This document discusses engaged, meaningful capstone experiences for students through civic engagement and community-partnered projects. It defines capstones as high-impact practices involving community partners that last at least one semester. The document outlines evidence that capstones are associated with educational gains and skills applied to real-world problems. It presents conceptual models for capstones that leverage academic learning, civic engagement, and community impact. Finally, it discusses strategies for institutional integration of capstones, such as curriculum mapping, faculty learning communities, and mechanisms for community partner input.

1. Engaged, Meaningful Student
Capstone Experiences
“Engaged Signature Work”
RU-NB Cares • Thursday, December 7, 2017 • Ariane Hoy, Bonner Foundation

2. • Who are you?
• What are you hoping to learn?
Introductions

3. • Founded in 1990
• 70+ colleges and
universities
• A unique holistic,
developmental
approach
• More than 15,000
graduates
About Bonner and Me

4. Concept, Origins,
and Evidence

6. The Concept
• AAC&U Diversity &
Democracy, Fall 2016
• Articles by a range of
authors
• Allegheny, DePaul,
Portland State,
University of
Richmond, Wofford,
etc.

7. • A high-impact practice
• Lasts at least one
semester
• Individual or team
• Involves a community
partner or works to
address a social action
or issue
Engaged Signature Work

8. Academic Pathway
• Scaffolded experiences
• First Year Seminar
• Learning Community
• Methods
• Undergraduate
Research
• Capstone

9. • The LEAP Challenge calls on colleges and
universities to build pathways where all
undergraduates to complete a substantial cross-
disciplinary project in a topic significant to the
student and society, as part of the expected
pathway to a degree(AAC&U, 2016).
The LEAP Challenge

11. Conceptual Model

13. Leverages 10+ years of practice
[www.aacu.org]

14. Connects with post-graduate success

15. –Theater major producing
play about history of church
connected with
Underground Railroad

16. - Journalism major using
investigative approaches to
write about race

17. “Undergraduates…would participate in field
projects, relating ideas to real life. Classrooms
and laboratories would be extended to include
health clinics, youth centers, schools, and
government offices. Faculty members would build
partnerships with practitioners who would, in
turn, come to campus as lecturers and student
advisers” (Boyer, 1994, p. 5).
Pedagogical Foundations:
The Scholarship of Engagement

18. “If community outreach is to be seen as a form of
scholarship, then it is the practice of reaching out
and providing service to a community that must
be seen as raising important issues whose
investigation may lead to generalizations of
prospective relevance and actionability" (Schön,
1995, p. 7).
Faculty as Reflective Practitioners

19. Learning Paradigms:

20. Democratic Community Engagement

21. • Nearly half of 707 regionally accredited
colleges and universities used capstones within
their institution's assessment (Berheide, 2007;
Henscheid, 2000).
• Rhodes and Agre-Kippenhan (2004) found that
community-based capstones were associated
with gains in leadership, tolerance for
difference, knowledge of people from different
cultures, and understanding of social issues.
Evidence for Capstones

22. • NSSE’s analysis suggested capstones involving
“a field placement or experience were
associated with the greatest number of
educational gains (fourteen of fifteen common
gains), including working effectively with
others, acquiring job- or work-related skills,
solving complex, real world problems,
applying theory, and synthesizing and
organizing ideas” (Kinzie, 2013, p. 2)
Evidence for Capstones

23. Reactions &
Discussion

24. Individual &
Institutional
Change

25. Educating Civic Minded Graduates
Source: Bringle, Hatcher, & Sternberg, 2012

26. –American Studies student working on food security in Albany

27. –Computer Science student using data visualization of local arrests

28. – Political Science
student analyzing
tax policy to
understand and
address income
disparities

29. – Education student analyzing teacher preparation in high-need schools

30. Learning
Purpose
Impact
The paper
The community
forum
The report
Why the student is doing this?
What question the knowledge can
address?
The disciplinary lens
Transferable skills
Finding that sweet spot…

