Community-Engaged Learning & Teaching
Many Sociology courses incorporate community-engaged learning and teaching (CELT) that prompts students to apply what they are learning to real-world problems and contexts. The following courses often include community engagement or projects (CELT may not be offered by every instructor, or in every term).
The community-engaged experience for this course focuses on an everyday context, such as the student-run Good Food Centre or observing court proceedings at the Toronto Courthouse. In observing these everyday activities, students reflect on how space is organized, who speaks and how, how decisions are made, and how organizations function. The goal is to examine how power operates in everyday life.
In this course, students are presented with a challenge that is facing an organization in Toronto. A guest speaker will provide context and students will have an opportunity to learn using a problem-based approach. We work together to find meaningful solutions!
In this course, teams of students work together to develop a program evaluation survey for one of the university's student services. After the survey is administered, they analyze the data and write a final report. They also formally present their findings to leaders from the student service.
Students in this course work have worked with a variety of non-profit organizations to help assess their effectiveness in meeting organizational goals and objectives. Students apply their understanding of multivariate statistical analysis to survey data provided by the organization, and prepare reports outlining their findings. This information may be used to help the organization understand and report on their work, while also helping them to direct resources more strategically.
In this course, students may participate in a job-shadow experience to learn more about work routines and the different types of work that people do.
Why is Black history invisible in Toronto city spaces? Where can we find voices that can illuminate this history? The community-engaged components in this course help students learn about the vibrant historical roots of Blacks in Toronto. They learn this history through the use of archival materials and from those who have a connection and understanding of this history.
In this course, students study and participate in a social justice project in another country to learn more about international development and equity and diversity issues. Students will participate in community-defined projects and engage in community service in the host country. See the course website for the Bahamas Project to learn more.
In some sections of SOC 808, students participate in community engaged learning projects to delve deeper into the food system and apply what they've learned in class. Most recently, students conducted a food waste audit for the university's Sustainability Office to figure out how to improve waste diversion on campus.
Working in small groups, students create an informative and visually attractive poster on a course-related issue that they want to create awareness about. Groups present their posters at an exhibit open to the university community at the end of the course.