Visual Community Canvas on Open Lab and Presentation
Mery Diaz https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/members/mdiaz/
Human Services/SPS
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/groups/stories-of-service/
Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity
This activity is connected to the HUS 1101 term paper in which students identify an agency that they will learn more about. Students will explore the neighborhood around the agency site and visually document significant characteristics and neighborhood resources, needs, and how these impact resident quality of life. Student’s will post their visual community canvas and write about the significant characteristics of the agency’s community setting and how they relate to the work they do and the needs of the community. The canvas will be used in a student class presentation
Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?
Students will be engaged community-based learning.
Students will communicate through writing, visual, and verbal means.
Students will encounter greater diversity of perspective and feedback.
Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?
For this specific activity, students should expect to devote at approximately 1.5 hours exploring the neighborhood around the agency site. Students should expect to spend time outside of the classroom organizing, loading, and writing about their observations. The visual canvas is due along with the term paper and will be used during a 8 min. classroom presentation.
Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?
The instructor will need to discuss the term paper and project early in the semester. This will be a high stakes activity as the grade will be used as part of their overall term paper grade. Students should have ample time to identify an agency and visit the site a few weeks before the term paper and visual canvas are due. Students should have access to a camera. Students should have an Open Lab tutorial. The instructor can provide the tutorial in class or have students attend Open Lab workshops. Students should have access to phone or digital picture camera.
High-Impact Educational Practices: Which of these practices based on George Kuh’s High Impact Educational Practices (and other innovative approaches) does this activity incorporate? Choose all that apply.
Learning communities, Diversity and global learning (“difficult differences”), Service- or community-based learning
Assessment: How do you assess this activity? What assessment measures do you use? Do you use a VALUE rubric? If not, how did you develop your rubric? Is your course part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative?
“Visual Canvas” post and students’ presentation will be assessed separately using this rubric: Visual Canvas rubrics Mery Diaz L4 2015
Reflection: How well did this activity work in your classroom? Would you repeat it? Why or why not? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you address them? What, if anything, would you change? What did students seem to enjoy about the activity?
This activity will be implemented in the Fall of 2015
Additional Information: Please share any additional comments and further documentation of the activity – e.g. assignment instructions, rubrics, examples of student work, etc. These could be in the form of PDF or Word files, links to posts or files on the OpenLab, etc.
