These are small yet impactful ways that faculty can provide contexts for students. Infusions are implemented in single courses by individual instructors.
Five areas of context that we encourage faculty to use for infusions are:
- Careers
- Equity
- Community
- Global Learning
- Writing
Career Awareness and Career Exploration
Instructors can infuse activities and/or assignments that provide students an opportunity to become aware of or to explore career fields. Students become aware of the variety of careers available and the role of postsecondary education. Examples of awareness could be workplace tours, guest speaker who majored in your discipline, or attendance at the MiraCosta College career fair. Career exploration takes this infusion to the next level. Exploration helps motivate students and helps to inform their decisions toward degree pathways. We have many resources to assist you in implementing career exploration in your class. To learn more about how instructors can infuse career awareness and/or exploration, visit the Teaching in the Context of Careers Canvas course.
Equity Minded Teaching
Equity is conceptualized as closing the gaps, particularly the digital divide, that exist among our students. We can close the gaps in several ways through infusion. To learn more about equity minded teaching practices, visit the Project Online Teaching Foundations Canvas module.
Community Service and Curriculum
Through Service Learning, students can discover connections between classroom and community, learn through applied experiences, explore career choices, and become more actively involved in the community. Service learning is a teaching method that incorporates community-based activities into the curricula. Unlike volunteers, service learning students are required to connect service experiences to course content through reading, writing, and dialog. To learn more about service learning for your courses, visit the Service Learning faculty resource page for more information.
International Perspectives for Global Learning
Colleges and universities are emphasizing curriculum that helps students explore cultures, life experiences, and worldviews different from their own. MiraCosta College’s AP4026 demonstrates our commitment to “supporting international education so students may become productive citizens in a diverse and dynamic world. The college offers a variety of international education programs that are designed to develop and enrich multicultural awareness, intercultural competence, and understanding of global issues and trends, through curricula that encompass world cultures and perspectives, and programs that encourage participation in international experiences.” To learn more about creating global curriculum, visit our Study Abroad Canvas resource.
Writing Across the Curriculum
Writing is often conceptualized as something students learn in English courses, but writing assignments can be created for all disciplines. We encourage writing at all levels of instruction and across the curriculum, including final-year projects. We seek to foster opportunities for students to produce and revise various forms of writing for different audiences in different disciplines. The MiraCosta College Writing Center is not just service for students. There are dedicated resources to help faculty with writing assignments in your discipline and to provide faculty with a writing consultant for your courses.
