high school students and teachers.
Each
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of the three story exchanges conducted within the Portland State class provided shared, common ground to a diverse group of young adults. The challenges faced by immigrants became finely grained, flesh-and-bones stories related by trusted classmates rather than didactic instruction. Students of color listened to and shared stories of White classmates who had suffered ostracism, shame, and abandonment. Because “empathy is part of genetic endowment” (Ciaramicoli and Ketcham, 2000, p. 24) and so many students “showed their necks” by revealing deep wounds, they triggered, to various degrees, a desire to relieve their suffering through immediate reassurances and long-term regard and respect (Goulston, 2010, pp. 87–93). By the end of the term, 100 percent of the class agreed or strongly agreed that they had explored issues of diversity, equity, and social justice; that their instructor exhibited a personal interest in them; and that they had learned to work in teams.
Critical
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Reflection
Story
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exchange students reflected on their stories in several ways. Reflection was built into the story-exchange circles; participants are asked to consider how they felt telling someone else’s story and hearing their own story con- veyed by someone else. High school students could then write reflections and some of them offered post reflections in two-to-one conferences. The univer- sity students reflected on their experiences as facilitators in weekly required reflections.
Students
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4 Equity members reflected critically through collaborative discus- sions and debates about the vision for the club; through the process of recruiting Pdf_Folio:187
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teachers and students; and through creative ways of including everyone after school. For example, story exchanges needed to be flexible and hosted by teachers on days that were convenient for them.
Engaging
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Student Agency
The
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exchanges encouraged acts of mutual vulnerability extending beyond the exchanges themselves. Most of both sets of students were from immigrant fami- lies, often families who had survived poverty or other trauma and were students of color in educational institutions where faculty are mostly Euro-American from more privileged backgrounds. However, the Portland State students had already negotiated such barriers as racism, poverty, and learning a second or third language to get to college. Whereas the Reynolds students had yet to make the leap to successful adulthood; they struggled with feelings of deep distrust for each other and negative emotions about school and their capacity to suc- ceed at it. Research suggested that story exchanges could lead to such students feeling less “afraid, discouraged, hopeless, and sad” (Brackett, et al., n.d., p. 5).
Each
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of the Portland State students who facilitated story exchanges at the high school expressed a strong sense of agency and competence. They were entrusted with the crucial work of embodied care, of modeling and facilitating emotional vulnerability (Hamington, 2004). Story exchanges provided them not only with a safe place to express their fears and receive comfort but also with a platform from which to support younger versions of themselves, immigrants struggling with cultural adjustments, poverty, racism, and family disruption. The very markers that set these students apart from what are commonly por- trayed as the norms of college life—their ethnicity, accent, poverty, or family life—were in fact a strength when working with at-risk high school students.
Civic
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Professionalism
Rather
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than seeing his role as dispensing knowledge, Peterson del Mar now per- ceives himself more as a listener and facilitator, as someone who strives to find contexts in which he and his university students can collaborate with commu- nity members in thoughtful and effective acts of caring. These deep collabora- tions fostered a deep sense of empathy, agency, and, ultimately, joy in first-year college students.
High
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school students wrote, “We need to create a club where students could invite others and facilitate a professional development that involves the entire staff in story exchanges.” They started a Students 4 Equity Club as a platform to present their ideas at the School Board meeting. They coordinated story exchanges after school and invited their favorite teachers and students from inside and outside their social circles. To plan a future professional developmentPdf_Folio:188
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session for all staff, students composed a charter and met with the school prin- cipal who said, “No club has ever impacted professional development before.” University and high school students collaborated to present story exchanges at a workshop for Oregon and Washington educators. All students felt a growing sense of agency in their education.
Because
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students applied theory and took several opportunities to facilitate story exchanges, Tavares and Peterson del Mar and two of the high school stu- dents were invited to attend a fully funded Narrative 4 Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana where they met some fifty students from more than a dozen schools from across the world to share stories and practices that broadened perspec- tives further.
Discussion
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Challenges
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We
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benefit from Portland State’s commitment to the model of a year-long fresh- man cohort, and integrating CSL into the timeline of a single course will pose its own challenges. However, we contend that some CSL, sooner than later, is bet- ter than no CSL and the five elements of our process framework provide a foot- ing for faculty, and administrators, to integrate the scaffolding of skills needed to do CSL projects. A more significant challenge than course length are institu- tional and disciplinary cultures that emphasize resource scarcity and the busi- ness model of higher education, that in turn perpetuate faculty insecurity and competitiveness rather than creativity and collaboration. It should not require courage to bring CSL into the curriculum and yet, in many places, it does.
Most of the challenges of integrating CSL into lower-division courses are predictable, such as finding the right partnerships and organizing and commu- nicating expectations and logistics. Similarly, students will finish your course and new ones will enroll, making it important to consider practical ways to maintain whatever your CSL needs to continue. For example, finding innova- tive ways to passing the project to the next class of students provides cohesion across courses. An unexpected challenge can be remaining resolutely hopeful in the face of students who are reluctant to hope. Each of us has heard heartbreak- ing and shocking student experiences, including the wholesale resignation to the state of the world.
