COMMUNITY BASED LEARNING BEST PRACTICES

OVERVIEW Presenters Choton Basu, Associate Professor of ITSCM and Irvin L. Young Professor of Entrepreneurship basuc@uww.edu x5005 Denise Ehlen, Director of Outreach for the College of Business and Economics and Innovation Hub Coach/Mentor ehlend@uww.edu x1956

OVERVIEW Session Goals (Participants will…) Develop knowledge of best practices in outreach scholarship and community-based research Learn new strategies to begin to engage in community based learning Acquire knowledge of resources to support community based learning

DEFINITIONS Community-based research Collaborative—faculty/staff/student(s) and organization/partner(s) Identify needs and method to address problem Scholarship of engagement (or outreach) Discovery Integration Application Engaged scholarship refers to faculty/staff projects satisfying three criteria: 1) involves a community, 2) benefits a community, and 3) advances the faculty/staff member’s scholarship.

DEFINITIONS Also called community-based participatory research Designed to ensure and establish structures for participation by Communities affected by the issues being studied Representatives of organizations Researchers Involves Co-learning and reciprocal transfer of expertise Shared decision-making power Mutual ownership of processes and products of the research enterprise Balance research rigor with responsiveness to the community

SALIENT FEATURES/VALUES Includes discovery, application, and integration Carried out WITH the community Partners involved in every stage (including definition of scope and data analysis/interpretation) Genuine partnerships draw on all assets Indigenous knowledge in the community is tapped to advance knowledge Project parameters include sustainability (and/or capacity building) Partners are empowered Refer to handout Analytic framework for community-based participatory research

ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS Community-based participatory research involves Promoting social change Guiding partnerships across sites Generating instrumental and practical knowledge Increasing focus on process Power-sharing between researcher and community Researcher must credit community members with the ability to understand complex research challenges

See also handout: Key questions DEVELOPMENT Guiding questions Who are the partners and the community? What is the issue to be addressed? What outcomes will be achieved? How will progress toward objectives/outcomes be measured? What resources does each partner contribute? What will the partners need to continue the project in the future? Plan ahead to allow sufficient time to build partnerships and understanding. See also handout: Key questions

CRITICAL ELEMENTS Assembling research team Developing structure for collaboration Defining research question Identifying funding Choosing research design Designing participant recruitment and retention strategies Designing measures/instruments Collecting data Designing intervention Analyzing and interpreting data Disseminating results Refer to handout Critical elements in community-based participatory research

BARRIERS To remove barriers to community participation Offer educational experiences Vision workshops that involve researchers and communities Understand resources/strengths of locals Generate awareness of shared concern with problems Transfer skills Discuss research methodology Review tension of matching experimental design and community action Hold group meetings and structured interviews Hire/engage local coordinators Make written plans detailing types of expertise required at each stage of the project

BARRIERS [continued] To remove barriers to community participation Create issue-specific operational mechanisms (ad hoc groups) for internal review of operations and measures of accountability Appoint researchers as guardians of the data during the study—transfer guardianship to community at the end of the study Evaluate the collaborative process throughout the cycle Problem analysis Intervention design Implementation Evaluation Dissemination Institutionalization

EXAMPLE—Needs Assessment Partners Institute for Water Business Advanced Student Apprenticeship Program (ASAP) Water Council Small Business Channel Research Project Needs Assessment Lessons Learned Refer to Small Business Channel Needs Assessment

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