Embedded Files
What it means
What it means
Empowering means having the knowledge and ability to create your future and stand up for your rights. The opposite is disempowerment, meaning people make choices for you and do not respect your rights. Our learning experience is geared towards equipping young people with the skills, knowledge and attitudes to solve real-world problems such as environmental degradation, poverty and disease.
We design to empower ALL learners, regardless their background, sex, age, or abilities because we believe everyone can make a positive impact! Using high expectations for all in combination with a mentoring approach we design education materials that support facilitators to meet different learning needs and set everyone up for success.
We celebrate youth and teachers who have made the change and share their stories with learners to inspire others.
Why it is important
Why it is important
Rooted in a human rights approach Educate! believes everyone has equal rights to a decent life and basic needs. Through our experience based education model, we seek to empower youth and teachers to contribute towards these rights.
We all deserve an opportunity to create our future!
What you will learn in this module
What you will learn in this module
Note: Each module has an assessment activity, either an online test or a practical activity. For each assessment the pass-rate is 65% and you will have 2 attempts.
Fuelled by principles of high-expectations and equity in the classroom, Educate! designers look at creating learning experiences that benefit all students. Learn how you can design learning activities that enable all learners to succeed.
Leverage the power of role models and stories in form of case studies. Learn how to write a positive and uplifting case study that can be used in a Skills Lab.
Touch on personal strengths of designers, facilitators and learners by creating space for personal direction. Learn how to build spaces in your lesson plans (or design process) that empower users.
Empowerment looks like giving people the ability to do something on their own they could not do before. To get someone to build new skills they need support. A "scaffold" is a support structure which in design takes the form of tools/organizers, process frameworks, models, and prompts.
Best practice
Best practice
- Youth and teachers get a chance to lead change as facilitators
- Equip youth as social entrepreneurs to solve community problems.
- Practically assess youth's capacity to solve real life problems.
- Design activities that remove barriers for diverse learners to participate.
- Expose youth to real-life positive role models.
Variation
Variation
- Use group work without further prompts for learner participation.
- Discuss community problems and solutions in class.
- Raise awareness on learning barriers for certain learners among facilitators.
- Use case studies and stories to expose youth to role models.
Don't
Don't
- Replicate stereotypes in stories and illustrations (e.g. boys do…, girls do…., Ugandans do... Kenyans do..., etc.).
- Leave space for variance in quality of delivery.
Self Assessment Questions
Self Assessment Questions
- Will all learners in the program be able to benefit equitably from this experience?
- Can my learners facilitate change immediately? Or only after ... years, and with resources a, b, c?
- For every story, what can learners gain for it that is in line with my learning objectives?
- What makes your design fit the country context uniquely?
- Would the session you designed look different for each facilitator?
- Will learners be able to try out their own ideas?
- After finishing the program, what will the learners change in their communities?
Key Skills
Key Skills
- Writing positive and uplifting case studies
- Developing practical assignments that solve real-life problems
- Writing session content that creates urgency around community problems
- Create activities that engage all learners
- Create learning activities that are scaffolded to enable learners to reach high learning goals.
- Build up programs and modules that are based on a theory of change
Report abuse