Community-oriented Learning Research Articles

Elder Wisdom, 1960s Asian American Activism, and the Struggle for Third World Education

The 1960s Asian American Movement and 1968–69 Third World Liberation Front(TWLF) Strikes dismantled racist stereotypes of Asian Americans as “silent citizens” while alsoconnecting the community to a broader global liberation movement. This research explores howthese 1960s radical movements continue to influence modern Asian American communityorganizing and efforts to build multiracial solidarity. This paper draws upon the wisdom ofinterviewees who participated in the 1960s TWLF Strikes at SFSU and UC Berkeley, and theradicalizing lessons they shared with a younger generation of students, activists, and communityleaders.Through a series of conversations with former TWLF student members and leftistactivists, this paper reflects on the following questions: In light of the broad political changesthat emerged from the 1960s Third World struggle, how do we begin to understand thesignificance of these movements today? What lessons can we learn from Third World solidarityand the origins of Asian America, given the institutional limitations of the Ethnic Studiesdepartment at UC Berkeley? The theoretical and social foundations of these past movementschallenge capitalist, imperialist perspectives and emphasize an urgent community focus. Byrediscovering community-oriented learning and “self-determination,” Asian American studentscan revitalize the spirit of the Third World struggle in Ethnic Studies and the broader community.

Fostering Communities of Inquiry and Connectivism in Online Technical Communication Programs and Courses

In increasingly online higher education environments, instructors must develop positive and community-oriented learning environments, equivalent to, if different from, face-to-face learning experiences. Connectivism and communities of inquiry are complementary theories that facilitate the design and development of online learning and enable online learners to connect with peers. This article discusses two pedagogical interventions that encourage connectivism and foster communities of inquiry in online technical communication programs: (a) a face-to-face orientation workshop at the beginning of an online program and (b) a peer-review activity in a research methods graduate course. The article explains the development, deployment, and evaluation of the activities.

Transforming a Family Medicine Residency Into a Community-Oriented Learning Environment.

Improvement in population health has become a key goal of health systems and payers in the United States. Because 80% of health outcomes are driven by social determinants of health beyond medical care and health care access, such improvements require attention to factors outside of the conventional areas of expertise for clinicians. Yet primary care physicians often graduate from training programs with few skills in population and community health. In 2011, the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine began transformative work to become a Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH). As part of this effort, educators in the department addressed deficiencies in its residency's community and population health curriculum by implementing curricular change and faculty development. A set of guiding principles, "Three Community Health Responsibilities for Family Doctors," was developed to provide background and structure to current and future work. An annual program evaluation survey was administered to faculty and residents between 2012 and 2016. Respondents reported a significant increase in their understanding of population and community health over the prior year in each year this was assessed (P<0.001). Community and population health principles have become part of the fabric of the entire residency curriculum in the DFMCH. Faculty development was a key part of this work and will be integral to sustaining improvements.

Culture, community-oriented learning and the post-2015 development agenda: a view from Laos

This article critically interrogates current policy-sector approaches to culturally sensitive development and the manner in which culture has been conceptualised within the post-2015 development agenda-setting process. By providing a brief interpretive summary of academic debates surrounding culture and development, an analysis of how ‘culturally sensitive’ practices have been pursued within the policy sector, and an examination of the insufficient consideration given to culturally sensitive development within post-2015 agenda setting, I argue that much uncertainty remains around how to translate complex academic understandings of culture and development into policy responses. Following this, I provide one case study drawn from the small, low-income country of Laos to suggest possibilities as to how culturally sensitive development may be better conceptualised and implemented within a post-2015 global development era.

Le modèle FCP de l’Université Simon Fraser : une immersion multidisciplinaire, expérientielle et communautaire

Dans cet article, l’auteure présente le modèle d’immersion utilisé dans le French Cohort Program(FCP) de l’Université Simon Fraser en Colombie- Britannique. Les cours du FCP forment un ensemble intégré d’immersion caractérisé par un apprentissage multidisciplinaire, expérientiel et communautaire. L’article explique le caractère unique de ce programme, unique non seulement en raison de son rôle au niveau de l’éducation postsecondaire en langue française, mais également en raison des étudiants qu’il attire et des modèles d’enseignement qu’il met de l’avant.

