Strengthening Community-Based Learning in Higher Education: Developing High-Leverage Practices in Environmental Service-Learning Courses

• In Event: Locally and Culturally Relevant Resources for Promoting Environmental Education

Abstract

We investigate the creation of a guiding framework of High Leverage Practices (HLPs) during the initiation of environmental service-learning courses (E-corps) at a large public university in New England. Using Design Based Implementation Research, we discuss the role of various stakeholders (i.e. university administrators, professors, students) who came together as an epistemic community (Glazer & Peurach, 2015) to guide the HLPs’ creation. Interviews with students and faculty, observations at meetings, and relevant artifacts are analyzed to uncover how these players negotiated and iteratively created the HLPs. We present the final HLPs and include a discussion of how the groups’ shared goals were recursively negotiated and embodied in the HLP document over the 2019-2020 academic year.

Authors

• Hannah Cooke, University of Connecticut

• Rebecca A. Campbell-Montalvo, University of Connecticut

• Todd Campbell, University of Connecticut

• Byung-Yeol Park, University of Connecticut

• Chester Arnold, University of Connecticut

• John Volin, University of Maine

• Marisa Chrysochoou, University of Connecticut

• Peter Diplock, University of Connecticut - Avery Point