EDAC 634 African Indigenous Program Design Final Copy

8/20/2019 EDAC 634 African Indigenous Program Design Final Copy

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GROUP 5 PROGRAM DESIGN: UBUNTU FOR COMMUNITY ACTION 1

Group 5 Program Design: Ubuntu for Community Action

Marlena Bertram

Jessica Schul-Solow

Kristin Wheeler

Ball State University


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Introduction

Ubuntu is the phrase that carries the utmost importance in African Indigenous Education. This

is the learning model that consists of a group of people engaging in activities that involve problem

solving, helping the community, and strengthening bonds that will be judged to create an idea of the

individual’s success and character. It is the learning model that has been used for centuries and has

evolved as the African communities have evolved.

As a part of our project, we will be focusing on a cohort of adult learners using some of the

aspects of Ubuntu such as group learning, community engagement (in the form of mentorships and

apprenticeships), dialogue and storytelling, and consensus building. This will allow us to examine the

usefulness of Ubuntu in the United States culture’s education systems. It is important to understand that

these will be modifications of what the African Indigenous culture already has in place, but transformed

to suit our culture. Thus, the purpose of our program will be to train a group of adult leaders who are

able to take the information to their own communities to develop problem-solving community action

groups using the principles of Ubuntu. This will create the community centered involvement that is so

important in Ubuntu.

Rationale

Through our literature review research and our program investigation, several themes were

identified that we would like to implement in our program design Ubuntu for Community Action

(UCA). The first theme that we would like to incorporate is communal learning or cohort model. We

identified the importance of community or group education in African Indigenous knowing, and intend

to incorporate the ideas of Ubuntu into the overarching theme and goal of our program design. One of

the most significant aspects of African Indigenous knowledge is the importance of learning together as

a community rather than an individual. “Africans do not speak of education as a process or institution

separate from everything else in life” (Tedla, 1992, pg. 7). Incorporating African Indigenous learning


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styles such as Ubuntu as well as a cohort model will allow the Ubuntu for Community Action program

to work together to achieve a common goal that will create groups that will use their knowledge gained

at the workshop to solve problems in their own community. Community learning is an especially

important aspect of African Indigenous learning, and will be incorporated into our program design by

providing students with twelve workshop sessions that will allow participants to learn from and teach

each other.

The second characteristic identified in our literature review was the idea of community

engagement through mentorships. A main feature of African Indigenous learning is that the whole

community is responsible for teaching each other and the whole community is responsible for ensuring

that their young have basic respect and compassion for all things. The ultimate goal of indigenous

learning is that the student should learn to be a “true person” through learning social skills, observation,

and hands on learning in hopes of being a good member of the community. Omolewa (2007) also

recognizes that “traditional African education is usually generated within communities and is based on

practical common sense, teachings, experience, and is holistic—it cannot be compartmentalized and

cannot be separated from those people involved in it” (pg. 596).This theme is applied to our program

design by providing workshop participants with opportunities to learn from one another and to have a

facilitator who is present and will guide and mentor them throughout the workshop and introduce them

to new ideas and concepts relating to African Indigenous learning and ways that they can bring these

ideas back to their own community. Our program will also feature opportunities for stakeholders in the

community to come in and assist with the group planning of the community event, and possibly

provide mentorship opportunities.

The third theme highlighted in our literature review was the importance of dialogue and

storytelling in African Indigenous learning. Many African Indigenous communities learn from and

teach their communities through oral history, storytelling, or dialogue with each other. Nafukho (2006),


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stated: “Ubuntu inspires us to expose ourselves to others, to encounter differences of their humanness

in order to learn from others as a way of building our own knowledge base and wisdom” (pg. 410). By

using this style of learning, African Indigenous communities are able to learn from one another and

learn from other people’s experiences and thoughts. In our program design we have mirrored this

aspect of African Indigenous learning by providing time during the first week of the workshop to

introduce the importance of storytelling in the African Indigenous culture and to also introduce the

different types of stories that one can use such as stock, concealed, resistance, and counter stories to

influence community engagement. This allows participants to share their own stories and learn from

each other’s experiences.

The forth theme identified in our literature review was the importance of consensus building.

