2019 Annual Conference

Colleges and Universities

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

This session is for individuals interested in critical thinking and environmental education, communication instruction, application-oriented learning, and social responsibility instruction. We will briefly touch on the areas present in the conference theme of "Adult Education for Human Rights, Economic Empowerment, and Environmental Sustainability" through the lens of social responsibility. 

Geared toward faculty who work with students at colleges and universities in both on-site and online contexts. Participants will have experience or interest in teaching, administrating, leading, or working with students on socially responsible activities or projects.

1. Attendees will leave with concrete methods on how to incorporate social responsibility learning objectives into their classes.
2. Attendees will begin to identify ways to connect their students with local service organizations.
3. Faculty and program administrators who work with students will learn ways to make social responsibility initiatives achievable at their institutions.

During this session we will briefly discuss the importance of incorporating social responsibility into higher education curricula. We will describe how we do this using two different courses as examples. 

1. In Environmental Communication, students learn about environmental issues, social marketing, and persuasive techniques and apply these concepts to a communication context. Throughout the course students construct a view of citizenship and its responsibilities in diverse communities, articulate their own values and demonstrate how these values reflect or respond to society, demonstrate varied responses to social justice issues, and take action on social justice issues. 
2. In Critical Thinking, we have students collaborate in teams on a Random Act of Kindness project, where they choose or design a particular random act of kindness/civility to perform on strangers and then process, reflect on, and report their discoveries. 

The format for this session will be discussion, partner-engagement, and sharing. The presenters will discuss social responsibility learning outcomes and how they are incorporated in two different college-level classes. Participants will have the opportunity to work in dyads and address questions and discussion prompts focused on their own experiences, challenges, and institutions. After working in pairs, the groups will report on their discussions as they are comfortable. The presenters will debrief the session and offer tips for going forward and attendees will walk away with concrete ideas to implement in their classes and on their campuses.