What does Engagement Look Like?


Engaged Teaching refers to course-or curriculum-related teaching/learning activities that involve students with the community in mutually beneficial ways. This includes, but is not limited to, internships and co-op experiences; service learning and other community-based learning experiences; the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Program; and involvement in community-based research or other community-based projects. [Note: Engaged Teaching focuses on the student's engagement with the community, so it might more aptly be termed engaged learning.]

From the NKU Glossary of Outreach and Engagement. Published in Aligning for Public Engagement, Laying the Foundation.


Examples from NKU Faculty

Dr. Angela Lipsitz (Psychology)

Dr. Angela Lipsitz (Psychology) uses engaged teaching techniques in her Social Psychology Laboratory Course. Her students have worked with Hoxworth Blood Center in conducting an experiment to increase donor retention. Other students worked with Planned Parenthood to survey campus and community groups to assess understanding of the services Planned Parenthood provides. The students benefited from learning about the services of the non-profit organizations and about the difficulties inherent in applied research. They were able to address real community needs while achieving the learning objectives of the course.

Dr. Philip Moberg (Psychology)

Dr. Philip Moberg (Psychology) teaches the capstone course for the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Master's Degree Program (Psychology 685) which is designed to provide an opportunity to graduate students to reflect on individual and professional growth while integrating and demonstrating their newly-developed competencies as a partial return on the investment made in them by residents of Kentucky through Northern Kentucky University.

This civic engagement project involves functioning as a professional I/O consulting team advising the Mental Health Association (MHA) of Northern Kentucky on interviewing, assessment, and post-employment evaluation services to be provided by MHA Recovery Network staff to clients though grant activities funded by Vocational Rehabilitation Services and the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

This mutually beneficial experience has stretched graduate student thinking about an applicant pool, individuals with mental disabilities, only peripherally considered in traditional employment settings, while simultaneously providing Recovery Network staff with appropriate tools for validly assessing client knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics relevant to locating, obtaining, and maintaining stable, permanent employment.

At semester's end, the consulting team will present their science-based evaluations, comments, assessments, cost estimates, and recommendations for (1) a detailed interview and application process modeled on that used by vocational rehabilitation services; (2) a cd-based assessment of general cognitive ability, the primary construct underlying learning on the job; (3) a rigorously validated web-based assessment tapping job specific aptitudes and abilities, work values, and occupational interests; and (4) an empirically validated web-based assessment of normal personality traits related to employment. To assess post-employment adjustment to work and working, and to provide a focus for support services, the graduate students also will recommend a battery of printed scales tapping client job satisfaction, interpersonal conflict, organizational constraints, quantitative workload, and physical symptoms. Finally, the students identified, and will provide information describing, an opportunity for the MHA to secure federal contract funding via a nonprofit agency (NISH) from the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act for community-based, non-profit agencies providing meaningful employment.

Dr. Zachary P. Hart (Communication)

Students in Dr. Zachary P. Hart's (Communication) PRE 375 Principles of Public Relations class assist non-profit organizations in the completion of several public relations projects each semester. These projects have included fact sheets and copy for brochures describing programs offered by the organizations. Based on information gathered during the research process for these projects (which have included presentations/interviews by/with representatives from the organizations as well as library and internet research), the students then developed a public relations plan for the organizations. The organizations were given the best work (with the students' permission) to use as needed. Through these activities his students have had the opportunity to learn basic public relations writing and planning skills and the organizations have been provided assistance with important public relations needs. Last year, his classes worked with United Ministries, a food pantry/thrift store in Erlanger, and the Hamilton County chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).