Self and Community

Welcome to the final quarter of "Self and Community!" The major goal of this program has been to accomplish one of the five foci of Evergreen learning, which is linking theory with practical applications. We studied psychological and sociological perspectives on identity, society, and social problems in fall quarter and applied them to community service work in winter quarter. Spring quarter entails a return to the classroom to assess what worked, what did not work, and what needs to be improved in the future. We will reflect on, critically examine, and integrate our fall quarter theoretical learning with your winter quarter practical experience to develop effective guidelines for serving the community. You may continue your community work for four-credits in the spring. Note that spring quarter is student-centered and student-led.  The success of the quarter depends on student involvement and your dedication to your own and your peers' learning.

Our studies spring quarter will encompass lectures, workshops, seminar discussions, reading, writing, research, small group collaboration, and student presentations about topics related to self and community. Students who successfully complete this program will gain considerable experience with applied work in the social sciences and human services and with independent and collaborative scholarly research and writing.

Please consult our website weekly for program updates (www2.evergreen.edu/self).

Contact Information

Typical Week in Spring Quarter

Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate

Be mindful of these Expectations as you work in our program.  Discuss your progress toward these goals in your self-evaluation and during your conferences with faculty.

1. Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.

2. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.

3. Communicate creatively and effectively.

4. Demonstrate integrative, independent, and critical thinking.

5. Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.

6. As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.

Inclement Weather Policy

We will cancel class if campus is closed, and we may also do so if we believe it is unsafe to hold class.  If this happens, we will try to send an all-program email notification, so make sure the registrar has your current email address.  You should also check the announcements page on our program's website and call your seminar faculty's phone number (we may leave pertinent information on our voicemail). 

Note: One of the benefits of being a learning community is that learning can happen without the guidance of a faculty member.  If your faculty is late to class, you should begin class on your own rather than assuming class is canceled. 

Book List

The books for this program will be available at the Evergreen bookstore.  Be sure to get the correct edition of the texts by buying them at the bookstore or by checking the ISBN at the bookstore before buying the books elsewhere.  The ISBNs listed are the ones we ordered, but occasionally different ones arrive. 

carried over from fall quarter

Dalton, J. H., Elias, M. J., & Wandersman, A. (2007).  Community Psychology:  Linking Individuals and Communities  (2^nd ed.).  Belmont:  CA: Thomson.  ISBN 780-534-63454-4-0 or 0-534-63454-0

Eichler, M.  (2007).  Consensus Organizing:  Building Communities of Mutual Self-Interest.  Thousand Oaks: CA.  Sage.  ISBN 978-1-4129-2659-1 or 1-4129-2659-9

New for spring quarter

Abrams, J. and C. Zweig (eds.)  (1991).  Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature.  Los Angeles: CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.  ISBN 087477618X (pbk)

Bornstein, D. (2007).  How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.  New York: NY: Oxford University Press.  ISBN 978-0-19-533476-0 (pbk)

Miller, S., & Miller, P. A. (1997).  Core communication:  Skills and processes.  Evergreen, CO:  Interpersonal Communication Programs, Inc.  ISBN 0-917340-22-1 (workbook only)

Some readings will also be placed on reserve at the library circulation desk or in a secure location on our program web page.

**Additional readings will be determined by program participants.

Brief Assignment Descriptions

There are a variety of group and individual assignments in this program, all organized around the themes of improving self, organization, and society.  You will find descriptions below, and will receive more detailed information for some assignments during program meetings and on our program website.

****Unless otherwise specified, all work you submit to your faculty should be typed with a legible standard-sized font (11 points), and your pages should be stapled.****

Communication Skills Assignments

Effective communication is important for self-esteem and is an essential part of becoming a productive and functional member of a community.  We will complete a series of communications workshops and assignments this quarter with an eye toward self-improvement, conflict resolution, and social justice.

Personal Evaluation Assignments

A series of guided self-evaluation writing assignments will help you examine the personal variables that influenced your community service work in the winter.  You will keep a journal of your writing and will submit a summary of your learning.

