Online Community Organizing Course: Publicly Available

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: "Aaron Schutz" <schutz at uwm.edu>


This semester I have been teaching an online introductory course: 
“Organizing for Social Action in Urban Communities.” I have posted the 
draft lectures for the entire course at educationaction.org, under a 
Creative Commons license, so that readers are free to use them they wish.

As I note in the “Overview”:

"The course is NOT intended to teach students how to be a community 
organizer. They don't learn how to work with the media, or run a house 
meeting, nor other practical skills like that. Instead the course is 
designed to help students learn how to THINK like an organizer."

The lectures represent a first draft effort to figure out how to teach 
"community organizing" to students for whom this is really an alien 
perspective. The overall structure of the course has evolved in more 
than five years of teaching in a face-to-face format.

My only request is that if people do read and use this material they 
send me comments about their impressions and experiences. The course is 
a work in progress, and I will be updating it periodically with newer 
drafts.

Aaron Schutz
Associate Professor & Chair
Dept. of Ed. Policy & Comm. Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: (414) 229-4150
Fax: (414) 229-3700
Website: educationaction.org