The Perfect Marriage: Community Based and Online Learning

Community based projects are an integral part of most student’s higher education experience. It has become a popular pedagogical method that moves teaching and learning out of the traditional classroom and into the community where learning outcomes can be integrated into a particular context. Online learning has also emerged as a popular pedagogical practice in education and is continuing to gain popularity in higher education. Each has distinct benefits for teaching and learning and both provide instructors ways in which they can differentiate learning. To consider merging these two practices may seem challenging and ultimately, to some, impossible. Some may discredit the instructor’s ability to appropriately monitor community based learning activities while teaching a course from a distance and that the assessment of a student’s work will be too challenging. This presentation will provide examples and support for conducting community based learning projects into an online course and demonstrate ways in which assessment can be very authentic and meaningful. The examples used in this presentation are in the area of sport management but community based learning projects across other disciplines could also considered for these types of projects.