Program Synthesis Project: Evaluating Community Partners and Designing Solutions Project

The capstone project for this program will be a set of independent and collaborative assignments that helps you critically examine and integrate your theoretical learning with your winter quarter practical experience.  As part of this work, you will evaluate the organization(s) you worked with in the winter using the principles of community psychology.  You will also propose how to effectively prepare students for community work and develop guidelines for how organizations can better serve their community.  The final products of this work will include a report for the organization(s) and the Center for Community Based Learning and Action in which you evaluate your internship organization(s) and a solutions project that you develop for implementation within these or similar organizations addressing how the organization(s) can more effectively serve their clients, utilize their interns, and/or achieve their mission.  Some examples for this solutions project may be a handbook for new interns, a coalition-building project to enhance community connections, or a set of communications workshops.  You will also conduct research on the effectiveness of existing solutions projects and complete an annotated bibliography in support of your research.  Finally, you will collaborate on a creative team presentation about your solutions projects.  Your learning summary group will collaborate on several aspects of the program synthesis project.

Internship or Collaborative Social Justice Research and Teaching Project (4 credits)

You can elect to continue your internship for 4 credits or to participate in a project designed to continue Evergreen's contributions to the local community.  For this team-based social justice implementation project you will research an area of interest and need in our community, design a project using the principles of community psychology, make plans to implement the project, and educate your program peers and the larger community about the issue and your project.  Our hope is that you leave "Self and Community" with a social justice project that is ready to implement (by yourself, an existing organization, or future social justice workers).

Interns will give a final presentation detailing their learning this quarter.

Student-Originated Studies

What do you now realize you need/want to know more about, given your winter quarter experiences?  Propose a way to learn this, either independently or collaboratively.

Seminar

During spring quarter we will be reading, reflecting on, and discussing several texts in our exploration of self and community. Seminar is a cornerstone of your Evergreen education. To get the most out of this experience, you must complete your readings and assignments well before seminar and bring that week's readings to class. An assignment will be due most weeks during seminar.  These assignments vary week to week, although all assignments involve reading an entire text or a selection of text. Specific assignment details follow in the class schedule.

Learning Summary Group and Process Papers

During spring quarter students will be meeting in small groups on Monday to further explore program topics and to discuss research findings.  Three process papers, peer feedback on papers, and in-depth processing of the program content are associated with this learning group.  Your LSG will also collaborate on several aspects of the program synthesis project.

Movement

Understanding yourself includes learning about the connections between your mind, body, and spirit.  To facilitate this understanding, we ask that you devote at least one hour each week to mindful movement activities.  You will write about these activities in your learning summary process papers-what did you do?  What did you learn from this experience?

Additional Items

Other assignments may include unannounced in-class essays on the assigned readings and a portfolio of your completed work that includes your self-evaluation. 

Weekly Schedule

This syllabus is a fluid document that may change to incorporate new opportunities or to enhance learning.  Any changes will be announced in class and will be posted to the web. We recommend that you check the website once a week (www2.evergreen.edu/self).

A note on readings: You will be reading some materials in preparation for lectures and other materials in preparation for seminars and workshops.  Complete the readings well before the day they are listed.

Week One

Communication assignment, week 1: pre-assessment questionnaire (pgs. ix-xi in Miller and Miller); make copy; don't tear out of book

Personal evaluation journal writing, week 1: What type of communication style(s) (both talking and listening) do you have?  How did your communication style(s) hinder/help you with your internship?

Week Two

Communication assignment, week 2: How much of your frustration as an intern was due to your beliefs, your interpretations, and your expectations?  Give a specific example of the most salient form of thought. (1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Seminar assignment, week 2: Describe your personal shadow.  How did it manifest itself during your internship?  (1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Personal evaluation journal writing, week 2: Write a more detailed assessment of the shadows in your life (personal, collective, cultural, family, etc.).  How do these shadows impact your social justice work?

Week Three

Seminar assignment, week 3:  Compose 3 text-based discussion questions that incorporate specific citations and reflect your deep understanding of the material.

Personal evaluation journal writing, week 3:  Evaluate one incident from your internship that was related to this week's program content.

