Professional Learning Opportunities
Our professional learning experiences are designed to help you get the most out of the CommunityShare platform, strengthen your pedagogical practices for community-engaged learning with PreK–12 students, and support meaningful collaboration with community partners.
These opportunities are open to all CommunityShare network members, including educators, instructional leaders, and community partners. Explore detailed descriptions of our sessions below, and click here to see upcoming dates and join these and other ways to connect with CommunityShare.
Questions or curious about bringing CommunityShare to your community? Our Professional Learning Team is happy to help—email us at connect@communityshare.org
CommunityShare 101
A big-picture introduction to CommunityShare: what it is, why it matters, and how educators and community partners can work together to make learning more relevant and inspiring. Great for anyone new to the idea of community-engaged learning.
You’ll leave with: a completed CommunityShare profile, an understanding of how community-engaged learning works, and how the platform supports it.
CommunityShare Platform Orientation
A hands-on walkthrough of the CommunityShare platform. Learn how to enhance your profile, create a project or offer, explore potential partners, and find inspiration from examples of what others are doing.
You’ll leave with: an updated profile that highlights your interests, a draft project or offer, and a clear sense of how to connect with partners who inspire you.
Community-Engaged Learning: Foundations
Explore the core practices that make community-engaged learning meaningful and doable. We’ll look at examples, share strategies, and give you tools to design experiences that connect your curriculum to real-world people and possibilities.
You’ll leave with: concrete strategies, planning tools, and project examples you can immediately use in your classroom.
Community-Engaged Learning: Project Design Lab
A deeper dive into designing your own CEL projects, with multiple ways to jump in. You can bring your whole team, focus on a specific unit or priority, or join one of our scheduled sessions offered throughout the year. The Project Design Lab is all about turning your ideas into concrete, ready-to-implement plans.
You’ll leave with: a complete design for a CEL project aligned to your curriculum and priorities, plus feedback and clear next steps to bring it to life.
Community-Engaged Learning: Instructional Leaders
Designed for principals, coaches, and district leaders, this session focuses on how to create the conditions for community-engaged learning to thrive across classrooms and schools. We’ll look at models, explore strategies for supporting teachers, and identify ways to align CEL with your school or district priorities.
You’ll leave with: practical tools to guide and support educators, a clear picture of enabling conditions for CEL, and strategies to integrate community partnerships into school-wide goals.
CommunityShare National Educator Fellowship
Our educator fellowship is a 5-month virtual professional learning experience that equips educators with strategies and tools to turn any project or unit into a community-engaged, standards-based, student-driven project that elevates the quality of student learning while contributing to the broader community. The fellowship begins with a Deep Dive consisting of four virtual sessions spread over two weeks. Its purpose is to build community, develop a shared vision of Community-Engaged Learning (CEL), and start planning local CEL projects. Fellows also receive individual coaching, participate in monthly Community of Practice sessions, and conclude with a virtual “Celebration of Learning” session.
- Who it’s for: All PreK-12 educators can apply to be a part of the fellowship. Educators in CommunityShare network can participate free ($500 value)
- Learn more here
