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Teaching Students About the Basilisk: Exploring a Mythical Creature

Teaching students about the history of taiwan, teaching students about the definition of brahman in hinduism, teaching students about the definition of spheres of influence, teaching students about the definition of vaporization, teaching students about speed in physics, teaching students about invertebrates, teaching students about god of the sea in greek mythology, from ‘the holler’ to higher ed: james russell’s first-gen journey, i-dream grant implemented for first american students pursuing careers in education, a guide to community-based learning.

Community-based learning refers to various teaching methods and programs that educators utilize to connect what is being taught in schools to their surrounding communities, including local institutions, history, literature, cultural heritage, and organic environments. It is also motivated by the belief that all communities have intrinsic educational assets and resources that educators can utilize to enhance learners’ learning experiences.

Proponents of community-based learning generally argue that learners will be more interested in the subjects and ideas being taught. They will be inspired to learn if educational study is connected to ideas, issues, and contexts that are more familiar, understandable, accessible, or personally relevant to them. By utilizing the “community as a class,” advocates argue, educators can improve knowledge retention, skill acquisition, and preparation for adult life because learners can be given more opportunities to apply learning in practical, real-life settings—by researching a local ecosystem, for example, or by volunteering at a nonprofit organization that is working to improve the world in some meaningful way.

While the methods and forms of community-based learning are both sophisticated and numerous, the concept is perhaps most readily described in terms of four general approaches:

Curriculum connections: In this type of community-based learning, educators would make explicit and purposeful connections between the content being taught in the class and local issues, contexts, and ideas. For instance, the workings of a democratic political system may be described in terms of a local political process, statistics and probability may be taught utilizing stats from a local sports team, a scientific concept may be explained utilizing an example taken from a local habitat or ecosystem, or the Civil War may be taught utilizing examples and stories drawn from local history. In this scenario, learners may still be educated within the school walls, but community-related connections are being used to enhance learner understanding or engagement in the learning process.

Community amalgamation: In this approach, educators take advantage of local experts by inviting them into the school to give presentations, participate in panel discussions, or mentor learners working on a research project. The school may also collaborate with a local organization or group to provide learning experiences in the school—e.g., a local engineering firm or scientific institution may help the school create a robotics program or judge science-fair projects. In this scenario, learners are still being educated within the school walls, but community resources and authorities are being used to enhance the learning experience.

Community involvement: In this approach, learners would learn, at least in part, by actively participating in their community. For instance, learners may undertake a research project on a local environmental problem in collaboration with a scientist or nonprofit organization; participate in an internship or job-shadowing program at a local business for which they can earn educational credit or identification; volunteer at a local nonprofit or advocacy campaign during which they conduct related research, or they may interview doctors, urgent-care professionals, health-insurance executives, and people in the community without health insurance to learn about the practical challenges faced when attempting to expand health-care coverage. In this scenario, learners are learning both within and outside of the school walls, and participatory community-based-learning experiences would be connected in some way to the school’s educational program.

Citizen activity: Some experts and educators would consider this approach to be the fullest or most “authentic” realization of community-based learning —learners not only learn from and in their community, but they also utilize what they are learning to influence, change, or give back to the community in some meaningful way. For instance, learners may write a regular column for the local newspaper; research an environmental or social problem, and then create an online petition or deliver a presentation to the city council to influence local policy, or volunteer for a local nonprofit and create a multimedia presentation, or short documentary intended to raise awareness in their community about a particular cause. In this scenario, the audience for and beneficiaries of a learner’s learning products would extend beyond educators, mentors, and other learners to include community organizations and the general public.

How to Implement Community-Based Learning In Your Class

Community-based learning is thought of as a way for educators to enhance their ideas by connecting them to individual, first-hand experiences and accessible examples. Community-based learning is typically positioned as an alternative to traditional forms of learning. Learners may read about people, places, or events they have never experienced or ideas that can only be understood abstractly.

Although community-based learning seems to work just fine, some educators are calling for it to be reformed. In this article, we will discuss why.

War is a common idea taught in history class. However, it is not something that most American learners commonly experience—and, consequently, the effects and implications of war may not be fully felt or grasped. A community-based approach to teaching learners about war might entail visiting a war memorial that lists the names of soldiers who died in combat, researching how a particular war affected their local community, or hosting discussions with a veteran’s group or a recently arrived refugee who relocated to the community from a war-torn area.

