At UVM, community-engaged pedagogy is a curricular expression of active citizenship and civic engagement, where students learn to analyze community contexts and to identify effective civic action.  Inherently, the pedagogy embraces community-based expertise and centers community-identified priorities, taking what is called an “asset-based perspective” or, in other disciplines, a “strengths-based framework.”  At the same time, students apply their disciplinary knowledge and training within community settings, gaining real-world problem-solving and critical thinking skills. To uphold these purposes, we support and recommend faculty to: 

• Self-reflect upon their purpose and implicit bias in the development of partnerships, community-engaged work, and student learning objectives
• Design courses and build partnerships with community assets and partner expertise, as well as student learning and capacity-building in mind
• Explicitly promote asset-based perspectives as a principle in the course, assisting students to identify community assets, appreciate partner expertise and challenge deficit models.
• Create + teach to student learning outcomes addressing problem-solving, critical thinking, effective action and disciplinary contributions

_{Note: We may need to address the learning outcomes for “civic engagement” and the new minor, once accepted}

By definition, community-engaged pedagogy involves reciprocal partnerships, where students engage in projects and activities that address community-identified priorities, and in turn benefit from applied and real-world learning opportunities.  To ensure that these commitments are met, we recommend and support faculty to:

• Deeply consider the reciprocal nature of community-engaged learning
• Carefully design projects and activities within students’ capacity, with attentiveness to partner needs and timetables
• Prepare students to be effective and respectful participants in the community setting, providing necessary contextual knowledge, cultural awareness and/or technical skills within the course, particularly where students will interact across world views or lived experiences.
• Set policies for attendance and participation – and expectations for deliverables or work – that ensure students meet commitments to partner(s).
• Build resilience into the partnership work or activities (i.e. extra layers of student involvement, student TA’s or student teams, multiple groups working with the same partner) to reduce the impact of unexpected challenges
• Reflect upon successes and challenges with the community partners to assess the level of reciprocity achieved and make changes as needed

Community-engaged pedagogy – like all pedagogy - must embrace inclusive design and teaching practices for students.  We seek to ensure that all students are able to participate fully in community-engaged learning.  We recommend and support faculty to:

• Intentionally link experiential activities to disciplinary knowledge to ensure meaningful learning for students
• Clearly and proactively communicate the nature of – and expectations for – the community-engaged activities so students can make informed decisions about participating.
• Honor UVM’s credit-hour guidelines in crafting the balance of course work with time spent in community sites or on community-based work.
• Choose and design the partnership(s) and the course with consideration for how student identities may impact students in the community-engaged component and the course as a whole.
• As above, provide necessary contextual knowledge, cultural awareness and/or technical skills within the course, particularly where students will interact across world views or lived experiences.
• Scaffold the community-engaged work so that students can successfully meet course expectations, including working with partners, in sites and with each other in groups
• Build relationships of trust so that students can share issues of concern and integrate pedagogical strategies within the classroom itself that contribute to a sense of belonging for all students.
• Reflect upon student experiences and challenges in the course and adjust pedagogical choices over time. 

Critical reflection is a central component of community-engaged pedagogy.  Experiential learning requires the integration of experience with disciplinary frameworks, and the critical observation and analysis of all aspects of the community-engaged work.  Course learning outcomes are achieved through critical reflection. We recommend and support faculty to: 

• Apply the reflective lens from developing the course + partnership to student preparation and learning, addressing the reflective domain of learning within the class.
• Create continuous, scaffolded critical reflection opportunities directly tied to course learning outcomes that are consistent with disciplinary frameworks
• Use critical reflection to deepen students’ skills of observation, analysis and critical thinking, addressing all chosen domains of learning.
• Specifically encourage students to identify and analyze challenges and dilemmas arising in the site/project work, to reflect upon their own lived experiences and opportunities in relationship to community-engaged work, and to engage with the implications of their work for social or civic action in the future.
• Include meta-cognitive activities that recognize the relationship of community-engaged work with students’ personal, networking and/or professional goals.
• Create a course learning outcome specifically for these discipline-based critical reflection skills, and model reflective approaches throughout the course. 

Community-engaged pedagogy is fully congruent with UVM’s land-grant mission, and explicitly valued in our Academic Success Goals. Because of the complexity of the pedagogy and the labor involved in doing it well, we support and encourage faculty to carefully consider how their community-engaged work supports their overall career path.  We want all faculty – regardless of discipline, rank or lived experience – to have access to this pedagogy and to be well-resourced in offering it to students.  As CELO staff, we recommend and support faculty to:

• Build courses and partnerships slowly, utilizing professional development opportunities and building networks
• Consider integrating community engagement into research, teaching and/or service, in order to streamline work and build strong dossiers.
• Design courses and partnerships for sustainability over time, intentionally considering the number of partners and the organization of the course
• Identify and articulate the work of building partnerships and courses, requesting appropriate resource allocation and workload determination
• Celebrate successes visibly, to develop awareness and support within unit for community-engaged teaching