The Real World in the Classroom: Community Engagement Meets Hands-On Career Development

Achieving learning outcomes during a semester- or quarter-long course is no guarantee that students "got it"--that students have learned how to learn or that they have successfully bridged the gap between theory and practice. Higher education has developed diverse pedagogical approaches to expand the notion of teaching. Over the past three decades, building connections and long-term, quality interactions within a community has been framed as a way to provide more of a conceptual "real world" experience for students. However, investing in community engagement requires time and effort to coordinate schedules, sustain student motivation, and intersect shared learning goals with external partners. These factors all play a key role in determining how to bring students to the community, particularly students from underserved backgrounds whose time or resources might be especially strained during college. But what if we changed the traditional approach to community engagement, in which students leave campus to engage partners? What if we brought community partners into the classroom? In 2006, the authors joined forces to answer this question. Together, the authors developed a model that brings workforce development partners--community members, business leaders, nonprofit administrators, elected officials, university professionals, and others--into the classroom. These partners collaborate with their students to tackle complex public and community-centric issues ranging from health-care advocacy, e-waste, environmental sustainability, and developing intentional communication and engagement pathways for underserved local and global communities. In developing this alternative community engagement model, the authors have learned to emphasize three foundational pillars that help students bridge classroom theory to life practice.