Internship learning-in-progress assignment: A). Briefly describe what you have been doing so far.  B.) Discuss what you have learned so far; engage in some deeper self-reflection here.  C.) What connections can you make between your work in the real world and the readings and activities we've done in our program?  (Use specific cites where relevant.)

Week Four

Communication assignment, week 4:  Discuss how you have applied the concepts and skills from your communication workshops into your life outside the classroom.  Use specific examples.  (1-2 pages, double-spaced) 

Seminar assignment, week 4:  Draw out one quote from each reading that is relevant to your winter internship, your goals for yourself, and/or your desires for your own community, society, and world.  Why are these quotes and the concept of liberation meaningful to you and to the type of world you want to live in? (1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Personal evaluation journal writing, week 4:  Evaluate yourself as a leader and a follower (see Miller and Miller pg. 102).  How did your style hinder/help you as an intern?

Week Five

Seminar assignment, week 5:  Compose 3 text-based discussion questions that incorporate specific citations and reflect your deep understanding of the material.

Week Six

Communication assignment, week 6:  Complete the exercise listed on pgs. 150-154 in Miller and Miller.  Also do the post-questionnaire (pgs 155-157).  Bring a copy of these completed pages to class (don't rip them from the book).

Seminar assignment, week 6:  Choose 2 quotes and discuss why they are meaningful to you, to the work you want to do, and/or to the type of world you want to live in. (1-2 pages, double-spaced)

Week Seven

Week Eight

Week Nine

Week Ten

Evaluation Week: June 9-13 

Do not make plans to leave campus before June 13th, which is the end of the quarter. Evaluation conferences will be scheduled with your seminar faculty member.

SEMINAR GUIDELINES

There will occasionally be an unannounced in-class essay on the assigned readings at the beginning of our book seminar.  The content will be evaluated on a 1-5 point scale. 

Seminar is at the heart of your Evergreen education and can be very rewarding when all students complete the readings, participate collaboratively in intellectual sharing, and challenge and learn different perspectives. 

The quality of seminar decreases when some students do not complete the book and discuss it on the basis of incomplete knowledge or when some students monopolize the seminar.  If you did not finish the book, don't talk in seminar. 

Please be mindful of balancing speaking and listening by being aware of how often you speak and how long you speak (minutes per class).  When everyone is mindful, there will be enough time for all learning community members who completed the book to share their feedback or ideas.

Seminar Preparation and Participation

1. As you read, identify the author's main points and what evidence, arguments, or reasons the author uses to support these main points.

2. Read actively. Try to anticipate the author's arguments. Remind yourself of the bigger picture - e.g. what chapter or subsection are you reading. Try to write a sentence or two summarizing the author's writing every few pages.

3. Find connections between the program's lectures, workshops, other readings, and the seminar readings. This ability to integrate material is a hallmark of more advanced thinkers.

4. During seminar, speak clearly. If you are a quiet speaker, look at the person farthest away from you and talk to him or her.

5. Use specific examples from the text, including page numbers and passages. Wait a few seconds until the rest of us can find the page and passage.

6. Always bring at least one meaningful quotation to seminar and be prepared to discuss its significance to you and to the text.

7. Ask specific questions or state a particular point from the text to the seminar group (including page number). Argue the author's point from your perspective and not your general personal opinions. Learn from diversity of opinions and ideas. Being offended when others disagree with your ideas or opinions prevents you from learning to think from multiple perspectives.

8. It is fine to disagree with the opinions of others, but do so in a respectful manner.

9. Involve others by asking their opinions on the topic to avoid monopolizing (letting a few people dominate the discussion leads to an unsuccessful seminar).

10. Take responsibility to make yourself intellectually challenged by initiating questions and/or comments to the seminar group. You can only be bored or unchallenged when you become a passive learner who waits for someone else to speak on what you would like to discuss. No one can read your mind.

