Engaging Learning Voices
- we make educational resources to empower schools and leaders -
Light Up The Dark!
Our purpose is to build a bridge between academic research and the realities of the classroom.
We create aesthetically pleasing tools and resources designed to uplift and give direction to the users.
Engaging Learning Voices have designed over 50 tools, reached over 17,000 educators
across 66 countries.
The Bridge
We take research from academics and turn it into practical and relatable resources that educators can implement in their way, in their schools to support their communities. We aim to empower schools to have agency over their own professional development and growth.
A typical tool works like this:
#1 Engage (with the academic world)
This particular example pictured above, 'Growing Leaders', was created with the support and knowledge from academic researcher Peter De Witt. Peter specialises in instructional leadership and change.
#2 Your (reality)
The scenario contains real conversations, or problems, we hear in real schools in New Zealand about leadership. In this particular example the leadership team are concerned about the unexpected results from a staff satisfaction survey.
#3 Learning (bridge the two worlds)
To help the school unpack their reality the researcher's work, in this case, Peter's work on Collective Leadership Efficacy, is then contextualised, synthesised and written in a simple two page summary for leaders and teachers to digest.
#4 Voices (use the tool to capture voice)
The dilemma the teachers/leaders faced in the scenario (the reality) is then supported by an activity they can carry out to help them with their educational challenge. The activity may last several meetings.
The tools are designed to use the academic research to help support the problem in question through provocation, reflection and growth, lighting up the dark!
Why are the tools so successful?
Our system allows for educators to build on their expertise, experiences or skills by allowing space for their voice, their stories and their professional narratives that have shaped their careers to be part of the sustainable change process.
At the heart of each design are two key philosophies: Narrative Pedagogy and Ako.
The diagram and video below unpacks Engaging Learning Voices' Model for Sustainable Change.
This new approach personalises the learning within the change process, therefore there are fewer disengaged teachers, leaders and consequently less disengaged students. It values the voices of its participants and creates the conditions for growth within the school community - change from within - supported by tools.
Werewere School
To depersonalise and anonymise each school's dilemma/educational challenge the realities they face are set in a fictional school with fictional characters. This allows a 'distancing' and a safe space for staff to reflect and theorise.
This is how the well researched and documented narrative pedagogy approach is woven into each tool.
Humans naturally think in stories it is how we make sense of the world.