31. (1) a framing definition and conceptualization of civic
engagement and Civically Engaged Signature Work;
(2) well articulated, developmental, integrated
processes for design and implementation
(3) links clearly with both the academic learning goals
and structure (usually a course) and partner structure
(often a community-oriented product and
dissemination of what is learned);
What Is Needed for Institutional Integration

32. (4) scaffolding of the capstone experience within the
broader sequence and structure of undergraduate
experience (curricular and co-curricular)
(5) assessment of student learning
(6) thoughtful integration of community voice, needs,
and guidance is supported through both instructional
design and deep, sustained relationships between
students, staff, and faculty with community partners
What Is Needed for Institutional Integration

33. • Curriculum mapping (departmental or
institutional, and can include co-curriculum)
• Faculty (or integrative) learning circles with
readings and scholarship
• Mechanisms to gather and share projects and
requests from community partners (meetings,
focus groups, systems)
Three Promising Practices

34. Curriculum MappingSource: https://www.eab.com/research-and-insights/academic-affairs-forum/expert-insights/2017/

35. Faculty Learning Circles
Meeting 1 Discuss An Overview of Capstones and Signature Work by AAC&U
Discuss capstones currently at the institution and integrated with civic work.
Meeting 2 Discuss Creating the New American College by Ernest Boyer
Discuss A New Scholarship Requires a New Epistemology by Donald Schön
Discuss the conceptualizations of an engaged institution and scholarship and how they apply to your campus.
Meeting 3 Discuss Democratic Engagement White Paper by John Saltmarsh, Matthew Hartley, and Patti Clayton
Discuss The Scholarship of Community Partner Voice by Sean Creighton
Discuss the concepts of democratic community engagement and strategies for producing knowledge in partnerships between faculty,
students, and community.
Meeting 4 Discuss Taking Stock of Capstones and Integrative Learning by
Jillian Kinzie, Associate Director, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and NSSE
Discuss Going Beyond the Requirement: The Capstone Experience by Peggy Redman, Director of the La Verne Experience at the
University of La Verne Boyer
Discuss viable reasons (i.e., learning outcomes) and avenues for creating capstone courses at your institution.
Meeting 5 Discuss Civic Engagement in the Capstone: The “State of the Community” Event by Charles C. Turner, CSU Chico
Discuss Civic Engagement through Civic Agriculture: Using Food to Link Classroom and Community by D. Wynn Wright,
Michigan State
Discuss the take-aways from these articles about effective community-engaged capstones.
Meeting 6 Discuss Putting Students at the Center of Civic Engagement by Richard M. Battistoni and Nicholas V. Longo
Discuss College Graduates’ Perspectives on the Effect of Capstone Service-Learning Courses by Seanna Kerrigan, Portland State
Discuss opportunities for student voice and leadership in the capstone design and courses.
Meeting 7 Discuss Doing Less Work, Collecting Better Data: Using Capstone Courses to Assess Learning by Catherine White Berheide
Discuss Generating, Deepening, and Documenting Learning: The Power of Critical Reflection in Applied Learning by Sarah Ash,
North Carolina State University, and Patti Clayton, PHC Ventures
Discuss the integration of critical reflection and assessment of student learning in capstones.

36. Partner Requests
Set up
focus
groups
Run 3-4
focus
groups
Translate
into
research
projects
Build
systems &
relationships

37. Examples: Courses

38. Examples: Courses

39. • “The capstone course is the culmination of an undergraduate
career; a crowning experience coming at the end of a sequence of
courses that allows students to ‘put it all together’ (Hovorka, 2009,
p. 252)
• “What last academic experience can [faculty] provide graduating
seniors that will be valuable for citizenship in the human
community?” (p. 253)
• Capstones invite students to be colleagues in the collaborative
community of researchers and scholars; when extended to
partners, these projects can generate community knowledge
(Davis, 1993; Hovorka, 2009; Saltmarsh & Hartley, 2011;
Wagenaar, 1993)
Transformational Integrative Potential

40. How could you
envision this
for you or here?

41. Thank You! Stay connected…
ahoy@bonner.org