11. Be an active participant and keep the discussions on topic and away from tangents.

LEARNING SUMMARY PROCESS GROUP AND PAPER GUIDELINES

**LEARNING SUMMARY PROCESS GROUP MEETINGS**

Your attendance at this weekly meeting during class break on Mondays is as important as other program attendance.  There are at least two learning objectives for this group; one is you are learning to honor and respect your peers as much as your faculty (deconstructing hierarchical thinking), and the other is you are learning to "participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society," which is one of the expectations of an Evergreen graduate.  When you are absent or late you are hindering every member's learning, including your own.  You are a vital member of your group.  You are required to work together for at least 1.5 hours/week on in-depth processing of your weekly learning and on receiving/giving feedback about your program synthesis research projects.  Your inconsistent attendance or tardiness will be reflected on your evaluation.

**LEARNING SUMMARY PROCESS PAPERS**

Submit your Learning Summary Process paper on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. on weeks 3, 6, and 9.

The goal of the learning summary process paper is to reflect on how you learned.  Please answer all of the following questions in 4 pages maximum (double-spaced, 11-point font, 1" margins). 

1. READING:  (a) State how many pages you have read for the assigned reading each week.  (b) State how closely you've read.  If you just skimmed the reading, what was the reason?  (c) How did you feel about skimming or reading thoroughly?  So far this quarter, (d) how often did you read thoroughly or just skim?  (e) Do you consider this your pattern?  (f) Describe the author's major theme from each week's seminar reading.

1. LISTENING:  (a) How well did you listen in lecture, seminar, workshop, and peer groups?  (Answer separately for each.)  (b) Did you listen well?  If you are not attentively listening, why?  (c) Do you listen more attentively in some areas than others?  (d) What could you do to become a more attentive listener?  (e) An excellent listener would probably be able to state in some detail what was discussed in each week's lecture, seminar, or workshop.  State some from each week.

1. SPEAKING and PARTICIPATING:  (a) How well did you participate in seminar, workshop, and peer group?  (b) Did you monopolize the conversation?  If so, why?  Did you stay quiet?  If so, why?  (c) Did you actively participate in the workshops?  Why or why not?

1. GROUP WORK:  (a) How many hours did you spend actually working in your small group at the required Monday meeting?  This time should not include your socializing time.  (b) Did you stay focused on the task at hand - processing weekly learning, the research project, etc.?  (c) Did you talk more than your share?  (d) What could you have done differently to stay more focused?  (e) Write names of the group members who were on time and who stayed throughout the entire meeting. 

1. MOVEMENT: Understanding yourself includes learning about the connections between your mind, body, and spirit.  To facilitate this understanding, we ask that you devote at least one hour each week to mindful movement activities.  Write about these activities in your learning summary process papers: What did you do?  What did you learn from this experience?

STUDENT-ORIGINATED STUDIES

What do you now realize you need/want to know more about, given your winter quarter experiences?  Propose a way to learn this, either independently or collaboratively.  Consider using the forum to find people with similar interests so you can submit a collaborative proposal by the revised proposal due date. 

Notes:

•§         This is a 2-credit project, so you should plan to spend 5 hours a week on this work.  Design your syllabus accordingly.

•§         Your project or course of study should be relevant to our program's topics and themes.

•§         Please review the other assignments this quarter to make sure you don't propose a project that we're already doing.

Here are some ideas that came out of your forum posts winter quarter. 

• Learn more general psychology to prepare for graduate school requirements (e.g., a group that reviews several psychology textbooks, quizzes each other, and does psych GRE practice tests is one possible course of study).

• Research specific topics relevant to psychology (e.g., emotional responses to traumatic events, teens and anger management, social science research techniques, strategies for working with youth, how to encourage clients to help themselves).

• Research non-profit fundraising, grant-writing, etc. to learn how to bring money to good causes.

• Learn how to become a political lobbyist so you can influence laws (one course of action could be conduct a literature review and then interview political lobbyists about their job histories, qualifications, and experiences.  Note that if you'll be doing interviews or working with people, you'll need to get human subjects review approval before you begin your research).
• Research the relationships between complex social issues, how the trends in different social issues affect each other, and how these issues contribute to social injustice.  Synthesize this information and write a synopsis to present to interested laypersons.
• Research how to create positive change (e.g., through understanding theories of successful social movements and successful change organizations).

