Providing practical tools to meet today’s challenges in sustainable, community-driven development. Experienced practitioners gain fresh perspective. Newcomers and volunteers receive the training they need to be successful.
“I am extremely happy I took the course. It was short, concise, to the point, and the discussions were helpful and insightful. Thank you, everyone!”
Students can enroll in just one course or complete all four courses to receive a Colorado State University Certificate in Community-based Development.
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These are the courses currently offered:
NOTE: Admission to Colorado State University is not required. |
Village Earth provides innovative online training courses through Colorado State University’s Department of Continuing Education Online Plus program to provide students with practical tools to meet today’s challenges in sustainability and community development. Students can enroll in just one course or complete four courses to receive a Colorado State University certificate in Community-based Development. Admission to Colorado State University is NOT required, making this unique program easily available to all who would like to participate.
Curriculum
To earn a certificate in community-based development, you must complete one required course (Approaches to Community Development) and three elective courses of your choosing. Each course runs five weeks and requires a minimum of 20 hours of student participation. You may take courses in any order. Each course costs $390.
This online certificate program uses a multi-sector, participatory approach that focuses on empowerment of people as both the ends and means of a sustainable development process. Rather than teaching prescriptive solutions to community problems, we provide you with the tools to use the community’s input and vision to create options and solutions that truly meet community needs.
The courses use the flexibility of online delivery to help you learn through case studies, exercises, and group discussions, providing a complete learning environment. You will learn from, and share experiences with, practitioners working in the field in such diverse places as India, Nepal, Peru, and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. These courses give experienced practitioners a fresh perspective and provide novices and volunteers the training they need to be successful working in the field of development.
Benefits & Outcomes
This online certificate program is designed for people who plan to work or volunteer in community development, or who already work in this field and want to advance their careers. You will be prepared with practical tools to meet today’s challenges as project directors, community leaders, grassroots activists, funders, and field workers in community-based organizations and governmental and nongovernmental organizations. With a wide variety of electives, you are able to tailor the program to meet your needs and interests.
Course Capacity
Our classes are capped at a maximum capacity per course to be able to deliver the most personal training experience possible. Therefore, we encourage you to register early to ensure your enrollment in your desired course and session.
Technical Requirements
Course Format
All Village Earth online courses are organized in a seminar format with weekly readings, presentations and assignments along with discussion among participants. While participants are not required to access the courses at specific times it will be necessary to access the course at least two or more times each week to download assignments, post reactions, and give feedback to other course participants.
Materials
All content and readings required for Village Earth courses will be downloadable from within the online course or linked to from the course. Participants will not be required to purchase any additional materials.
Grading
All Village Earth online courses are non-credit but are graded on a Pass/Fail basis. The criteria for passing or failing will be determined by each instructor and should be clearly explained in the course syllabus or course description. Following the completion of each course, students will be mailed a letter indicating their grade which should be retained for your records.
To be awarded the Certificate in Community-Based Development students must pass the required course, Approaches to Community-Based Development along with three (3) other elective courses in the program.
Academic Credit
CEUs or Professional Development Units (PDUs) are awarded for participation. Each CEU represents 10 hours of instruction; a PDU represents one hour of instruction. These units are respected in many industries as proof of commitment to continuous learning and accepted for recertification requirements as a measure of in-service activities in professional fields.
CEUs and PDUs do not, however, count toward a degree nor are they recorded on an official transcript.
Technical Requirements
Village Earth online trainings are based on the Blackboard (TM) system. The minimum requirements to use this system include the following:
- Mozilla Firefox Version 2.0 or later OR MS Internet Explorer version 6.0 or later.
- Cookies are enabled
- Javascript is enabled
- Pop-up blocker is turned off
- Java 2 Runtime Environment version 1.6.0_03 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
To test to determine if your browser is compatible click here.
Additionally, many Village Earth courses share documents using the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have a reader installed you can download one for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Contact
For more information about this program please contact Jamie Way at jamie@villageearth.org or +1-970-237-3002 ext. 505.
