Community Education Methods and Approaches (CEMA1) and the Case Study

Community Education Methods and Approaches 1 introduces you to teaching and learning strategies as they might be applied in a range of community education settings. The focus is on enabling people in communities to work together in identifying and dealing with issues and problems that they deem to be important, and connects with their own interests.

In addition to short lecture inputs and set readings, CEMA1 uses structured exercises and techniques in class so that you learn by doing. Small working groups are formed early on so that you gain experience of working as a group. As you will see from the course booklet, these groups undertake a presentation as part of the assessment process.

Establishing agreed and appropriate groundrules is important in providing a sound foundation for group development. The course introduces basic conceptions of group development with reference to Tuckman.

The notion of experiential learning is central. The course covers Kolb’s model of individuals learning through ‘cycles’ of observation, reflection and action, as well as a more collective and contextualised approach to learning.

Educators need to be aware that communication has verbal, non-verbal and symbolic elements, and that communication takes place simultaneously on social and psychological levels. Communication is not a straightforward matter, and the issues are examined by focussing on the place, purpose and nature of conversation in informal education settings

The course also introduces structured forms of working with people in groups, opening up topics such as leadership, group dynamics and the relationship between task and process.

Approaching the young people

Structured experiences and techniques are widely used in informal education settings. Broadly they involve particular ways of organising learning situations, and they can be used effectively to bring people together for learning purposes. Read the extract from Jeffs and Smith (1990), which talks about the meaning and contribution of informal education in working with young people. Having read it, think about ways in which the sorts of informal education discussed by the authors, could contribute to work at Cobblers. Visit James Neill’s site on experiential learning and consider what structured experiences or exercises the young people might be willing to try. How might they contribute to learning?

Face-to-face contact is at the heart of all work in community education, and you communicate messages to other people by the way you dress, for example, and how you say something. Indeed how you put something over may be more significant in terms of the reaction you provoke because it conveys the values that actually underpin your appoach to people. Consider the extract from Natiello (2001). If you were to try to adopt the values she is arguing for in your work, how would this influence your approach to the young people at Cobblers?

Conversation is central to the work in settings such as Cobblers. Consider the extract from Smith (1994) and ask yourself how conversation can be used in an educational way.

What next?

Having explored the contribution of CEMA1 in terms of seeing problems and issues differently, check out ICE and the case study to consider the case study from a theoretical perspective, or PP1 and the case study to consider what it means to develop a professional approach to the work.

CUE has been developed at the University of Edinburgh by John Bamber and Clara O'Shea as part of the Student Recruitment and Admissions 'Transitions' Project in 2006/7. For further information on CUE and on CUE: Community Education contact: John Bamber, Department of HIgher and Community Education, Moray House School of Education, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 8AQ, Tel.: +44 - (0)131 - 651 6116, E-mail: john.bamber@ed.ac.uk

Website updated: June 19, 2008