Consensus building is an important aspect of African Indigenous learning as the whole community

should agree on what happens through dialogue in their community. Nafukho (2006) states, “Although

the discussions value the hierarchy of importance among the contributors to the discussion, the

speakers are normally provided with an equal chance to speak up until an agreement, consensus, or

group cohesion is reached” (pg. 409). We are implementing this theme by providing week five through

eleven in the workshop series as a time for facilitating dialogue and consensus regarding what

community based project the group wants to pursue. Creating consensus regarding the community

project that the participants will implement ensures that all participants’ voices have been heard and

everyone is on board with the project that they implement in the community. By encouraging consensus

building, the participants will be able to engage both their workshop participants in the building and

implementation of the community program, along with community stakeholders.

TRIO is a national federally- funded college support opportunity that helps to motivate and

support students from underprivileged backgrounds in obtaining a degree in higher education. The

TRIO program assists students by providing academic tutoring, counseling, mentoring, financial


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guidance, and various other community resources vital to supporting student in their educational

journey, which aids in student retention. At Ivy Tech Community College chapter located in

Indianapolis, Indiana; the TRIO program is offered only to 160 first generation, low-income, or

students with a disability in hopes of providing individualized support for students who want to obtain

their associates degree in three years or less. A limited number of students are admitted into the TRIO

cohort program and each student must go through an application process and must sign a contract

which details the expectations of the program. TRIO provides free activities to their student cohort such

as:

• Motivation, encouragement, and accountability

• Personalized education planning with academic monitoring

• Advising and mentoring

• Tutoring

• Personal problem solving

• Financial and Economic literacy

• Extracurricular and cultural events

• Online learning and communication

• Workshops and seminars

• Life and study skills

•Computer loans

• Early warning grade system

To further enhance the group's understanding of the principles of Ubuntu as they would be used in a

western format, the group investigated programs that utilized similar learning strategies. The TRIO

program is designed to aid students in being successful in their collegiate pursuits by providing


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students with support in a cohort or community model. Students who are accepted into the TRIO

program and expected to fully participate in the program as the students are told that their individual

performance impacts the entire cohort. Each member of the cohort is expected to fully participate in all

educational processes be fully engaged in their learning experience at Ivy Tech Community College.

The TRIO contract further clarifies that the students must also attend workshops together and make

contact with other students in their cohort or classes. By providing a cohort model that has support

from all higher education professionals at Ivy Tech Community College, the program is truly utilizing

everyone in the learning community to take an active part in the education and success of each TRIO

student.

The TRIO program contains multiple themes found in African Indigenous Learning such as group

learning, community engagement, and dialogue. These indigenous learning themes are visible in the

TRIO curriculum as the program works off of a cohort model and does provide ways for students to be

engaged in the community. Creating connections with the community and other students accepted into

the TRIO cohort plays a large part in students feeling supported, motivated, and accountable for their

own learning. This communal learning factor along with mentoring opportunities mirror key concepts

in alternative learning systems such as African Indigenous learning. By providing a community of both

educators and fellow students, this program is better able to assist students in engaging in a well-

rounded educational experience and provide them with a variety of resources to be successful.

In our program design we would utilize a group learning environment in hopes of creating dialogue

with students and educators, which would aid in students making meaning of their peers experiences

and transformative learning experiences. Our program design would also reflect TRIO’s use of

community engagement or mentorship. Providing mentorship opportunities will provide students with a

connection to their community and assist them in learning from multiple different influences. TRIO

also provides another aspect of learning that would be helpful to our program design. Actively


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providing and promoting time for students to start a dialogue with each other and to learn from each

other’s experiences will be a vital aspect of our program’s aim to motivate social change/community

project. TRIO also holds extracurricular events that encourage students to spend time together and may

involve food and mingling activities aimed at creating a unified cohort bond, this would also be an

aspect of the program that would be hope to utilize in our program design.

Another program of interest to our group is The Storytelling Project created by Lee Anne Bell

and Rosemarie Roberts at Bernard College in 2008. This program focuses on the benefits of varying

forms of storytelling to identify challenges associated with racism and to help articulate their hopes for

the future regarding societal equality. This program examines four different forms of storytelling,

which include stock stories, concealed stories, resistance stories, and counter stories. Storytelling

assists students in bridging the gap between community issues and the actual lived experience of

people in the community. Bell and Roberts (2008) state, “stories help us encounter others in a more

authentic and honest ways” (pg., 10). They further articulate the importance of storytelling by speaking

to the idea of storytelling as an “opening” for the storyteller and then listen to deepen their

understanding of community and what that means for each person. The Storytelling Project also aims to

create an environment in which a variety of stories and experiences can be openly expressed and

explored.

