Workshops & Training

Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice are small cohorts of cross-campus faculty who are experienced community-engaged teachers. Each community of practice focuses on a unique theme related to community engagement, and creates space to do communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing related to that topic. 

Each community of practice meets twice each quarter to explore and reflect upon ongoing learning and challenges. At the culmination of their year together, the communities of practice will have the opportunity to share their learning with the DU community at a Public Good Celebration. The structure and format of this forum will be determined by the community of practice. Each participant will also submit a written reflection with the option to have it published in a special issue of CCESL’s Public Good Impact Blog. Participants who meet the commitments are eligible to receive $250/quarter.

2024-2025 Communities of Practice

• Elevating Your Community-Engaged Work

  This community of practice will create a small cohort of cross-campus faculty who are interested in building their skills to communicate about and advocate for their community-engaged work. Together, faculty will gather twice per quarter to explore and reflect upon learning and challenges, including in developing, implementing, and communicating about community-engaged work. 

  Learning Objectives: 

  • Build skills and capacity to communicate with a wide variety of audiences about your community-engaged work. 

  • Prepare faculty leaders who champion community engagement for public problem-solving. 

  • Build the reflective capacity of faculty participants. 

  Commitment: Each participating faculty will: 

  • Share ideas and strategies with Cohort members, including by co-leading at least one discussion,  

  • Develop a plan for implementing something learned through the cohort, 

  • Complete pre- and post-program reflection activities, and 

  • Submit one public reflection that can be published in CCESL’s Public Good Impact 

  Participants who meet the above commitments will be eligible to receive $750 ($250/quarter), either as a stipend or as a grant to support their community-engaged work. 

  The 2024-2025 application is now closed.

• ASEM Pilot Community of Practice

  Since 2005, the Advanced Seminar (ASEM) program has been a feature of undergraduate education at DU. To help students better understand the demands of contemporary life, instructors teach an advanced seminar based in their area of expertise and passion. The topic is approached from multiple perspectives in a course designed for nonmajors. Studying in this setting, students demonstrate their ability to: 

  1. Integrate and apply content from multiple perspectives to an appropriate intellectual topic or issue. 
  2. Write effectively, providing appropriate evidence and reasoning for assertions.  

  Building on these core learning objectives, we seek proposals for pilot ASEM Pathways to Signature Work courses that emphasize integrative learning to prepare students for subsequent signature work experiences that address public issues, such as those articulated in the Ideas to Impact and DU Grand Challenges initiatives.  This would then be articulated as a third learning outcome: 3. Create a plan, pathway, some deliverable for signature work.

  The 2024-2025 application is now closed.

2023-2024 Community of Practice

• Mentoring Signature Work

  This community of practice created a small cohort of cross-campus faculty who shared an interest in mentoring student signature work that addresses DU Grand Challenges issue areas to do communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing to build leadership skills and capacity for this work. 

2022-2023 Communities of Practice

• The Activist Academic 

  Inspired by The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change by Colette Cann and Eric DeMeulenaere, this community of practice will explore how to merge activism with academia and what it means to be an ‘activist academic’. Conversations will center critical reflection as faculty support each other in navigating difficulties, hope, and passion for change in academia. Participants will receive a copy of the book.  

  Facilitators: 

  Paula Cole, Teaching Professor, Economics 

  Co-Sponsors:

  IRISE and OTL

• Creating Synergy in Community Engagement

  How can community-engaged faculty members cooperate to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects? From co-teaching a course across disciplines, to teaching separate classes that tackle a common community-identified need, faculty members across DU are collaborating in unique ways for the benefit of both their students and community partners. This community of practice will explore the specific challenges and opportunities that present themselves when we aim to create synergy in community engagement. We’ll bring together experienced practitioners and newcomers in a supportive environment as they build the community, skills, and knowledge needed to create these transformational collaborations.  

  Co-Sponsors:

  OTL

2021-2022 Community of Practice

• Engaging Onward

  How do we, individually as instructors and collectively as colleagues, spring forward from these tumultuous times in ways that build abundance and justice for ourselves, our students, and communities through our courses? This community of practice creates space for communal reflection, collective problem-solving, and knowledge-sharing as we navigate where our community-engaged teaching has been and where we would like it to go.

  Co-Sponsors:

  IRISE