DUE DATES:

Week 1: Email faculty with tentative proposal for your project/course of study, including your learning objectives, general topic, research question (if relevant), list of classmates you'll be working with (if any), and statement of how you faculty will evaluate your progress toward your learning objectives.

Week 2: Final proposal, including revised week 1 submission and project syllabus (including weekly outline of tasks you'll accomplish, preliminary reading list, assignments you will submit to yourself and/or your group, and other relevant materials).  Please include the due dates and work listed below (e.g., progress reports, poster and summary, final project, and evaluations).

Week 5: Progress report due to faculty, including a discussion of how well you're meeting your goals.  (1-2 pages)

Week 8: Progress report due to faculty, including a discussion of how well you're meeting your goals.  (1-2 pages)

Week 10: Poster session, 1-page summary of poster, final projects, and evaluation of team members (if relevant).  To prepare for your poster session, review your SOS proposal and syllabus.  In your poster, address your learning objectives, what you did, and what you learned. 

Program Synthesis Project: Evaluating Community Partners and Designing Solutions (4 credits)

The capstone project for this program will be a set of independent and collaborative assignments that helps you critically examine and integrate your theoretical learning with your winter quarter practical experience.  As part of this work, you will evaluate the organization(s) you worked with in the winter using the principles of community psychology.  You will also propose how to effectively prepare students for community work and develop guidelines for how organizations can better serve their community.  The final products of this work will include a report for the organization(s) and the Center for Community Based Learning and Action in which you evaluate your internship organization(s) and a solutions project that you develop for implementation within these or similar organizations addressing how the organization(s) can more effectively serve their clients, utilize their interns, and/or achieve their mission.  Some examples for this solutions project may be a handbook for new interns, a coalition-building project to enhance community connections, or a set of communications workshops.  You will also conduct research on the effectiveness of existing solutions projects and complete an annotated bibliography in support of your research.  Finally, you will collaborate on a creative team presentation about your solutions projects.

The audience for this assignment is workers in the fields of human/social services and social justice work.  Assume that your internship organizations, the Center for Community Based Learning and Action, and future student interns will read this document.  It should be indicative of your very best, most professional work.  Remember that you're in a unique position to offer educated and informed advice to your service organizations about how they can improve their work. 

Section 1: Program Evaluation and Curriculum Proposal

How can an academic program best prepare students for community service learning work?  In about 5 double-spaced pages, please address the following questions:

•a.       Review our program's fall curriculum (readings, assignments, lectures, workshops, etc.).  What worked to prepare you for your winter experience, and what didn't? 

•b.       In retrospect, what did you need to know to prepare you for winter quarter, but you didn't know?  Review your final winter service learning paper to orient yourself to this question.

•c.       What do you suggest future interns do to prepare themselves for work in this area (be as specific as possible)?

•d.       Given a-c, propose a best-case curriculum be for preparing students to do the type of work you did.  Be as specific as possible regarding readings, topics of study, assignments, skill-building workshops, guest lectures, etc.

Schedule of due dates for Section 1

•·  Individual draft due to learning summary group Monday of week 2.

•·  Collaborative final draft due to faculty via email week 3 Thursday at noon.

Section 2: Report for Community Partners

How well did your winter internship organization serve its clients, train and utilize its interns, and work toward its mission?  In no more than 8 double-spaced pages (not counting the front material), address the following questions.  (Note: If you worked at more than one site winter quarter, you may choose to focus on one organization.)  Write this report for an external audience using the following headings.  You will be presenting this report to your winter internship organization, so make sure it represents your best and most diplomatic work.

I. Title page with abstract

II. Table of Contents (for Sections 2, 3, and appendices)

III. Introduction (1 page): Brief orientation to our program and how you came to be interning at the organization.  Provide roadmap for entire report (sections 2 and 3).

IV. Community Psychology (1 page): What are community psychology's guiding principles?  Why are they useful beyond the academic context (that is, how can the organization benefit from applying this perspective)? 

V. Organizational Evaluation (3 pages): Discuss one thing the organization did well with regard to community psychology principles, your most important critique based on community psychology (stress what the organization can gain from listening to the critique), and one additional critique that may or may not be based on community psychology (but that is substantiated by your reflections about your experience and your knowledge of social justice).