Even
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with working partnerships, things occasionally go wrong. As we tell our students, if it is important, have a plan B and a plan C. For instance, imagine what completing the experience/assignment looks like for a student who can- not be there on that day and time and use that to create a backup. Having this backup helps those students and also works as a plan B for the unforeseen. Sim- ilarly, be honest with students when the unexpected happens and involve themPdf_Folio:189
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in the problem-solving. Presenting work as simple and hygienic does everyone a disservice, not to mention the stress it puts on faculty to appear flawless. It also gives students an overly curated understanding of the world. Even when things are going smoothly, share the tales of things gone wrong. Part of what makes CSL powerful is how it humanizes all of us in a way that a lecture never could.
Implications
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Because
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CSL develops everyone engaged in the endeavor—students, commu- nity partners, and faculty—the most significant implication of integrating CSL into a variety of courses is impact. Although we drew from our CSL experi- ence working with first-year, first-time students, in doing so, we envision the magnified societal impact of students who have engaged in regular, repeated opportunities to examine course content in relation to systems of power while working collaboratively with peers and communities to address or correct the inequities embedded and perpetuated by those systems.
Students
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develop and deepen their agency by building identities as learners and creators of knowledge within communities. We each find that when stu- dents connect their CSL experiences and observations to the course material, they develop an appreciation for what they have learned, for their role in cre- ating that knowledge, and for the reciprocal impact of being within a commu- nity. Furthermore, conceptualizing CSL as a tool, or a map, to facilitate student achievement of your desired learning outcomes—critical thinking, application of material, problem-solving, you name it—allows you to build a course stu- dents will remember because the five elements of our CSL Process Frame- work combine course content with building relationships through shared experiences.
Those
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shared experiences significantly impact all of the constituents in the CSL endeavor. For example, in the presence of a commitment to and practice of reciprocity, partnerships involving high school students working with col- lege students and faculty affects how individuals from each group understand themselves, providing an ongoing learning experience for all. Combine this with college-level opportunities offered to high school students by faculty and their students in the context of genuine and mutually beneficial relationship, and new possibilities for a love of learning, catalyzed by committed mentoring and the felt experience of support, often result.
Much like our students, experiences in CSL introduce and inspire us to see and think differently. As each of our sections on Civic Professionalism illus- trates, we find our roles as facilitators of student learning both necessary and nourishing because we believe in the transformative potential of general edu- cation. Although general education has come to be commonly misunderstood Pdf_Folio:190
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as broad and shallow, perhaps due to its dependence on the lower-division sur- vey course, CSL reclaims the general in general education, through its mean- ing of “concerning all or most people or things” (“General,” 2018), that, for us, includes how to develop agency, care, and understanding. A quick look around our public sphere illustrates the destructive power of agency without care and understanding, highlighting the critical need to begin it now.
Appendix
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Prompts
ID:ti0135
for Author Reflection
1. How
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do you describe and define CBL/CEL for yourself and your students?3
2. What
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does CBL/CEL look like in your FRINQ? 3. How
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long have you been integrating CBL/CEL into your FRINQ? 4. Has
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it changed over the years? If yes, explain how. 5. What
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are your CBL/CEL learning outcomes? 6. How
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do evaluate student learning on CBL/CEL work? 7. What
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is the worst mistake/experience you/your students have had doing CBL/CEL? What did you learn from that?
8. What
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is the role of social justice in your CBL/CEL assignments? 9. What
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do you do to develop student reflexivity? 10. Why
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do you do CBL/CEL with first-year, first-time students?
J
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. R. “JONES” ESTES is an Assistant Professor at Portland State University and serves as Director of the First-Year Experience in University Studies where she combines her dedication to first-generation students with the creation of inclusive and equitable curricula. Her research includes examining the dynamic among environmental policy, media, and public opinion, and the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning.
CHRIS
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CAREY is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and affiliated with The School of Community Health and the University Studies Program. Dr. Carey is an expert in law with an emphasis on human rights, environmental advocacy, and community engage- ment in local governance. He has worked for more than 15 years in research projects and community engagement programs in the United States, Asia, and Mexico including projects supported by the U.S. State Department and USAID.
DEBRA
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TAVARES is in her eighth year as a language arts teacher at the second largest high school in Oregon. Her specialties are Reading, English Language Learner, and Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) strategies, art, writing and technology integration, diversity and inclusion prac- tice, and community organizing.Pdf_Folio:191
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DAVID
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PETERSON DEL MAR is a Professor at Portland State University. He teaches two year-long Freshman Inquiry courses on Immigration, Migration, and Belonging. He is the author of seven books on topics ranging from the history of interpersonal violence to nature-loving to U.S. views of Africa. His service work includes: volunteering with immigrant youth; organizing, facilitating, and partici- pating in story exchanges; and heading Yo Ghana!, a nonprofit devoted to helping youth in the Pacific Northwest and Ghana educate and inspire each other.
NOTES
1. Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org is an international nongovernmental organization that works on international development and disaster relief projects around the globe.
2. AVID is a curriculum that provides academic and social support that develops critical thinking, literacy, and math skills across all content areas (www.pps.net/domain/1474 and www.pps.net/domain/4067).
3. CBL is used for experiences where the community partner is a significant and active participant in the experience; whereas CEL is used for experiences that are outside of the classroom but do not entail developing a relationship with a community partner.
WORKS
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