We hope to utilize this programs focus on storytelling, dialogue and group consensus as a way to

create community or societal change. Bell and Roberts (2008) stated, “ our goal is to support and add to

stories that foster cross-racial alliances and inclusive visions toward which to work together, and we

believe such stories can be powerful tools for motivating and sustaining democratic change” (pg. 11,

2008). This goal to support dialogue which fosters alliances and motivating or sustaining change is

significant to the intended goal of our program design. We would hope to apply this theme to our own

curriculum by providing time for students to tell their experiences, participate in dialogue with others,


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and use those opportunities to make a plan or consensus about what needs to be changed and apply that

to a community based project. The Storytelling Project also uses each session to progress from lower

risk to higher risk activities. By facilitating an environment that is more comfortable before taking on

more challenging discussions, they engage students but also push them to branch out of their comfort

zone. Our program design would hope to mirror these methods to support the themes of African

Indigenous learning and alternative ways of knowing in our program design.

Program Design

Ubuntu for Community Action

Program Description

Ubuntu for Community Action (UCA) is a program designed for adult learners who are

interested in creating solution-based groups within their own communities. The program is based on

the African Indigenous learning principle of Ubuntu, which means human-ness. Loosely translated, it

means I am because we are, that we are all connected and must work together as a group to achieve a

common goal. Ubuntu is community based, and the goal of this program is to send its learners back out

into their communities to create groups that will use the seek to solve problems within their own

communities.

Course Structure and Design

Week One: Storytelling and Community Action.

6:00-7:00 p.m. Introduction

• Introduction by facilitator: What is Ubuntu?

• Background on history and theory of African Indigenous knowledge

• Discuss some main ideas of Ubuntu: group learning (cohort style), community engagement,

dialogue /storytelling, consensus building


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7:00-:7:30 Break for communal meal (Facilitator will show Indigenous Storytelling video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0t3gEAxmdg)

7:30-8:30 p.m. Storytelling in relation to community groups

• Discuss the history of storytelling in African Indigenous culture

• Give examples of types of stories: stock, concealed, resistance, counter

• Ask for examples of each type of story from the group. How did they hear these stories? What

was the context? How did the stories make them feel?

8:30-9:00 p.m. Video reflection (group)

• Facilitator will explain that part of the Ubuntu experience is gaining consensus among the group

members. The group members will spend 15 minutes discussing the topic of the evening and

come up with a main idea to share in a group video reflection.

• Group video reflection

Week Two: Establish Goals / Consensus Building

6:00-7:00 p.m. Introduction to Consensus Building

• Facilitator will explain that consensus building means that the group will engage in a

democratic discussion (everyone gets a turn), with authentic respect for individual rights and

cultural values. The discussion continues until a consensus is reached by the group.

• Explain that the group will be building a framework for how the next sessions will progress.

The group will need to establish a means of sharing information and resources during the times

when the group is not in session (example – internet discussion board), as well as protocols for

dialogue and discussion. The facilitator may present a basic outline or provide examples to get

the discussion started.

7:00-:7:30 Break for communal meal


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7:30-8:30 p.m. Consensus building and establishing protocols for the cohort

• The facilitator will provide a way to record ideas and may offer suggestions, but the group

should be allowed to establish its own guidelines and protocols for future meetings.


• The group members will spend 15 minutes discussing the topic of the evening and come up

with a main idea to share in a group video reflection.


Week Three – Successful Community Coalitions

6:00-7:00 p.m. Introduction to Community Coalitions

• Facilitator will introduce the topic of successful community action groups and what makes them

successful.

• The group will discuss groups they have worked with or seen and how they felt they were

successful at meeting their goals or why they failed. The group will establish some defining

ideas of success within community action. What type of goals did their representative groups

have and how did they achieve them. A member of the group will record their brainstorming

and ideas.

• The facilitator will introduce and discuss the stakeholder engagement process and how

successful community coalitions bring together stakeholders from the community to provide a

framework for solving a specific problem. Talk about specific versus broad-scope problems and

why it is important to drill down to a specific problem for the coalition before taking on broad-

scope issues.

7:00-:7:30 Break for communal meal (Facilitator will show video about the TRIO program

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eNKbSHxL9U).


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7:30 – 8:30 Stakeholder Engagement Process

• The facilitator will introduce the stakeholder engagement chart and encourage the cohort to

discuss the elements and how they would pertain to a community organization.

