The Lab keeps Halogen up-to-date with youth trends and educator’s needs
“One day you’re in and the next you’re out!” This saying, popularised by Heidi Klum of the fashion reality show Project Runway, is characteristic of today’s world. It is not only characteristic in product-life and economy cycles; it is also prevalent in the educational world.
“We need to keep up to date with fast changing trends and be in the know of what youths are being exposed to in this digital age. In my previous role as a full -time trainer, I was taught that learning only happens in the realm of a person’s reality. Good as your content may be, as long as you cannot make it real to them in their context, the lesson becomes irrelevant and hence inapplicable. It is important to us that we have an in-depth understanding of the ever-changing landscape of youth culture and issues,” says Sean Kong, Halogen’s Deputy CEO.
“… learning only happens in the realm of a person’s reality. Good as your content may be, as long as you cannot make it real to them in their context, the lesson becomes irrelevant and hence inapplicable. It is important to us that we have an in-depth understanding of the ever-changing landscape of youth culture and issues” – Sean Kong, Halogen’s Deputy CEO
The value of relevance is one of the reasons that led Halogen to carve out the Lab unit. The Lab aims to create that space where Halogen keeps up with the latest youth leadership educational trends and also help educators stay in touch.
Internally, Halogen channels these insights into their curriculum development. “Every year, we do a major updating exercise for our modules. The lesson objectives remain largely the same, but we are always in search of the latest stories and new media channels that we can use to engage students with. We even experiment with new pedagogies like applied drama to make lessons come alive for our students so as to enhance their social emotional learning by helping them understand different scenarios,” say Sean.
In the last year, through their observations and research, Halogen has identified new learning needs and a gap in the educational world. “Digital media literacy education has been mainly defensive. You’re told that as a youth, this is what you can’t do, shouldn’t do and that’s it. Why can’t we do something positive with so much technological prowess?” asked Jael Chng, Halogen’s head of Social.
This gap sparked off an entire conversation, with Halogen dreaming about youths being the ones to drive social change through powerful technological platforms. “How does one become a responsible online citizen? Can we build a digital community that generates meaningful conversations with one another?” were some of the questions that Halogen asked.
From that idea, Halogen created a digital leadership suite to educate students on how to capitalise on digital platforms to extend their influence, but at the same time, use these powerful tools with care and responsibility. The suite includes modules on how a youth can lead in a digital age, namely “Power up! in a Digital Age”, “The Online Citizen”, and “Innovation”.
“These modules seek to equip students with the right knowledge and perspective of the complexities of today’s world. From understanding the power of our “clicks”, to the power of creating and building digital communities, youths can create and gener- ate meaningful conversations to build trust within their own communities,” says Halogen’s Academy Executive, Kenneth Heng who created these modules. After attending the workshop “Power up! in a Digital Age,”, Su Thida Htun from Cresent Girls’ School shares what she has learnt,”Leadership has much more influence with the technology in the digital age and if it is channeled into good causes, it will bring about a positive change for many people.”
With research and knowledge of what is happening in the world of education and youth development, Halogen hopes to go beyond impacting students directly, to putting a consolidated resource into edu- cators’ hands. “We want to help teachers be at the forefront of youth leadership development. We know that it is never easy juggling the demands of teaching, therefore we want to make it easy for teachers to keep up. We do this hard work so teachers can reap the benefits,” says Sean.
“We want to help teachers be at the forefront of youth leadership development.” – Sean Kong, Halogen’s Deputy CEO
Another gap that Halogen has identified is the need for youth leadership impact assessment. Having been in the space of youth leadership development for ten years, Halogen often gets asked this question: “How do I know if my students are better leaders after the programmes we organised for them?”
This was another reason why the Lab was birthed. “We see this as an important question to answer, and we hope the research tells us where we are excelling in, and what we need to work on to provide better leadership development for our young people,” says Sean. In 2011, together with Center for Creative Leadership (CCL©) and National Youth Council, Halogen conducted a pilot study called the Youth Leadership Indicator Survey.
Several focus group discussions were held with employers who were asked what crucial characteristics a young person would need to thrive in the future world. Through these discussions, 35 competencies were identified. In consultation with CCL©, a set of questions were derived to measure these 35 competencies. The initial survey was then rolled out to about 600 students from different demographics.
This is the beginning of a long research project we hope to be able to put into the hands of educators – an affordable impact assessment tool to measure the effectiveness of the schools’ leadership development strategies and programmes.
Development indeed is an ongoing process and it looks like Halogen is not going to stop, but will continue to keep at the forefront, incubating new ideas and looking for ways to meet needs.
—Article by Jael Chng