Democratic Values: Introduction
Introduction to Democratic Values Minicourse
1.Introduction to Lift Every Voice
Welcome to the Lift Every Voice Minicourses. Scroll below for a quick introduction to Lift Every Voice if you didn't review the home page of this website. If you did you can skip ahead. Be sure to expand your screen by clicking on the box of four arrows in the top right hand corner.
As explained above, Lift Every Voice first introduces you to the most important Democratic Values, Skills, and Knowledge, and then helps you to apply these democratic competencies to the most important problems in our country and world.
2. Introduction to Democratic Values, Skills, and Knowledge
Democratic Values, Skills, and Knowledge in turn introduces you to five democratic competencies that can help you lift your voice and advocate ways to create a better country and world.
In this Democratic Values Minicourse, we are going to focus on the first of the democratic competencies. After you complete this first minicourse, you can go on to explore the other democratic competencies (2-5 below). And after that you can use these democratic competencies to analyze major social and ecological problems in country and advocate ways to solve these problems. The first two major problems you can explore and advocate solutions for are: Stop the Pandemic and Stop the Gun Violence.
3. Five Steps for Creating Your Democratic Values Project
Lift Every Voice is organized into five steps which can help you explore and respond to the Central Questions and guide you through the process of developing your own project that responds to these questions.
This Democratic Values Minicourse is organized around creating a Democratic Values Project in which you can choose use power points, audio and video presentations, songs, and/or various types of social media apps.
The goal is for you to create a project in which you lift your voice to advocate what you think are the most important values for bringing our country together and inspiring a more hopeful future.
The first step which is where you are right now begins with giving you an overview of the eight democratic values which we think could help to unify our country and the asks you to write down your questions about democratic values in your Democratic Values Project Portfolio.
In Step 2, you will read, listen, and view educational materials that will provide a more in-depth explanation of each of the eight values. After which you will go back to your portfolio and write about an experience you had that highlights some of the values that are most important to you first in writing and than in video or audio.
In Step 3, you will first analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what you have learned about these eight values, and then you can participate in an online forum where you can share and discuss your thoughts about these values with other young people.
In Step 4, you can choose how you want to respond to the Central Questions–a power point presentation, a video or audio presentation on Flipgrid, a song, dance, or performance, or other uses of social media. After making your presentations, you can appreciate or comment on each other's presentations.
In Step 5, you can return to your originals questions in Step 1 and reflect on what you have learned about democratic values from the materials, stories and speeches in Steps 2-4. Finally, you can record in your portfolio how you can integrate what you have learned into your life and into how you can lift your voice in the future to create a better country and world.
4. Set Up Your Democratic Values Project
Advocate For the Democratic Values That Can Bring Our Country Together !
Each Lift Every Voice Minicourse is organized around a project that you can choose and shape in response to the Central Question. These presentations can be power points, speeches, songs, or other types of social media. The goal in these projects is for you to lift your voice advocating ideas and proposals that can help us create a better country and world.
First Set Up Your Personal Bulb Digital Portfolio Account
You can develop your Democratic Values Project in an online digital portfolio created by bulb. The first thing you will need to do is set up your Bulb Account. Click on the button below. This is a free account. You will be able to have different portfolios/project in this account for the different Lift Every Voice Minicourses. You can keep this account and use it for other projects including your own resume and profile for job hunting. It is free for one year after you finish these courses and $33/yr after that if you want it.
Next Download the Template for Your Democratic Values Project
Next click on the button below. That will take you to the template for your Democratic Values Project.
Then in the top right hand corner click on "Use Template" and that will download the template to your account. You can then complete all the steps/activities in that downloaded template. When you are done, you will then be able to share links with your project with me, other young people, friends, or family members.
5. Academic and Democratic Learning Objectives
For this minicourse, we have established the following academic and democratic learning objectives:
Academic Objectives:
· Vocabulary: Learn and use academic and content vocabulary related to democratic values (Step 2.2, 5.2)
· Questioning: Learn to pose and explain questions about the texts and videos. (Step 1.4)
· Deep Comprehension: Learn to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate texts and videos. (Step 2.3, 3.2)
· Narrative Storytelling: Tell a story about an experience in your life that captures an important value for ou (Step 2.5)
· Discussion and Debate: Learn to engage in ongoing discussion and debate around the most important democratic values. (Steps 3.3, 4.4)
· Persuasive Speech: Learn to write and deliver a persuasive speech. (Step 4.3)
· Multimedia Presentation: Learn to use multimedia apps to support persuasive speeches. (Step 4.3)
· Reflective Journal Writing: Learn to use a journal to reflect on what one is learning.
Democratic Objectives:
· Democratic Values: Learn and apply democratic values to proposing ways to heal and unify our country. (Steps 1.3, 2.2, 3.2, 4.3, 5.4)
· Democratic Voice: Deliver speech/multimedia presentation advocating important democratic values (Step 4.3)
· Identity Awareness: Integrate core democratic values into your identify and culture. (Step5.4)
6. Next Step
Well congratulations on getting started with this course.
Now, go to Step 1 for an introduction to Democratic Values. After this overview, you can begin writing in your Democratic Values Portfolio about the questions you have about democratic values.