VI. Suggestions for Improving Organizational Effectiveness (2-3 pages): Using community psychology principles as a foundation (with citations), develop specific examples of or guidelines for how the organization can better serve its community/clients, train and utilize its interns, and achieve its mission.  Conclude with a transition into Section 3, in which you will use your understanding of community psychology to develop a project that will address an existing gap in the organization's effectiveness.

Schedule of due dates for Section 2

•·  Individual draft due to learning summary group Monday of week 4.

•·  Collaborative drafts due to faculty Tuesday of week 5. 

If all LSG members interned at the same organization, this section can be one document.  If everyone doesn't agree on the items to critique, section V of this report can be longer.  If LSG members interned at different organizations, this will be several documents (one per organization).  We expect your LSG to write each of these evaluations collaboratively so that the report to the organization is as professional and diplomatic as possible.  As such, even if each student is writing an evaluation for a different organization, some sections of your reports may be similar.  Faculty will offer comments, and students will revise and resubmit a final report.

Section 3: Resolution Project Proposal: Solving Social Problems by Addressing Gaps in Services.

Our fall quarter discussions about solutions to social problems were abstract.  Based on your academic training and your internship experiences, you can now create a concrete, tangible, and in-depth project to address the weak spots in the organizations that serve our communities.  We recommend that you begin your discussion of solutions by completing the "Visioning a Future Community and Society" exercise on pgs. 518-519 in Dalton.

Please use the following structure for Section 3:

I. Discussion of project design, expected benefits, and research demonstrating its effectiveness.

In 3-5 double-spaced pages, design a project based on (and citing) community psychology principles that will help the organization solve the most serious problem you witnessed during the winter.  Frame your discussion by highlighting that this project will help the organization better serve their clients and meet their mission statement. 

Important notes:

•§         Demonstrate your understanding of community psychology by using it as a foundation for your project design. 

•§         This section of your report will entail you citing additional research that shows how this type of project can be successful and effective.  Aim for 3-5 academic sources.

•§         This is not an abstract exercise.  You should actually create what you are proposing.  For example, if you propose a series of communication workshops, you will create these workshops and include the relevant documentation (worksheets, lecture notes, etc.) in your appendix.  As you describe your project here, be sure to tell your readers that they can find these documents in your appendix.

II. Summary and conclusion (1 page): Summarize and synthesize Sections 2 and 3.  Add a concluding statement.

III. Appendices (no page length)

a. Supplementary Materials: Include documents relevant to your project here.  You may also include plans for implementation, fundraising ideas, suggestions for community partners, a more detailed project outline, and other materials.

b. Annotated Bibliography

Schedule of due dates for Section 3 and final report

•·  Individual draft due to learning summary group Monday of week 6.  Include appendices.

•·  Collaborative proposal(s), including appendices, due to faculty Wednesday of week 7 at 5 p.m. via email.  *See note below.

•·  Revisions due to learning summary group week 8. 

•·  Final versions of Sections 2 and 3 due Tuesday of week 9 (bring 3 copies).  This is the report you will be submitting to your internship organization.

*Note: Your LSG is organized around common organizational critiques, and you may be in a group with others who interned at the same organization.  As such, there will be commonalities in individuals' solution projects.  Your team may be able to design a similar project for different organizations; that is, one project may be relevant to several of your internship organizations.  For this reason, your team may decide to collaborate on one or a few projects even if you worked in different organizational settings in the winter.  For this due date, you should submit one project proposal for each organization, even if the projects are very similar.  Each submittal should be a collaborative effort.  Faculty will offer comments, and students will revise and resubmit a final report.

Final presentations

We hope to generate a lot of excitement and positive energy around the projects you design this quarter.  Your team can share this excitement by teaching us about your solutions projects on Monday May 19 and Tuesday, May 20 (week 8).

LSGs will be organized around students who noticed similar problems within their organization.  Though individuals' solutions projects will be different, they will be motivated by similar concerns.  As the final aspect of your program synthesis project, your LSG will put on a creative presentation (e.g., skit, role play, etc.; not a formal presentation) of the common problem/concern and commonalities in your group members' solution projects.  This is not a formal presentation of each individual's project or report.  Focus on the commonalities between organizations and projects.

