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Introduction to the Voices Competencies

Introduction to the Voices Competencies. Overview of Voices Competencies. Voices Social and Democratic Competencies Social and Democratic Values Social and Democratic Skills Social and Democratic Knowledge Voices Academic Competencies Oral Language Competencies Reading Competencies

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Introduction to the Voices Competencies

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  1. Introduction to the Voices Competencies

  2. Overview of Voices Competencies • Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Social and Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Voices Academic Competencies • Oral Language Competencies • Reading Competencies • Writing Competencies • Critical Thinking Competencies

  3. Overview of Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Social and Democratic Values • Social Values • Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills • Social and Emotional Skills • Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Social and Ecological Awareness • Democratic History, Principles, Rights and Laws

  4. Voices Social and Democratic Competencies:Integrate Character Education, SEL, and Civics

  5. Democratic Development Social Development Social Values Democratic Values Democratic Skills Social Skills Social Awareness Democratic Knowledge

  6. Reciprocal Social and Democratic Development • Social development includes the inter-related development of social values, social skills, and social knowledge. Youth develop their character, social and emotional skills, and social knowledge of their environments in an interactive developmental process. • Democratic development builds on these components of social development. Democratic values like equality and liberty build on social values like love and freedom. Democratic skills like discussion, debate, and compromise build on social perspective taking and social problem solving skills. Democratic knowledge of how to build democratic culture and democratic institutions builds on social awareness of the power structure of society.

  7. Overview of Voices Academic Competencies • Oral Language Competencies • Storytelling and speech making • Reading Competencies • Vocabulary and critical comprehension • Writing Competencies • Personal narrative and persuasive writing genres • Critical Thinking Competencies • Apply and transfer

  8. Voices Academic Competencies:Alignment with Common Core State Standards Educators have identified eight major shifts in ELA instruction required by the Common Core State Standards. Democratic Voices embraces these shifts by providing: • Close listening and close reading of texts. • Critical thinking questions that require text-based evidence. • Explanatory and argumentative short writing responses which include citing of sources. • Intensive instruction in oral, academic, and reading vocabulary. • Instruction in social and academic competencies which requires building bodies of knowledge related to each competency. • Realistic fiction, historical fiction, biography, autobiography and speeches. • Extensive writing in response to literature and informational texts, including the writing of personal narratives and persuasive speeches. • Challenging grade-level texts for all grade levels.

  9. Social and Democratic Competencies--In More Depth-- • Social and Democratic Values • Social Values • Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills • Social and Emotional Skills • Democratic Skills and Practices • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Social and Ecological Awareness • Democratic History, Principles, Rights and Laws

  10. Social and Democratic Values

  11. Core Social Values:Love and Freedom In Democratic Voices, we focus on two core social values that are critical to healthy human development: love and freedom. • Love: to care for and support our selves, our families, friends, and neighbors, as well as strangers and fellow human beings • Freedom: to pursue our dreams and goals and to help others to pursue theirs Related love and freedom values include: respect, forgiveness, honesty, courage, perseverance, and hope.

  12. Love That Supports FreedomAnd Freedom That Promotes Love Love and freedom are mutually reinforcing social values that can help our youth to build healthy relationships, to overcome the social problems in their lives, to achieve their goals, and to create a more compassionate and free society. Freedom Love

  13. Core Democratic Values:Peace and Democracy In Democratic Voices, we similarly seek to health youth to understand and embrace two core democratic values: peace and democracy. • Peace: to live in harmony with others • Democracy: to participate in governing our societies Peace extends love and caring throughout our societies and makes possible the continued growth of freedom and democracy. Democracy provides a self-governmental structure and culture that encourages everyone’s voice to be heard.

  14. Love and Freedom& Peace and Democracy Democracy Freedom Peace Love Love and freedom as social values provide the interpersonal foundation upon which peace and democracy as democratic values can take root and grow.

  15. Social and Democratic Skills

  16. Core Social and Emotional Skills: Perspective Taking and Problem Solving In DemocraticVoices, we place a major emphasis on learning social perspective taking and social problem solving skills. • Social Perspective Taking: the ability to express, take, and coordinate different points of view • Social Problem Solving: the ability to solve important personal and social problems The ability to stand in other people’s shoes is one of the most important ways we can demonstrate compassion and solve important social problems.

