Thinking question: How will community-based learning contribute to achieving the overall goals of your course?  

Begin by broadly thinking about your discipline's broad impact on communities beyond Georgia Tech: 

• What difference does your field make for the broader society?  
• How have you used your discipline outside of academia to help others? 

Next, consider the goals of your course: 

• How can the students use the community experience to evaluate, explain, and/or analyze the theme or topic of the course?  
• How will students be able to connect the community experience and the course learning goals? 

Once you've identified what you want your students to learn, think particularly about what types of learning occur in your course: 

• Content-specific: What theories, principles, concepts, major ideas, methodology, etc will students learn in the course that can be applied or examined through the community experience?  
• General Academic: How could a community experience help students apply problem-solving, critical thinking, reasoning, or decision-making skills that are important in your discipline?  

Now consider what course learning strategies will achieve the learning goals:   

• Assignments- What assignments outside of class will enable students to connect the community and course learning goals? Examples may include integrative papers, structured journals, personal narratives, portfolios, presentations, and directed writings. 

• Classroom Strategies- What activities will help students connect the community and course learning goals? Examples may include in-class discussions, one-minute reflection papers, team-based projects, etc.