Team evaluations

As with fall quarter, every student will write an evaluation of each member of the learning summary group that includes the work you completed for this project.  These evaluations are due with your final learning process paper.

AGENDA FOR TEAM MEETINGS

This project entails group work outside of class time to peer review individuals' work and to collaborate on group assignments.  Please schedule a weekly meeting with your group.  Give yourselves enough time to brainstorm in a relaxed manner-this will enhance your creativity.  We recommend a three hour meeting each week.  Some group assignments are due to faculty via email on Wednesday, so we recommend that your group meet Wednesday morning if possible. 

This agenda is for the meetings that will occur outside of class time (e.g., not during Monday's LSG meeting).

week 1: 

•·  Go through our fall syllabus and discuss readings, assignments, workshops, lectures, etc. What helped you prepare for your winter experience, and what was ultimately not helpful?  In retrospect, what do you wish you would have learned?  (Review your final winter service learning paper here too.)  What would a best-case curriculum be for preparing students to do the type of work you did?

week 2: 

•·  Review individuals' submittals re: program evaluation and curriculum proposal (section 1 of assignment). 

•·  Write collaborative evaluation/curriculum proposal.

week 3: 

•·  Revise collaborative evaluation/curriculum proposal (due to faculty Thursday). 

•·  Discuss your winter internship experiences with an eye toward writing the organizational evaluation segment (section 2).  What worked for you?  What didn't?  How can you apply community psychology principles to help the organization become more effective?  What suggestions do you have to make this internship a better experience for future interns? 

week 4:

•·  Review individuals' submittals re: organizational evaluations (section 2 of assignment)

•·  Collaborate on organizational evaluations.  Your team will write one evaluation for each organization for which your members were interns. (Reports due to faculty week 5 Tuesday)

week 5:

•·  Brainstorm about solutions projects that are based on community psych principles and your observations about what didn't work winter quarter.  Bring results of research on the effectiveness of similar projects.

•·  Discuss what additional research needs to be done, and divide up the responsibilities.

•·  Brainstorm about presentation ideas.

week 6:

•·  Review individuals' submittals re: solutions projects (section 3 of assignment)

•·  Collaborate on solutions projects.  Your team will write one proposal for each organization for which your members were interns, though the content may be very similar. (Reports due to faculty week 7 Wednesday)

•·  Discuss what additional research needs to be done, and divide up the responsibilities.

•·  Brainstorm about presentation ideas.

week 7:

•·  Practice presentation.  Make it wonderful and creative.

week 8:

•·  Revise organizational evaluation and solutions project segments of the assignment (steps 2 and 3) based on faculty and team feedback.  Prepare a professional-quality report for each organization (due week 9 Tuesday).

week 9:

•·  Have evaluation meetings with LSG.

DUE DATE SUMMARY for program synthesis project

due dates to LSG (this is individual work that students submit to LSG)

week 2 Mon: individual evaluation of fall quarter and proposal for curriculum to best prepare students for community work (section 1)

week 4 Mon: Draft of organizational evaluation segment (section 2)

week 6 Mon: draft of section 3-solution project designed around community psychology principles and additional research.  Include annotated bibliography and appendix with worksheets or other relevant documents.  Also bring ideas for team presentation.

week 8: After your presentation, your group will work on revising sections 2 and 3 based on faculty and peer feedback.  Bring individuals' revisions to your week 8 meeting.

due dates to faculty (this is collaborative work that the LSG submits to faculty)

week 3 Thursday at noon via email: collaborative evaluation of fall quarter and best-case curriculum proposal (section 1)

week 5 Tuesday: collaborative report to organization (section 2).

week 7 Weds at 5 pm via email: section 3: solutions project proposals, including appendices. 

week 8 Mon and Tues: LSG presentations on solutions projects. 

week 9 Tuesday: three professional copies (no typos, revised as per faculty and LSG feedback) of sections 2 and 3 (one copy for faculty, one for organization, one for CCBLA)