The end of semester Service-Learning Symposium gathers students, faculty, and community members to present and participate in critical reflections on the impact of campus/community partnerships. It is a thought-provoking day for all involved.
The Fall 2016 Symposium will be on Monday, December 12th, 2016. Resources (such as a poster presentation template) are available on the GW Community Engagement Wiki, where you can add your own symposium resources to share with this community.
Note that this is the last day of Fall semester classes. While we do have faculty who require participation in this event (by including it on the syllabus the first day of class), others offer Symposium participation as a final reflection assignment option (as an alternative to a written paper, for example).
The focus of the day is the students’ critical reflections on the impact of the service-learning experience on a) their own learning and b) the community partner’s ability to meet their goals. You are free to guide the direction of students’ reflection presentations in order to meet your course learning goals.
To be crystal clear here: students need not be ready to unveil the final version of the report or design they have created for their community partner. Rather, the focus is on their thoughtful reflections on their learning and community impact, and how they have made meaning of the experience.
Participation format can vary and innovation is quite welcome. The Human Services and Social Justice capstone students typically participate via poster presentations. Students in the UW Writing For Social Justice Course give panel presentations. We encourage you to invite community partners as either audience members or panel presenters along with the students they worked with so they can be a part of the discussion as well.
We would like to encourage as much participation in this year’s Symposium as possible, so please contact us (gwsl@gwu.edu) if you need any clarification or assistance thinking about how your students might share their experiences with the GW community.
