From R/Evolutionary Practices to Defining Impact in Faculty/Community Partner Co-Design

Abstract: The purpose of this roundtable discussion is to share our team's r/evolutionary approach to community-engaged course co-design and explore appropriate methods of measuring impact. Northeastern University's most recent cohort of Community-Engaged Teaching Fellows “broke the mold” of traditional community-engaged faculty development programs. Following a semester-long deep dive into extant scholarship around course design and ethical community stakeholder engagement, these fellows worked to establish confianza (mutual trust and reciprocity) with community partners and embarked on a process of course co-design that was both evolutionary (non-formulaic, generative), and potentially revolutionary in terms of its impact. We have found early indicators of success in both affective and cognitive outcomes among both community-engaged teaching fellows and community partners, as members of each group self-actualized into new identities as collaborators, instructors, and learners. The next step for us will be to identify an appropriate methodology for determining program impact that upholds and builds upon our newfound r/evolutionary approach and does not fit us back into "the mold".

Narrative:

Overview:

Our team (Community-Engaged Teaching & Research) has taken strides to incorporate diverse voices in the design and implementation of our Community-Engaged Teaching Fellows program, specifically relating to practices of course co-design. In the most recent iteration of this program, we applied a r/evolutionary (constructivist, nimble, and generative) approach to course co-design, and space was deliberately created for varied sources of knowledge to inform the process. In this roundtable session, our plan is to facilitate a topical discussion in which we share our newfound reflections/takeaways from our experience; and with roundtable participants, explore how our renewed approach can not only inform C-E programs and practice, but lead to r/evolutionary critical assessment and research approaches as well.

Theoretical/Conceptual Foundation for the Work:

In design and delivery, our revision of the CET Fellows Program was informed by the Asset Based Community Development approach (ABCD), which emphasizes the assets within a community rather than retaining a focus on its needs in driving sustainable change initiatives (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003). Additionally, our work was informed by the Funds of Knowledge framework (Moll et al., 1992, 2005) and related concept of confianza (Velez-Ibanez, 2011), which together emphasize a prioritization of community knowledge through the building of mutual trust and reciprocity with the collaborative space. Lastly, the Fair Trade Learning Construct provided us with categories of meaning for reciprocity in service-learning and ethical engagement within the following domains: Exchange reciprocity, influence reciprocity, and generativity reciprocity (Dostilio et al., 2012). As a central goal of ours was to build a model and method of codesign through which multiple stakeholders might contribute to the exchange of ideas and the generation of new solutions and possibilities, we believed that it would be prudent to center reciprocity and ethical engagement as grounding elements of our program.

Scholarly Significance/Contribution to the Field:

Participatory evaluation is a research approach and methodology that “involves stakeholders in analyzing the effectiveness and impact of an initiative” (Shah 2020, p. 144). Its emergence in the field was the result of a recognized need to: address injustice in knowledge production, amplify voices that are often excluded, and provide more meaningful insights from those closest to the work to drive future decision making (Cousins & Whitmore, 1998). Despite this recognition and some shifts in practice, community partners and stakeholders closest to the ground are often unlikely to be in positions where they might hold community-engaged programs and institutions accountable (Shah 2020).

We hope to address gaps in both scholarship and praxis by crafting an accountability mechanism that can build upon and continue our developed ideals of co-design, so that the information gathered will not only be useful to stakeholders and drive positive community change, but also provide us with a baseline of standards and agreements to which we might hold all stakeholders (including powerful institutions like universities) accountable. We reformulated the Community-Engaged Teaching Fellows Program to dissolve the structural and sometimes confining elements of course design that prohibit or at least impede meaningful change that goes beyond the superficial. We are pleased with our results thus far, but would like to ensure that the impact(s) of these activities extend to program evaluation and assessment as well.

Plans for the Allocation of Time:

Share (15 min.): Rationale for “breaking the mold” – constructivist and generative approach, process, and results.

Ask (5 min.): What is the appropriate research orientation and methodology to consider as we build out an empirical strategy for measuring the impact on various stakeholders (without re-imposing the “mold”)?

Discuss (40 min): What can be codified from this “r/evolutionary” approach (into our broader programmatic systems/structures) so we can yield similar results over time/space and hold all stakeholders accountable?

Keywords: Co-Design, Participatory Evaluation, Assessment, Social Justice