• The facilitator will explain that the goal for the group for the next session will be to come up

with a key community issue for their project. Each group member should prepare a narrative or

story that explains an issue and why it is important to the community. In the week 4 session,

they will present their stories and the group will use dialogue to reach a consensus on one issue

they wish to tackle for their project. In the week 5 session, they will be required to bring a

guest to the meeting (a “stakeholder”) and present their own community issue along with

possible solutions and strategies.


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Week Four: Creating a Community Action Plan

6:00-7:00 p.m. Issue presentations

•

Facilitator will share video from Philadelphia Jobs With Justice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrbHkYlXRnE

• Group members will present their community action problems through a narrative or

storytelling medium.

7:00-:7:30 Break for communal meal

7:30-8:30 p.m. Consensus building and deciding on a project

• The facilitator will provide a way to record ideas and may offer suggestions, but the group

should be allowed to engage in dialogue to discuss potential positive outcomes and negative

outcomes or challenges of each project idea. The group should finish with one project in mind.

Homework: each member of the cohort should bring a stakeholder (or a friend who will act as a

member of a stakeholder group) to the next session.

•

The group will decide who will present information to the stakeholders and how it will be

presented.





Week Five: Stakeholder engagement – involving the community

6:00-7:00 p.m. Issue presentations

• After opening remarks from the facilitator, group members will present their community action

problem and potential solutions to the stakeholders. The group will answer questions from the


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stakeholders and discuss their expected outcomes and future state. The hope is that some of the

stakeholders will agree to be mentors or facilitators in helping the group get the project started.

7:00-:7:30 Break for communal meal (stakeholders may leave)

7:30-8:30 p.m. dialogue and Consensus

• The second half of the session will be devoted to dialogue and establishing how to proceed with

the project. This will be considered the viability check. The group should be advised to keep the

project small in scope, with hope of creating a positive impact in a short amount of time. The

project should be one that others would feel confident in continuing after the cohort is finished.





At this point in the program design, it becomes necessary to create a sample project to show

how learners might engage and react in a real-world environment. For the purpose of this program, we

shall imagine that the learners in this cohort have decided that fluency in reading for 4 th grade students

is a community issue. The cohort decided to engage in a pilot project in which a group of students is

selected to go to an animal shelter and read to dogs waiting to be adopted. The facilitator will lead

them through a series of logistical questions (example: How will students be transported to the

shelter?)and outcomes based questions (What percentage increase in fluency may result? Are there

other intangible benefits to the program?) in order to establish the validity of the project.

Weeks 6-11 Ubuntu for Community Action

6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Weeks 6-11 will be comprised of the group participating in the project they have chosen. The


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facilitator will take on the role of observer and take special care to document the project using video

recording techniques as well as observation journaling. The facilitator will edit the footage acquired

during the meetings and the project to develop a “how-to” manual for someone to start his or her own

Ubuntu-based cohort program.

Week 12 – Culminating Event

For the week 12 session, the cohort will return to its original meeting space for a family

celebration of the project and the learning that took place. The group will present their video to family

and friends and some members will be asked to share their experiences. Each member of the group will

receive a DVD copy of the video, along with the written reflections of the supervisor to take back to

their own communities.

Reflection

Highlights. The most important aspect of African Indigenous Education is the idea of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu and our program encapsulates the ideas of group learning, community engagement,

storytelling, and consensus building. These are the aspects that make Ubuntu stand out from other

forms of education.

Process. This aspect of the project was led by Kristin Wheeler. The group members

participated in conference calls, email conversations, and shared details and information on the Group 5

discussion board on the Blackboard site. Each group member took control of a specific part of the

program design structure as highlighted below:

Kristin – Group leader: responsible for the program design elements

Marlena – Group member: responsible for the introduction and reflection

Jessica – Group member: responsible for the rationale

All group members – investigated programs and brought programs of interest to the group for

evaluation and inclusion into the program design, edited for content and formatting, and communicated


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ideas and suggestions effectively.

All of this allowed the group to work together cohesively and get the project completed with

minimal stress on each individual. This aspect of the project has brought us even closer as a group and

allowed us to communicate our strengths, wants, and purpose in the group. As a result, we not only

created a program design that included the principles of African Indigenous learning, we emulated

those principles as a group and found greater meaning and clarity in our endeavors.