  17. Core Democratic Skills and Practices:Speak Out, Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise In Democratic Voices, we help youth master the democratic skills and practices they need to protect and expand our basic democratic rights. The core democratic skills we focus on are: • Speaking Out: Speak out about social injustices and threats to our basic democratic rights • Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise: Engage in discussion, debate, negotiation, and compromise about the best ways to protect and expand our basic democratic rights.

  18. Social and Democratic Knowledge

  19. Core Social Knowledge:Social Awareness of Power and the Strengths of Diversity In order for our youth to overcome the personal and social obstacles in their lives, they need to develop their understanding of: • The distribution of power in our societies • The strengths of cultural and human diversity.

  20. Core Democratic Knowledge:History of Democracy and Human Rights • In order to support the growth of a more peaceful and democratic society, we need to encourage all members of our society to understand the history of the growth of democracy in our world with a focus on the basic human rights of everyone: • The history of democracy in the United States and the world; • The importance of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as inspiration for the pursuit of universal human equality.

  21. Voices Academic Competencies--In More Depth-- • Oral Language Competencies • Storytelling and speech making • Reading Competencies • Vocabulary and critical comprehension • Writing Competencies • Personal narrative and persuasive writing genres • Critical Thinking Competencies • Apply and transfer

  22. Core Oral Language (Voice) Competencies:Telling Stories and Delivering Speeches One of the most important ways to overcome social obstacles and to attain important goals is to learn how to use our voices to tell our stories, to share our experiences, and to deliver speeches that advocate ways to overcome major social problems. • Telling Stories: the ability to tell stories about important events in your life • Delivering Speeches: the ability to deliver speeches that advocate solutions to important social problems Voice is one of the most important ways to achieve personal and social transformation.

  23. Core Reading Competencies:Vocabulary and Critical Comprehension An important ways to support the growth of a more peaceful and democratic society is to promote the widespread mastery of basic literacy (reading and writing) skills. With regard to reading, we emphasize: • Academic and Reading Vocabulary: To effectively advocate, discuss, and debate our core democratic rights, requires understanding and being able to use the most important words and phrases related to our democratic rights. • Critical Comprehension: To effectively engage in discussion and debate, also requires being able to critically analyze speech, documents, and social media.

  24. Core Writing Competencies:Personal Narratives and Persuasive Speeches In Democratic Voices, we encourage youth to first tell their stories and to speak out about the social injustices or social problems they are concerned about. With this oral language foundation, they then learn to write: • Personal Narratives: To write personal stories about events in their lives • Persuasive Speeches: To write speeches advocating solutions to major social problems The ability to write out what one has spoken assures that one’s voice will be heard for a much longer time.

  25. Core Critical Thinking Competencies:Apply and Transfer Finally, in order to support the continued growth of democracy, we need to be able to apply what we have learned from our literature and history to improving our societies. In the context of the growth of democracy, the core critical thinking skills culminate with: • Apply: the ability to apply the basic democratic values, rights, and skills and practices to solving contemporary problems • Transfer: the ability to transfer what we have learned to new problems and social challenges

  26. The Core Voices Competencies Voices integrates the teaching and learning of the Voices Social, Democratic, and Academic Competencies into the Democratic Voices curriculum. Within each competency, we focus on two core learning objectives: Voices Social and Democratic Competencies • Core Social Values: Love and Freedom • Core Democratic Values: Peace and Democracy • Core Social and Emotional Skills: Perspective Taking and Social Problem Solving • Core Democratic Skills and Practices: Speak Out, Discuss, Debate, Negotiate, Compromise • Core Social and Knowledge: Social Awareness of Distribution of Power and the Strengths of Human Diversity • Core Democratic Rights and Laws: History of the Growth of Democracy in the U.S. and the World Voices Academic Competencies • Core Oral Language Competencies (Voice): Telling Stories and Delivering Speeches • Core Reading Competencies: Vocabulary and Critical Comprehension • Core Writing Competencies: Personal Narratives and Persuasive Speeches • Core Critical Thinking Skills: Apply and Transfer

