ESMG 4500 Items of Note

Items of Note

This course was developed with Instructional Designers Janel Mitchell and Daina Romney.  

This is a service learning course requiring students to meet with a community partner to complete a 20-hour project that aligns with the learning outcomes of the class and meets the needs of the community partner. This course uses a service learning template customized to the needs of the course. It provides a pacing mechanism with built-in accountability by including assignments with and without deliverables to help students complete the project.

This same template has been adapted for many different types of courses and can be used for semester-long projects as well as service learning projects. The compelling part of using a template such as this is that students can complete a large overwhelming project in small chunks, receive feedback on those interim submissions, and implement that feedback in the delivery of their final project.  The interim assignments can also be informed by the other activities in the course such as readings, discussions, etc.

The Service Learning Guide contains all of the details of the assignments. All of the associated assignments link back to the Service Learning Guide.  In this way students see the full scope of the project in one place and reading.  When updates are needed, the faculty simply updates the Service Learning Guide page.  Individual assignments only need to be touched when the due dates are updated each semester!