Community Engaged Learning Online Course

Campus Engage works to embed, scale and promote accredited student community-based learning and teaching (CBLT) on campuses across Ireland.
Community-based learning and teaching are academic approaches that seek to enhance student learning outcomes, while working in partnership with civic and civil society organisations (CSOs) to act on local and global societal challenges.

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Community Engaged Learning Online Course

The Campus Engage Community Engaged Learning (CEL) course is an introductory programme for teaching staff in higher education, which explores the basic concepts and practical steps on how to integrate CEL into any teaching curriculum. The course is built around a series of video tutorials, solo and group activities, a selection of academic and grey reading material, and online case studies with community partners, students and academics.

The course is 25-hours learner effort and is undertaken over a 6-week period, after which learners can claim their digital badge in Community Engaged Learning from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (NFETL).

To see our digital course brochure, please click here.

What is Community Engaged Learning?

Community engaged learning is a form of experiential education with a community engagement for societal impact underpinning. Students gain academic credit for engaging and reflecting on a learning experience or piece of research in partnership with a community organisation.

This allows students to explore ‘real life’ problem solving, their future role as a professional, and how they can contribute to address Irish, EU and international societal challenges.
Existing examples include law students providing legal advice to the public in their local community law centres; engineering students working with older people to design innovative occupation support tools; or dietetics students giving nutrition workshops with local school students.

Course Outline

Pre-course content
Introduction to the course, the virtual learning environment and your course colleagues.

Week 1
Community Engaged Learning – Introduction and Rationale
Explore the definitions and characteristics of community engaged learning in Ireland, with case study examples.

Week 2
Community Partnerships
How to build and sustain working relationships with community groups with a partnership approach to support Community Engaged Learning.

Week 3
Embedding Community Engaged Learning in the Curriculum
Explore the various curriculum design options as you embed CEL and consider how to write learning outcomes for CEL.

Week 4
Engaging Students
Consider the key information students require about CEL. The focus is on preparing students to engage effectively in CEL activities.

Week 5
Assessment of Community Engaged Learning
How to assess if students have achieved the intended learning outcomes of their CEL experience.

Week 6
Claiming your NFETL Digital Badge in Community Engaged Learning

Why you should take this course?

Enhance your teaching by providing students with practical experience of applying academic learning in a real-world setting with community-based organisations.
Contribute to students learning outcomes across citizenship, team work, effective communication, leadership, empathy and enhance their social capital.
Network with community partners to open up new learning and research projects, interdisciplinary funding opportunities, or publications. No prior experience with community organisations is necessary to take this course.
Walk away with a plan and tools to develop learning outcomes, assessment techniques, learning agreements, process guides, and case studies of successful projects.
Become part of a national Campus Engage network of community engaged teaching and research practitioners.
Get recognition of your CEL activities for institutional promotional criteria