LEVERAGING DISTANCE LEARNING FOR COMMUNITY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT.

In order to advance statewide student leadership and advocacy, the Connecticut Association for Adult and Continuing Education (CAACE) funded and developed an online course in community and civic engagement that is open to adult learners across the state and can be counted for credit in the adult high school credit diploma program. The course is a student- focused, project-based class that has received very positive feedback from the students, some of whom participated in state and national conference presentations of the program. In addition to supporting learner leadership development, the course offering also demonstrated that an online class could successfully be offered to students from a diverse array of programs with differing IT platforms and class schedule times. Future options for the course and its materials are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]