Engagement studios: students and communities working to address the determinants of health.

This article presents an innovative model for interprofessional community-oriented learning. The Engagement Studios model involves a partnership between community organizations and students as equal partners in conversations and activities aimed at addressing issues of common concern as they relate to the social determinants of health. Interprofessional teams of students from health and non-health disciplines work with community partners to identify priority community issues and explore potential solutions. The student teams work with a particular community organization, combining their unique disciplinary perspectives to develop a project proposal, which addresses the community issues that have been jointly identified. Approved proposals receive a small budget to implement the project. In this paper we present the Engagement Studios model and share lessons learned from a pilot of this educational initiative.

Marketplace of Memory: What the Brain Fitness Technology Industry Says About Us and How We Can Do Better

In the therapeutic void created by over 20 failed Alzheimer's disease drugs during the past decade, a new marketplace of "brain fitness" technology products has emerged. Ranging from video games and computer software to mobile phone apps and hand-held devices, these commercial products promise to maintain and enhance the memory, concentration, visual and spatial skills, verbal recall, and executive functions of individual users. It is instructive to view these products as sociocultural objects deeply imbued with the values and ideologies of our age; consequently, this article offers a critique of the brain fitness technology marketplace while identifying limitations in the capacity of commercial products to realistically improve cognitive health. A broader conception of brain health is presented, going beyond the reductionism of the commercial brain fitness marketplace and asking how our most proximate relationships and local communities can play a role in supporting cognitive and psychosocial well-being. This vision is grounded in recent experiences at The Intergenerational School in Cleveland, OH, a multigenerational community-oriented learning environment that is implementing brain fitness technology in novel ways.

Community-oriented projects in calculus-based statistics courses

The purpose of the paper is to share the ten years of experience of implementing small group community-oriented projects as a learning tool in three different calculus-based statistics courses at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. The content of the courses, specifics of group organization, authentic data issues, and the products of project work are discussed. Four examples of student projects are considered. Two of these projects were carried out for external community partners and two for community partners found inside the university. These examples serve to illustrate community involvement and community-oriented learning experienced in the statistics classroom. The discussion in this article is based on more than ten years (1999-2009) of experience implementing small-group course projects in calculus-based statistics curriculum at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. We would like to discuss how our use of applied course projects in statistics has evolved during these ten years. The experience of other schools enabled us to develop our format of community-oriented projects in a calculus-based second or third statistics course. The courses discussed allow for embedded projects in which student groups use authentic data to deliver a viable product of statistical analysis for the community partner. The literature review found colleges with similar course projects but none exactly the same. Our key areas of discussion address both the recommendations of

