Graduate Student Professional Development 495CE:
Supervised Preparation for Community-Engaged Teaching

4 Units; Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Grading

Tuesdays 2-3:50pm (TENTATIVE)

Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Goodhue, Associate Director for Faculty Engagement at CAT

 

Course Objectives:

The 495 series provides instruction in the general curriculum and classroom practices of teaching at UCLA. Grad PD 495CE: Supervised Preparation for Community-Engaged Teaching provides an overview of best practices for community-engaged pedagogy and strategies for collaborating effectively with the diverse communities of Los Angeles. This course is suitable for graduate students in any discipline and does not presuppose prior experience teaching community-engaged courses. Indeed, seminar discussions and in-class pedagogy workshops benefit from active involvement of participants with a wide range of disciplinary expertise and teaching experience.

This course represents an exciting collaboration between UCLA’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Center Community Learning, and the UCLA Graduate Division. The course has been designed with the dual goal of enhancing undergraduate teaching and diversifying graduate student professional development. Through weekly seminar discussions and workshops with experienced teachers and community partners, participants can expect to:

  • gain familiarity with core concepts and debates related to community-engaged teaching in higher education;
  • explore how community-engaged pedagogy intersects with diversity education and complements other forms of “high-impact” and applied learning;
  • develop strategies for cultivating and sustaining reciprocal community partnerships;
  • practice designing assignments and facilitating discussions that assess how and what students learn while working in diverse community settings as part of an academic course;
  • draft a syllabus for a community-engaged course in the discipline of your choice;
  • receive guidance about opportunities to pursue community-engaged teaching at UCLA and about navigating the national network of resources supporting engaged teaching and public scholarship in campus and community settings.

 

Course Requirements & Grading

This course is offered on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grading basis. In order to earn a grade of Satisfactory, graduate students must meet the following learning goals:

  1. Regular and thoughtful participation is expected of all students. Please remember that we all depend on each other, and the class will be run as a workshop. It will be impossible for you to participate effectively if you are absent or late, and more than one absence without prior approval from the instructor is grounds for an automatic Unsatisfactory grade.
  1. All students will observe at least one class meeting for a community-engaged course offered this quarter and will turn in a one-page reflection on the observation. You will be provided with a list of instructors who have agreed to open their courses for observation. Your one-page reflection is due by 5:00pm on Friday of Week 6. Any requests for extension of deadlines must be approved by the instructor in advance or may result in an automatic Unsatisfactory grade.
  1. All students will create a community-engaged syllabus and guidelines for at least one substantive assignment linking community work with traditional disciplinary learning goals. You will submit a draft of these documents during class in Week 5 for a peer-review workshop and will submit a revised version (with a short cover letter) at 5pm on Friday of Week 10 for evaluation by the instructor. More detailed instructions will be provided in class. Requests for extensions must be approved by the instructor in advance or may result in an automatic Unsatisfactory grade.

NOTE: This course counts as an elective for UCLA’s Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogy and can be aligned with core competencies for CIRTL@UCLA, a program that supports the professional and career development of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and current faculty.

Interested? Complete this Google Form by November 30: https://forms.gle/KFfHHEMLC38Yw1pQA

Questions? Contact Beth Goodhue at bgoodhue@teaching.ucla.edu or visit the following websites:

http://www.uei.ucla.edu/community-learning/faculty-engagement/#course-development