Suggestions

Our group utilized a few websites and applications that we felt were particularly useful for long-

distance communication and collaboration as listed below:

Free Conference Call. https://www.freeconference.com/ This site allows you to schedule free

conference calls, send emails and reminders to all particpants, and have a centralized call-in for all

group members.

Call Recorder (ACR) – Available in Play Store for Android. This free app allowed us to

record our teleconference calls in case any of the group members needed to go back to reference a part

of our conversations. We were able to upload the audio files to Google Drive and share them with the

group in our group folder.

Google Drive is another fantastic way to collaborate with a group from a distance. We uploaded

PDF files of all of the scholarly literature we were able to find on our subject. That way, we could share

all of the resources in one place and have easy access to it from any computer.


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Tables

The following table consist of a modified table from our individual literature reviews, synthesizing the

elements of African Indigenous learning that we chose as a group to highlight in our program design:

Literature Review Table

Main Themes Application in practice

Group learning cohort

style ( Botho / ubuntu)

Collaborative learning,

individual achievement

based on the achievement of

the group, working toward a

goal for the greater good of

the community, problem

solving

Hands-on learning, cohort

style, lack of individual

grades or certificates,

individual success hinges on

group success

Community Engagement The entire community is

involved in learning,

mentorships and

apprenticeships are

common, everyone is a

stakeholder

Problem-based community-

oriented curriculum,

involving community

stakeholders and families in

the project

Consensus building Democratic discussion,

authentic respect for

individual rights and

cultural values, discussion

continues until a consensus

is reached

Group discussions, projects

decided on by the group,

everyone shares in the

responsibility, create a code

of ethics for the class which

sets value on

individual rights and

cultural values

Dialogue/Storytelling Willingness to learn from

others, recognizing the

genuineness of others,

dialogue creates a sense of

togetherness and closeness

Let students manage and

disseminate content, get

them involved in

community-oriented

activities, create an

atmosphere where open

dialogue is seen as positive

and affirming


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Program Design Summary Table

Learners Our program design focuses on adult

learners who are interested in developing

problem-based community action groupsin their own communities

Purposes Our purpose is to utilize aspects of African

Indigenous learning styles to teach learners

about Ubuntu and to help the learners

develop community action groups that will

help them solve problems in their

communities

Objectives Our objectives are to develop an

understanding of the basic principles of

Ubuntu

Rationales – Ideas from literature Group learning (cohort), community

engagement, consensus building, and

dialogue/storytelling

Rationales – Features from Practical

Cases

Our group focuses on the TRIO program,

and a storytelling curriculum from Barnard

College at Columbia.

Highlights and the major components of the program you designed

Our group focuses on the principles of Ubuntu (community engagement,

consensus building, and

dialogue/storytelling) , and also utilized

those principles within our group structure.

Sharing a common goal and passion for

developing community action groups led to

a strong program design focus.


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References

Bell, A. L., Roberts, R. A., Irani, K., & Murphy, B. (2008, February). The Storytelling Curriculum:

Learning about race and racism through storytelling and the arts. Retrieved March 3, 2016, from

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/barnard/education/stp/stp_curriculum.pdf

ETS UBC. (2015, January 23). 04 01 Introduction to Topic 4: Pedagogies: Indigenous Storytelling

Across the Curriculum [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=m0t3gEAxmdg

Nafukho, F. M. (2006). Ubuntu Worldview: A Traditional African View of Adult Learning in the

Workplace. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 8(3), 408-415.

Omolewa, M. (2007). Traditional African modes of education: Their relevance in the modern world.

International Review of Education, 53(5-6), 593-612.

Philadelphia Jobs With Justice. (2008, March 11). Community based coalition building [Video file].

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrbHkYlXRnE

rjmuffin. (2011, December 13). How TRIO Works (in under 3 min.) [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eNKbSHxL9U

Tedla, E. (1992). Indigenous Education As a Means for Understanding the Fullness of Life: Amara

Traditional Education. Journal of Black Studies , 23(1), 7-26.

The Institute for Coalition Building (2013). How Coalitions Work: The practice of community

collaboration [PDF Presentation]. Retrieved from

https://www.inphilanthropy.org/sites/default/files/resources/Building%20Effective

%20Coalitions%20to%20Address%20Community%20Needs%20-%20How%20Coalitions

%20Work.pdf

EDAC 634 African Indigenous Program Design Final Copy

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