The Rebisco Foundation Inc. (RFI) has among its corporate social responsibility initiatives for Rebisco Biscuit Corporation, a scholarship program for high school and college students who are dependents of their food plant employees. Apart from providing support on tuition and miscellaneous fees, they also support the scholars through a the Honing the Attitudinal Balance of Intelligent Teens (H.A.B.I.T.) program which aims to instill in scholars good decision-making skills, healthy life choices, sound study habits, self-regulation techniques, and other life skills. The program involves a series of workshops which the scholars attend over their high school years.
To mark the end of the H.A.B.I.T. program, Habi designed a 3-hour online workshop with 60 Grade 10-12 RFI scholars. This workshop aimed to empower scholars to turn their H.A.B.I.T, stories and learnings into creative content that can be shared with the larger community, especially the next batch of RFI scholars who were to experience the H.A.B.I.T, program.
Task
How might we empower RFI scholars to share their H.A.B.I.T. stories and learnings with the larger community?
Understanding the learners
After an alignment with the RFI team to have a general profile of the scholars and participants of the workshop, we held focus group discussions with 4 scholars to get to know them more deeply.
In these conversations, the scholars expressed a general feeling of tiredness and anxiety towards online learning. We were going to hold the workshop at a time when, apparently, a lot of them were sleepless from trying to accomplish end-of-quarter requirements for school. While they would appreciate being able to sleep in on a Saturday morning, they also expressed that workshops like these are generally energizing for them because they now have limited opportunities to socialize with their peers in school due the online, modular learning set-up. The scholars also generously shared with us their current hobbies and interests, and introduced us to some of their favorite content creators which became a very useful springboard for conversations in the actual workshop.
Designing modular steps
We made sure that the workshop would feel fun and delightful through the use of games, curated playlists, and relatable storytelling, instead of it being another school activity they were required to attend on a weekend. Even the pre-test sent to scholars was crafted delightfully and made use of pop culture references such as K-Pop and Aling Marites to set the tone for the scholars on the kind of workshop we were going to provide them. We also made sure sure to provide enough opportunities for socialization in a big group context during plenary sessions, and in smaller, more intimate groups in their project work. We leveraged their high proficiency in using tech tools by setting up virtual workspaces where they can self-facilitate while making the components of their project output.
Beginning with the end in mind
From the start, we made sure that participants understood the end goal of the workshop which was to produce a tangible output in the form of creative content that will be shareable to the larger community. So as not put too much pressure on the scholars, we assured them that the goal was to have a prototype or a draft in 3 hours, and they would have a full month to refine their prototypes. The clarity of this intention helped the scholars comfortably engage in the workshop.
Encouraging human agency
During the workshop, we noticed that the scholars were not talking to one another in the breakout rooms, but their virtual workspaces were moving and tasks were getting done. Instead of forcing the scholars to talk more, we approached the situation with curiosity and found out that the scholars actually had their own chat groups where they preferred to converse instead of on their mics in the breakout rooms. This helped us understand how our conception of socialization may be different from the youth’s, and how their communication tool preferences may also differ from what we would suggest they use. And we go where our learners are more comfortable, especially when it proves to inch them towards the objectives of the session.