Community-based learning is also promoted to develop stronger relationships between the school and its community while also increasing the community’s investment in, understanding, and supporting the school and the learning experiences it provides. For instance, school-reform proposals may be met with skepticism, criticism, or resistance from the local community, particularly if they are misunderstood or misinterpreted.

If a large percentage of community members are involved in the school’s new approach to educating learners, participating community members would not only have a stronger understanding of the strategies being implemented and of why the new teaching approaches are being adopted, but they would also be able to help community members better understand its potential.

Debating the Pros and Cons of Community-Based Learning

Like any school-reform strategy that necessitates major changes in how schools operate and learners are taught, community-based learning can become the object of debates. Many people, including educators, may express concern that community-based approaches will “water down” courses, that learners will fail to acquire foundational educational knowledge, and that test scores may drop.

Parents and community members might express unease because the approach looks different from the more familiar school concept they are accustomed to. Logistical issues and complications, and safety concerns, may also arise since learners may leave the school grounds for certain activities. They may have to utilize public transportation. They may be taught by adults who are not educators.

Educators may express skepticism or resistance because community-based learning can complicate school schedules and mandate more planning and creativity, increasing educator workloads or resulting in teachers not being given the planning time and training or resources they need to learn and utilize community-based approaches efficiently.

In its more advanced forms, community-based learning can also mandate coordination between the school and outside organizations and people, which can have both financial and human-resource implications. In many cases, schools recruit parents or community volunteers to coordinate programs to reduce school personnel costs or burdens.

Advocates argue that community-based learning needs to be skillfully designed in schools—doing too much, too quickly, without a strong plan and sufficient training for educators can greatly increase the likelihood that problems will arise.

They also argue that even though community-based learning can mandate more from schools and educators—more funding, more planning, more work, more professional development—the benefits are well worth the investment: learners will be more excited about learning, they will learn more, and they will be more able to apply what they have learned in real-life settings.

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Why families and communities are central to education system transformation

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, new research, tools, and strategies, sophie partington , sp sophie partington former senior project coordinator and research assistant max lieblich , ml max lieblich former senior project coordinator and research analyst emily markovich morris , emily markovich morris fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education laura nóra , and laura nóra researcher - instituto salto- brazil rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development.

January 23, 2024

Six years ago, the United Nations proclaimed January 24 as International Day of Education to celebrate and recognize “ that education plays a key role in building sustainable and resilient societies. ” Without education, it would be impossible to achieve the other Sustainable Development Goals of eradicating poverty and social inequities, promoting peace, and advancing climate and environmental action. International Day of Education honors educators, students, and leaders who are the heart of schools, and the families and communities who champion and help schools and learners thrive. Although polarization and distrust between families and educators is a pressing challenge in many countries, International Day of Education reminds us that partnerships between family, schools, and communities are foundational to the history and future of education and to a healthy civic life in society . At the Center for Universal Education (CUE), we have been furthering research on family, school, and community engagement, sharing strategies, and creating tools to inform practice and policy with over sixty collaborating organizations around the world who are part of our Global Family Engagement in Education Network. CUE’s Family, School, and Community Engagement (FSCE) in Education initiative is committed to expanding the research base and dialogue on inclusive and equitable FSCE practices and policies, developing tools to enact evidence-based and community-driven strategies, and fostering knowledge sharing on FSCE with a wide range of actors to catalyze education systems transformation. Our tools and resources for schools, civil society and family organizations, and education leaders make the critical link between families’, students’, and educators’ beliefs on and experiences in education, relational trust, and responsive strategies for building stronger family-school partnerships. Through intentional conversations on beliefs and experiences, schools and communities can develop contextually relevant strategies that center students, educators, and families in educational change. More community-driven research advances the field of family, school, and community engagement and promotes more impactful learning and partnering across education systems and communities. Research that is inclusive and equitable on FSCE ensures that schools, decisionmaking bodies, and civil society organizations have accessible data and evidence to further their efforts and deepen relational trust and partnerships between schools and families, and to help support all students and schools to achieve their desired futures.

