Community Catalyst Educator Fellowship

Imagine what’s possible when educators, students and community members co-create educational experiences together.

Applications Open! Apply now for the 2024-25 Fellowship

OUR APPROACH
Enrich your teaching practice with the support of fellow teachers

The CommunityShare Community Catalyst Educator Fellowship empowers you to enrich your practice as an educator through meaningful, community-engaged learning. We help you design learning experiences that sit at the intersection of:

Passion

Connect your own passions and aspirations with those of your students and community.

People

Access and activate the knowledge, skills and wisdom within and beyond your community.

Place

Connect the unique natural, cultural, and social elements of your community with your teaching.

Purpose

Create learning experiences that make a difference and build a better world.

HOW IT WORKS
Supporting and celebrating community-engaged learning

Over the course of this 5-month professional learning journey, you will co-create, implement and reflect on at least one community-engaged learning experience. We support and celebrate you along the way with:

  • A 15 hour Community Engaged Learning (CEL) deep dive.
  • A learning community of creative and dedicated peers.
  • Up to 2 hours of 1:1 support from CEL coach.
  • The opportunity for you, your students, and community partners to share and celebrate your work with a global audience.

After the Fellowship, you’ll be invited to join the CommunityShare Advisory Network.

Fellowship Timeline – Spring 2024

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January 19
Application Deadline

January-February
Community-Engaged Learning Deep Dive (4 sessions over 11 days)

Jan.-May.
Ongoing support, collaboration, and 1:1 coaching.

May 2024
Exhibition Day!

What our Teacher Fellows Say

  • Know that this is a work in progress and that there are no right or wrong ways to complete tasks in your project. Be bold, be brave and let your kids take the reigns. You will be pleasantly surprised with what they come up with.

    Melissa Calderon 2022-2023 Fellow

  • Community Share opens the door for both teachers, community partners, and students. It gives teachers the ability to do a project that they wouldn't have been able to do without the community partner. It shows the students what working in the real world looks like. 

    Aimee Katz 2022-2023 Fellow

  • The Educator Fellowship provides the critical resources and infrastructure to support engaging, relevant, real-world learning. Magic happens when students are able to work with community partners and teachers to solve real-world problems.

    Educator Fellow

  • These meetings are the best meetings that I attend all year long. It feels like a mixture of teacher therapy, an inspiring dose of sharing, and professional development all in one.

    Educator Fellow

  • I am believing in myself as an educator – moving from I can’t do it to seeing the photos of what we’ve done and then saying we did it. I was about to quit my project but became inspired by others in the group.

    Educator Fellow

  • Students learned about careers where they can implement math skills such as ecology and landscape architecture. They learned to collaborate with others and they experienced how community resources can support and enrich their learning.”

    Educator Fellow

  • I’ve been doing community projects throughout my career. But CommunityShare opened up a whole avenue of resources for me. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I was an island - I was doing it on my own. Now, I’m not doing it on my own. I have a whole community of people that are connected to me.

    Dave Educator Fellow from Yuma, AZ
JOIN US
Are you a PK-12 educator who believes in the power of community-engaged learning?

We’re looking for educators who are dedicated not only to enhancing their own practice but in acting as agents of change in their local education communities as well as in the global conversation around education transformation.

All you need is at least two years of teaching experience as a PK-12 educator, a belief in the power of community engaged learning, and an eagerness to innovate!

Requirements
PK-12 Educator
2+ Years Teaching Experience

Cost
FREE for CommunityShare PK-12 Educators
Become a CommunityShare Educator
($500 for other PK-12 Educators)

We have 25 spaces available in our Spring 2024 cohort and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so don’t wait to apply! You’ll hear from us within a week of submission.

Apply Now
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

If you don’t see your question answered here, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.

Contact Us
Do I have to be an educator in a CommunityShare network in order to participate in the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship?

No! This fellowship is open to all PK-12 educators interested in community-engaged learning. However, CommunityShare educators can participate for FREE and it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

Become a CommunityShare Educator

Should I have a community partner or project idea in mind before the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship begins?

Nope! Ideally, project ideas and community partnerships originate with your students. We will explore how to create the conditions for students and community partners to co-design with you.

What is the time commitment like between the CEL Deep Dive and Exhibition Day?

We often learn the most from each other. Therefore, active contribution to our virtual conversations is essential to this experience for the whole cohort. This may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour per week, but we promise it’s worth it. Fellows also have access to up to two hours of individual coaching which can be scheduled in four 30-minute sessions, as needed. Plus, you can opt into a monthly virtual check-in with other Fellows. 

Does the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship offer grants to cover the costs of community-engaged learning projects?

We take a systemic approach as it applies to grants and funding. We support each fellow in identifying relevant and sustainable funding options/sources and writing grants as needed.

Do you provide any support after the Fellowship?

After the Fellowship, you’ll be invited to join the CommunityShare Advisory Network.

What happens during the CEL Deep Dive?
The CEL Deep Dive is a two-week intensive at the start of the Fellowship that builds our community, shared vision, and momentum. To  support and inspire each other in designing community-engaged learning experiences, we will:
  • Utilize storytelling, reflection, and futuring strategies to reveal our aspirations and set personal learning goals.
  • Design and implement listening campaigns to root our instructional design in student curiosities.
  • Learn strategies to expand and diversify potential community partnerships and build student social capital.
  • Develop tools and practices for effectively communicating and co-creating with community partners.
  • Apply a framework of authentic contribution to our performance tasks, enhancing the depth and quality of student learning.
  • Learn strategies and access resources to secure grants for CEL experiences

In Spring 2024, our Deep Dive will take place online over the following dates:

  • January 27: Saturday – full day
  • January 31: Wednesday – evening
  • February 3: Saturday – half day
  • February 7: Wednesday – evening