The Yellow Man's Burden: Chinese Migrants on a Civilizing Mission

In the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, both the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and "ordinary people" pledged donations to the afflicted regions.1 Triumphant headlines in the People's Daily likewise made a statement about China's rise from aid recipient to aid donor. Not coincidentally, the expanding scope of projects financed by China abroad, mainly in Africa and South America but also closer to home in Burma, Cambodia and Laos, attracted considerable attention from Western media in 2005.2 From Guyana to Nigeria, China has emerged as a key source of state-led investment in infrastructure projects without the good-governance and human-rights strings that are attached to financing through international development structures, and Chinese companies have become a visible presence as major builders of roads, pipelines, bridges, hospitals, harbors, stadiums, water-supply facilities and so on.3 In the Sudan, Chinese state-owned enterprises have invested US$3 billion in the oil industry and helped to build a 1,540-kilometre pipeline and a refinery.4 In July 2005, censured by the UN for evicting 700,000 people from their houses, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe traveled to China for a US$300 million loan (he was denied it). In Northern Laos, Golden Boten City, a new Chinese real estate development, with international airport included, is being advertised to investors as a "developing space beyond belief. The brochure of the Golden Boten City Group assures potential investors that Although now there are just 1500 people living in 3 villages in Golden Boten City, you should believe that thousands of people will gather here in a beautiful morning or an autumn evening. They [will] live and develop here with various occupations and identities, to form a huge community, and a modern society.5 Similar signs of Chinese architectural modernity are fast squeezing out British colonial memories from Pakistan's hill stations and Sierra Leone's coast. In the institutionalized world of international development, in which states earmark aid budgets to be channeled through institutions such as the World Bank, such projects would be classed as private investment or, at best, as private aid. Yet in China-where aid and debt relief, though increasing, are far less significant than state subsidies for overseas construction projects6-both officials and managers discuss them in the language of development. While the roots of development discourse in China and in international organizations are shared, as are their proclaimed goals of aiding the economic and human progress of recipient societies, their emphases are rather different. The discourse of international development has, in the past decade, veered away from the previous, strongly criticized, unilateral emphasis on economic indicators and structural models originating in the West, and towards a socially and culturally "sensitive" framework-though just how much difference that shift has made on the ground is a matter of debate.7 Chinese accounts of "contributing to development" abroad do not share these recent scruples: they typically remain purely economic and are set in contexts that, from the perspective of the now-professionalized "international development community", appear highly unusual. The idea of exporting development centering on investment, trade and migration (for Chinese road projects are built by Chinese workers, and Chinese-sponsored farming projects typically bring both Chinese workers and technical advisors) is quite different from that practiced by today's international organizations, though perhaps not that different from earlier, colonial projects, in which the ground-level agents of modernization tended to be indentured laborers and traders imported from India and, again, China. Central to Western-originated international discourse is the separation of aid from investment: the idea that development aid is a not-for-profit affair, and accusations of profit-making can discredit donors. …

The Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN): A Research Partnership and Agenda for Community Networking in Canada

The Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN) is a collaborative partnership amongst academic researchers in Canada, international researchers in Community Informatics, the three principal federal government departments promoting the "Connecting Canadians" agenda, and community networking practitioners in Canada. CRACIN’s substantive goal is to review the progress of community-based information and communications technology (ICT) development in the context of Canadian government programs promoting the development and public accessibility of Internet services. Central issues to be explored include the sustainability of community networking initiatives, along with an examination of how the Canadian community-based initiatives contribute to: the amelioration of "digital divides"; the enhancement of economic, social, political and cultural capabilities; the creation, provision, and use of community-oriented learning opportunities; and the development of community-oriented cultural content, open source software, learning tools and broadband infrastructures. The over-arching goal of our research is to begin the systematic documentation and assessment of the development of community-oriented ICT capacity and services contributing to local learning, to the strengthening of relations in and between communities, and more generally to community-focused social and economic development in Canada.

‘Rubeola’: an exercise in community-oriented learning

The 3-year experience of setting up a control programme for measles in a developing community has been used to devise an extended problem-solving exercise in clinical epidemiology for 4th-year medical students. Following the same steps taken by health workers and using the maps, sociodemographic and measles incidence data available to health workers in the programme, students proceed through five self-contained but interconnected modules or ‘rings’. These rings cover disease management, surveillance, mass campaign, community-based surveys and finally implementation of changes in the health service. The first 3 ‘rings’ of this exercise were run on five groups of 20 students during 1992 in what has been regarded as a development phase to eliminate obvious ‘bugs’ and blind loops and to define the correct level of detail for each question. A description of the objectives and process of this learning exercise and its possible future applications is presented.

The New Mexico experiment: educational innovation and institutional change.

Over the past ten years the University of New Mexico School of Medicine has conducted an educational experiment featuring learner-centered, problem-based, community-oriented learning. The experiment was introduced into an established institution by means of an innovative educational track running parallel to the more conventional curriculum. Students in the innovative track, compared with those in the conventional tract, tended to score lower on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Part I examination (basic sciences) and higher on NBME Part II (clinical sciences), received higher clinical grades on clinical clerkships, and experienced less distress. They were more likely than conventional-track students to retain their initial interest in or switch their preference to careers in family medicine. The parallel-track strategy for introducing curriculum reform succeeded in fostering institutional acceptance of continuing educational innovation. Generic steps in overcoming institutional barriers to change are identified.