  27. Social, Democratic, & Academic Development Academic Development Democratic Development Social Development Oral Language Competencies Democratic Values Social Values Reading and Writing Competencies Democratic Skills Social Skills Critical Thinking Competencies Democratic Knowledge Social Awareness

  28. Reciprocal Social, Democratic, and Academic Development • Social development supports the growth of academic development. For example, recent research has demonstrated how SEL fosters a significant increase in academic achievement. • Academic development can reciprocally support social development. For example, the ability to understand the point of view of a characer in a story can lead to increased ability to understand the points of view of characters in real life. • Academic development can of course also support the growth of democracy by helping students develop their civic understanding of their rights and responsibilities and the history of the growth of democracy in the U.S. and worldwide.

  29. Reciprocal Social, Democratic, and Academic Development Cont’d • Democratic development, for example, increased support for public education for girls and boys worldwide will lead to increased social and academic development. • Therefore, the integrated promotion of social, academic, and democratic development can lead to more significant gains in all domains together than if each domain were focused on separately.

  30. The Effects of the Threats of Democracy On the Threats to Democracy tab on this website, we explained some of the major threats posed by these threats to democracy. The Effects of These Threats: • High levels of attachment problems • Low levels of self-esteem • Low levels of physical health • High levels of depression and loneliness • High levels of anger and aggression • Low levels of oral language and vocabulary • Low levels of school engagement • Low levels of literacy • Low levels of academic achievement • Low levels of social trust and engagement • Low levels of education, training, and earnings later in life Threats to Democracy: • Violence • Poverty and income inequality • Discrimination • Low levels of literacy • Low levels of social trust

  31. Overcoming the Threats of Democracy The contention of Democratic Voices, based on extensive research and practice, is that if we can significantly increase youth mastery of the Voices Competencies, then we will be able to decrease the effects of these threats to democracy. Leads to Decrease In the Effects of the Threats to Democracy: • High levels of attachment problems • Low levels of self-esteem • Low levels of physical health • High levels of depression and loneliness • High levels of anger and aggression • Low levels of oral language and vocabulary • Low levels of school engagement • Low levels of literacy • Low levels of academic achievement • Low levels of social trust and engagement • Low levels of education, training, and earnings later in life Increased Mastery of These Voices Competencies: Voices Social and Democratic Competencies: • Social and Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Voices Academic Competencies: • Oral Language • Reading • Writing • Critical Thinking

  32. Democratic Voices Theory of Change • Democratic Voices Programs (Independent and Instructional Versions): • Democratic Voices eBooks and Digital Games • Voices Stories • Voices Speeches • Voices Discussions (Democracy Proposals) • Democratic Voices Social and Democratic Competencies: • Social and Democratic Values • Social and Democratic Skills • Social and Democratic Knowledge • Democratic Voices Activities and Projects: • Digital Games and Activities • Online Learning • Classroom Activities • Storytelling Project • Speech Making Project • Democratic Proposals Project • Democratic Voices Pedagogy: • Problem Solving • Empowering • Coaching and Questioning • Project-Based Competency Mastery • Blended • Personalized Decrease in Effects Related to Threats to Democracy • Increase in • Youth Empower- ment • Growth of Democracy • Democratic Voices Support: • Voices eLibary • Voices Online School • Professional Development • Voices Academic Competencies: • Oral Language • Reading • Writing • Critical Thinking

  33. Democratic Voices Theory of Change Propositions The Democratic Voices Theory of Change is based on the following propositions/hypotheses: • Democratic Voices Programs: that we will be able to reach youth with the support of digital educational technologies and that they will spend enough time so that will be able to mastery the selected Voices Competencies. • Democratic Voices Pedagogy: that the Voices Pedagogy will enable youth to master the competencies they need to solve the social problems they care about. • Democratic Voices Competencies: that the Voices Competencies will provide youth with the values, skills, and knowledge they need to overcome the threats to democracy and their effects. • Democratic Voices Activities and Projects: that the Voices Activities and Projects will be engaging and will provide the experience (online and onsite) that youth will need to master the Voices Competencies which in turn enable them to overcome the threats to democracy and to attain the Voices Goals—youth empowerment and the growth of democracy.

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