Content with Topics : Engaged Curriculum

Study Abroad Safety Resources for LGBTQ Travelers

Educators are consciously developing capacity to support LGBTQ Students’ Safe Study Abroad experiences. Sexual orientation and gender identity are essential topics throughout the program selection, pre-departure, on-site orientation, program delivery, and re-entry process. Late last week I inquired about resources supporting LGBTQ students on an international education list-serve. The expression of interest in receiving more content and developing better resources was extraordinary. I’ve compiled many of the resources that were shared with me below, but I’d be absolutely thrilled if additional resources, helpful articles, and tips showed up in the comments section. This is clearly an area where social change…

Immediately Applicable Teaching Resources: Participation, Reflective Writing, and Final Project Rubrics

Marcia Eames-Sheavly (Cornell University), has been gracious enough to share the rubrics that support her community-engaged course in Garden-Based Learning in Belize. Applicable to courses across disciplines, content areas, and locations, are her: Reflective Writing Guidelines Class Participation Rubric, which includes insightful guidance for students like: Diplomatically prompt us to examine the dynamics involved in the group process. If you think it is appropriate, ask the group for a pause to slow the pace of conversation or activity to give you, and others, time to think/process, especially during our travel time. Make a comment that at least partly paraphrases a point…

How to Have the Best Possible Global Health Volunteer Trip

I’m pleased to share these guidelines from Professor Judith N. Lasker, who previously contributed a post on Short-Term Programs in Global Health, the subject of her book, Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering. Important advice is below. Enjoy: By Judith N. Lasker So you want to go on an international health service trip?  The reports of life-transforming experiences are inspiring and the advertisements exciting.   But there are hundreds of different options; how do you choose?  Let’s assume that you want the highest quality experience, both for your own benefit and for that of the country you…

Resources from the 6th Annual Cornell Global Service-Learning Institute

The GSLI is underway, thanks to New York Campus Compact, Engaged Learning + Research at Cornell University, and Amizade Global Service-Learning. As promised, I’m sharing resources here, including the following PowerPoint Presentations, most of which feature hyperlinks that connect to other relevant resources on the web: Educating for Global Citizenship? Cornell Global Health: Experiential Learning in Tanzania Agua Clara: Cornell Engineering in Honduras Community Gardening in Belize: Cornell Horticulture Fair Trade Learning and Community Partnership Power, Privilege, Positionality, Intercultural Learning The institute is underway. More resources to come!

Tools vs. Textbooks: The Academic and Developmental Impact of Alternative Break Trips and Classroom-Based Learning

Today I’m pleased to share a research summary from Annie Wendel, a Providence College Graduate (Public and Community Service) who was central to the development of this website during the past year. Annie’s preparing to leave for a year in Nepal as a Fulbright Scholar, but she agreed to share her research before departing. The study examined the differential impact of course-based and non-course-based Alternative Spring Break programming. – EH By Annie Wendel My experiences as a Public and Community Service major over the past four years at Providence College have allowed me to explore service-learning opportunities in numerous locations,…

Giving Back? Short-Term International Volunteer Programs in Health

Judith N. Lasker, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University, has been deeply immersed in research on international health volunteerism. Below she has offered a summary of her book, Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering. She has also been kind enough to share guidelines for international service trip participation, which I’ll be sharing here next week. Dr. Lasker is eager for your feedback and comments, so please share your reflections, additional resources, or constructive criticism. – EH By Judith N. Lasker, Ph.D. Short-term volunteer service trips across national borders are increasingly popular in Europe and in the…

Fair Trade Learning Resource Base Grows; Upcoming Posts on International Health & Domestic GSL!

Greetings Readers: I recently returned from an exhilarating trip to Arizona, where I had the opportunity to facilitate a doctoral student panel on Fair Trade Learning and present a session on thinking through international community partnerships. This was all part of Prescott College’s 5th Annual Sustainability Symposium, an event which provided substantial deep reflection on our relationships with one another and the earth. Four Fair Trade Learning doctoral students presented a session on their application of FTL principles to a community partnership in Vieques. Take a look at the presentation here. Following that session, I pulled together some of the literature on…

International Education Program Design for the Common Good

What are our duties towards communities of strangers who, living across town or across the world, host our students’ living and learning? And how might the decisions we make in program design operationalize those duties?  Dr. Richard Slimbach, Professor of Global Studies at Azusa Pacific University, addressed these questions in “Program Design for the Common Good,” which he originally shared as part of a session at the forum on Education Abroad. Dr. Slimbach has been kind enough to share the document on this website and in the blogpost below. It begins with a realistic scenario – and ends with a…

Resource Roundup: Presentations and Links from the Forum on Education Abroad

By Eric Hartman The 2013 Forum on Education Abroad proved to be a fertile ground for learning about and sharing new resources related to global service-learning and Fair Trade Learning. We presented pedagogy and community partnership content related to our book, Building a Better World: The Pedagogy and Practice of Global Service-Learning. That presentation is here.  Slide number ten features the use of Clatyon’s DEAL Model of reflection to advance intercultural learning before, during, and after an abroad program. I also had the opportunity to hear an excellent presentation on community impact, community development, and partnership from Mark Ritchie of the International Sustainable…

Join us May 29 – 31 at Cornell's 6th Annual Global Service-Learning Institute!

