Teaching Self-Regulated Learning in Combination with Sustainability and Community Engagement

This article introduces an intermediate-high to advanced topic-based German course that teaches sustainability and self-regulated learning and includes a community engagement project. The theoretical introduction illustrates why combining the three topics of sustainability, self-regulated learning, and community engagement is desirable for German programs. Additionally, the article shows how a course can be designed in two scaffolding cycles to teach students these three topics. The first scaffolding cycle, an in-class unit framed around the film Wackersdorf (Fliess, 2018), starts a conversation about sustainability and introduces six steps that will help students plan and conduct their community engagement project. In a second scaffolding cycle, students prepare and implement a community engagement project as their primary task. The article also reflects how the instructor can prepare and evaluate a community engagement project and how a portfolio assignment can be a valuable tool to monitor students' progress. Additionally, the article introduces two examples of successful community projects.