Family, school, and community partnerships are a must, not ‘nice to have’

As is elaborated in CUE’s forthcoming publications, FSCE encompasses the many ways that families, educators, and community groups work together to promote student learning and development and to support schools to thrive. Although types of engagement vary depending on the context, the intention is to support greater collaborations and partnerships and to ensure teaching and learning is equitable, inclusive, high-quality, and relevant. Stronger family, school, and community partnerships are critical to education systems transformation and ensuring there are comprehensive and coherent ecosystems to support teaching and learning. A teacher from a rural secondary school in Bangladesh that participated in forthcoming research (to be featured in “Six Global Lessons on How Family, School, and Community Engagement can Transform Education”) captured this sentiment well: “Fulfilling the necessity of education and achieving holistic change with proper engagement involves four pillars/sides: students, teachers, parents, and the broader community. If one of these is weak or broken, the entire system will be affected or collapse. If these sides do not support each other, if there is a lack of interaction, the achievement rate drops. Ultimately, schools and the entire education system cannot reach their expected goals.” CUE’s new research expands on the earlier publication, “ Collaborating to transform and improve education systems: A playbook for family-school engagement ,” which makes the case for why family, school, and community partnerships are essential for education systems transformation. The Playbook for Family-School Engagement features findings from surveys with 25,000 parents and 6,000 teachers and a Strategy Finder of approaches to family-school collaboration developed and tested by schools and communities around the world. Since launching the FSCE Initiative, CUE has facilitated over 150 workshops and events with a wide range of actors across the global education landscape to support in translating research to practice. Through these convenings, a common theme emerged: school teams, education leaders, and supporting community organizations need comprehensive and easy-to-use tools to understand the perspectives and experiences of their families, communities, and students, develop a shared vision for education, and enact strategies to build stronger partnerships.

New tools and research advancing family, school, and community engagement

Over the next six months, CUE will be releasing a series of open-access tools and research publications with the aim of furthering research, practice and strategies for family, school, and community engagement in communities experiencing some of the greatest inequities. These tools and research were developed together with diverse school, community, and government teams in CUE’s Global Family Engagement in Education Network. They are listed below in order of publication date:

• Global family, school, and community engagement rubrics tool (January 2024): A set of rubrics that school teams can use to assess and reflect on where they are in building family, school, and community partnerships and map where they need to go to make sure their schools are inclusive of all families and supporting school and student outcomes. The Global Rubrics measure four key areas that lead to strong partnerships between families and schools: creating an inclusive culture, building trusting relationships, leveraging families as assets, and sustaining meaningful FSCE practices. The Global Rubrics were developed by a working group of education leaders from five countries based on an approach developed for the Colorado Department of Education in 2020.
• Relational trust scale for families, schools, and communities. Developing strong relational trust between families, communities, and schools is at the center of building strong partnerships. Central to the Conversation Starter Tools surveys is a relational trust scale that captures different levels and elements of trust between educators, families, and students. School teams can use this data and scale as an entry point in conversations around how to build trust with their students and families.
• Six global lessons on h ow family, school, and community engagement can transform education (June 2024): A research report presenting six key global lessons from participatory research with families, educators, and students in the Conversation Starter Tools studies. The six global lessons speak to why families’ beliefs on the role of education differ from their satisfaction with education and how educators are reporting lower levels of trust with families than families with educators. Recommendations suggest how to move beyond blame games and deficit framing of families into assets-based approaches to situate families and communities as allies to schools.

FSCE case study series (June 2024): A series of country and education system-specific policy and research briefs based on learnings from the Conversation Starter Tool research in collaborating countries. The purpose of these briefs is to provide key recommendations for education system leaders and partnering institutions on how to build strong family, school, and community partnerships using and evaluating data and strategies from their context. CUE is also excited to announce that on June 4, 2024, we will convene for the first time at Brookings a Global Symposium on Family, School, Community Engagement . At this daylong event, collaborators from around the world will come together to share insights from global research and strategies on family, school, and community engagement. Participants will take part in a series of dynamic conversations and workshops with family, school, and community partners exploring how to use evidence to develop a shared vision of the purpose of school and new strategies and policies for building stronger partnerships. As the world celebrates International Day of Education and reflects on the pressing need to improve and transform education systems to better serve all students and communities, we hope these tools and resources shed light on the critical role that families and communities play in supporting students and schools to thrive and offer actionable guidance for how to build stronger partnerships. As the FSCE initiative continues on this journey of bringing families and communities into research and collaboration at the center of education systems transformation, we have been asking educators, families, students, and education leaders around the world about the most pressing needs they are facing today. Parents, teachers, and students from Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, England, Netherlands, Sierra Leone, the US, South Africa, and Tanzania (Zanzibar) have all emphasized a need for greater focus on the well-being of students, families, and educators. One key question that will guide us as we move forward is: What do you think are pressing issues within family, school, and community engagement in education today? We welcome inquiries about the upcoming Global Symposium on Family, School, and Community Engagement and comments, feedback, and suggestions on the above tools and research reports as they are released at [email protected] .

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