We’re looking forward to excellent dialogue, exchange, and movement-building, with current registrants representing states from the mid-Atlantic and throughout the Northeast. The intimate size of this gathering ensures opportunities to engage in deep, purposeful dialogue about the work of conscientious global service-learning. We hope you can join us! The GSLI:  The 6th annual Global Service-Learning Institute will build upon established institute strengths in global service-learning pedagogy and program development, while also integrating more explicit attention to best practices in community-based planning, community development, and movement-building within global service-learning. Previous institutes have highlighted encouragement of institutional teams and the opportunity to…

What is Global Citizenship? An Answer from the Archives

Seven years ago, as I studied for my doctorate, a former student asked me to write an introduction to a photo book on international service and engagement. The questions he wanted the introduction to address were: What is all of this work about? Why are we doing it? What does it hold in common? The book never came to fruition, but the essay found a home with Community Works Journal (they have graciously allowed a reprint here). I post it now because at the recent Forum on Education Abroad one of the sessions I co-presented concluded with an audience member asking that…

Literacy Leadership Service-Learning Trip

EDUC-L 295 (1 cr.) & L296 (2 cr.), Literacy Leadership Service-Learning Trip L295 meets during the 2nd 8-week term of the spring semester; L296 is a summer service trip to Rwanda (30 days in July & August). TBD: Meeting date, time, and classroom Course Instructors Instructors of Record: Lauren Caldarera Assistant Director, Global Village Living-Learning Center Office: Global Village Living-Learning Center, Foster Martin Phone: 855-4264; Office Hours: By appointment Beth Lewis Samuelson Assistant Prof., Literacy, Culture and Language Education (LCLE) Office: IU School of Education, ED 3022. Phone: 856-8256. Office hours: By appointment Additional Instructor: Ali Nagle 5th grade reading…

Culture. Shock. Service. Study Abroad. Global Citizenship? – New Master's Thesis with Provocative Data

By Julia Lang The second week I was volunteering at a foundation for street children in Guayaquil, Ecuador, during my semester abroad in college, a volunteer doctor asked if I would sit in on his check-ups with the young women (age 6-14). Once their clothes were removed, child after child showed scars, bruises, hidden shame and pain. I began to realize that these children, who sold soda on the street for 5 cents and went days before collecting enough money to return home, were survivors and pawns in an oppressive, patriarchal society over which they had no control. The world…

The Biggest Problem with International Service & Voluntourism

By Eric Hartman The biggest problem with the global service sector is not reinforcing historic patterns of power, privilege, and paternalism. The biggest problem with the sector is not that voluntourists may inadvertently undermine the development of local industry or unwittingly interfere with local cultural practices and assumptions. It is not that global do-gooders become self-congratulatory after making little tangible impact. These are all real problems, but they do not exist across all programs. Good programs are educative for all involved, capacity-building for community partners, and self-critical and humble. The biggest problem with the sector is this: Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions,…

Book Review: Student Learning Abroad

“Most students do not meaningfully develop either through simple exposure to the environment or through having educators take steps to increase the amount of exposure through ‘immersing’ them. Instead, students learn and develop effectively and appropriately when educators intervene more intentionally through well-designed training programs that continue throughout the study abroad experience…. Put differently, the data show that students learn and develop considerably more when educators prepare them to become more self-reflective, culturally self-aware, and aware of ‘how they know what they know'” (p. 21).  By Eric Hartman I began reading Student Learning Abroad: What Our Students Are Learning, What…

Entry Points for Global Careers that Make a Positive Difference

By Eric Hartman  Late Friday afternoon I had the chance to talk with several students. They were curious about ways to get involved with global careers that make a difference. Here’s a bit of career advice for any globally-concerned idealists: You can absolutely have an important, economically-viable, social-serving career. But the path isn’t always clear. You must make it happen. Here are a few ways to get started. Spend time reviewing job and volunteer opportunities at idealist.org Volunteer and intern Review graduate school opportunities through the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs and the Association of Schools of Public…

Transformation Experience: Service-Learning Student to Scholar

“While my peers were touring historical cities and partying until dawn, I was  supervising children who were routinely beaten, sexually assaulted, or forced to work the streets all night long.” By Julia Lang The day that I left my service-learning semester in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the street children with whom I had worked volunteering at a foundation every day for the past five months would not even look at me, let alone say goodbye. As I engaged with my host family, my emotions would soar and plummet as I was treated as a daughter one moment, then asked for special presents…

New Resources, New Guests, National Dialogue – Global Service-Learning in 2013!

By Eric Hartman As we settle into spring semesters in the United States, we’re launching a number of new resources and preparing to feature some exciting guest writers. We’re also thrilled to announce a few very compelling upcoming conferences that are part of the national dialogue on the development of best practices in global service-learning. New Resources: Please take a moment to visit and peruse our Global Service-Learning Research Wiki. As you’ll see there, with some extremely helpful student support from Cornell University and Providence College, we have begun organizing peer-reviewed and open-source GSL research around several themes, including intercultural…

Community-Based Research, Engaging Documentaries: Cultural Humility & Public Health

CES4Health.Info, an online forum for reviewing and publishing community-engaged scholarship in nontraditional formats, recently published two compelling videos. One juxtaposes the practice of cultural humility with the notion of cultural competency. The other “is an educational film that presents narratives by Crow men directed toward raising awareness of men’s health and preventative treatment options.” Both of these films address important issues and could be useful in community-engaged classes in many different disciplines. Click through the links below to watch either film: Cultural Humility Apsaalooke Upsauloouk Bucha Unnaylayda – Crow Men’s Health  Many thanks to Community-Campus Partnerships for Health for developing CES4Health.Info, a vital…

Situating Global Service-Learning: Drawing on Diverse Fields for Informed Practice

Global service-learning ultimately draws upon several discrete areas of literature and practice: community development, reflective practice, learning and assessment, health and safety, global civic engagement, and power and privilege. A regular theme of this site is that global service-learning practice requires great care and preparation to do well – and part of that process necessarily includes engaging with areas of research that are unfamiliar. As we complete the final version of chapter 1 in the book, we are further developing and working on this chart. But we are also now sharing it in draft form here, complete with hyperlinks to the cited material…