Faculty Connections

Connect our services with your students through a classroom visit. Please fill out the Classroom Request form or contact the office.

As part of its commitment to college access and success, Inver Hills collaborates with AVID programs in area school districts. Through on-campus classroom experiences, middle and high school students learn a concept from Inver Hills students. These experiences have ranged from cell model building in Exploring Biology, to flint knapping in Anthropology, to dissecting sheep brains in Anatomy and Physiology.

When Inver students take on the role of teacher, they benefit by:

• Increasing their understanding of course material.
• Gaining hands-on experience working in groups.
• Developing and enhancing communication, collaboration, and leadership skills.
• Developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and
• Improving their ability to handle ambiguity and be open to change.

The Association of Colleges and Universities cites community-based learning (CBL) as a high-impact educational practice. CBL happens when students and faculty enhance their course experience by applying the concepts and skills they have acquired in their coursework to a real-world context that meets a community need. A wide variety of possibilities exist for community-based learning collaborations between classrooms and community partners; including: direct service, indirect service, advocacy and research.

CBL is an effective pedagogy for learning outcomes that include:

• Application of concepts and knowledge in new contexts.
• Effective oral, written and visual communication.
• Working collaboratively across difference.
• Taking ownership of learning.
• Using a discipline’s knowledge base to address societal issues.
• Developing skills and habits of critical reflection.

CBL should never just be an add on or afterthought. It should be selected because it is more likely to enable students to achieve at least some of the desired learning outcomes. Some examples of CBL partnerships at Inver Hills include:

• Interpersonal Communication students volunteered with Living Well and created an online volunteer training module on communication that will be used by the agency to train new volunteers.
• Pre-Social Work students volunteered in human service agencies to learn more about the career field.
• Ampersand Families spoke to our “18 and Nowhere to Go” learning community about the foster care system, after which students wrote persuasive letters addressing an aspect

 Please view the Community-Based Learning Faculty Resource Guide (PDF) for more ideas.

• Refer to our online job board
• Refer for resume assistance or a mock interview
• Refer to any of the Center's campus programing happening throughout the year. Incentivize if you can!
• Refer to our Facebook page in order to get the most up to date information about our office
• If you just don't know where to start, refer students to the Center and staff can help the student figure out where to begin.