Planning for Change

The intention of the Planning for Change activities is to help you think more broadly about changes you would like to see in your program or literacy practice and to develop a proposal for a Changing Practices project.

The purpose of a Changing Practices project is to provide an opportunity for you to try out a new practice in your program or context or to focus on a practice you have been using. What you decide to do as a project will depend on your context, interests and learnings, and on your time. It is important that your project is something you can do. The project will likely be something you might do as a matter of good practice in any case, such as making the topic of violence open for discussion or introducing the topic in volunteer training. However, the research aspect of the project will be a way to examine the practice and its effects systematically, learn more about it and share what you learned with others.*

Each module of the course includes an activity to help you plan a project based on what your learned, observations, and reflections during the course. In the concluding workshop, you will share your project ideas with other course participants, get feedback and plan the next steps.

You will also receive a copy of the Traveler's Guide, a resource for planning a research in practice project. You will be able to consult about your project with one of the project coordinators (online or by phone), as well as pose questions and get feedback from other course participants.

* You will have support to implement the project in Phase Two and prepare a report about it in Phase Three. The VALTA project budget includes stipends for participants who complete projects in Phases Two and Three.