REV-Ayiti's Vision:
Our dream (rev, in Creole) is to support Haitian educators in their quest to become innovative teachers and learners for the holistic development of Haitian youth. Our approach: Lèkol Vivan
Lèkol Vivan (translated into English as The Vibrant School) is an integrated pedagogical approach that uses dynamic, learner-centered methodology. This constructivist pedagogy combines ke
y aspects of progressive education, building on the theories of innovators such as Friedrich Fröebel’s Play-based Learning, Jacques Delors’ Learning by Doing, Paolo Freire’s Popular Education and Student-Teacher Dualism, P.R. Sarkar’s Neo-Humanism, Oscar Mogollón’s Rural Education, and Maria Montessori’s Engagement of the Senses. The traditional school transforms into an active, nurturing and vigorous learning environment where students engage in a continuous learning cycle (Learn – Practice – Apply – Reflect). The Lèkol Vivan Training Program gives educators the tools to engage heterogeneous groups of learners with a diverse range of skills. Through active participation, group work, role-plays, presentations, multi-modality projects, participants engage in an exploration of new material with a learner-centered and constructivist approach. Traditional training approaches often rely on the expertise of a trainer to transfer knowledge to the participant, resulting in a passive learning opportunity for the participant. In contrast, a learner-centered approach recognizes the need for Pedagogical Partners and participants to co-create their learning experiences as an active, responsible team — nuanced to the specific learning needs of the group. This constructivist approach allows educators to construct their own understanding of the material within the context of their reality, through hands-on participative practicum followed by reflection and sharing. In the trainings, the constructivist view of learning is linked to a number of different teaching practices. In the most general sense, it encourages participants to use active techniques such as modeling, simulation, and problem solving. The PP facilitates a dialogue making sure she understands the students' pre-existing conceptions, and guiding the activity to address them and then build on them. This, in addition to the participants’ own reflection of their practices, allows for transformational and high-impact growth. The constructivist PPs encourage participants to constantly assess through self-reflection and sharing how the activity is helping them gain greater metacognitive understanding. The constructivist PP has an active role to provide tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which participants formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a collaborative learning environment. As schools implement the Lèkol Vivan approach, REV-Ayiti’s pedagogical specialists and trainers will conduct follow-up support, monitoring and evaluation. Baseline data will be analyzed together with the results of students’ formative and summative assessments. Participating schools will have the opportunity to become certified members of a greater Lèkol Vivan network by following its guiding principles and implementing the specific teaching and learning methods. This network of like-minded Lèkol Vivan learning communities will provide a foundation for pedagogical support, teacher collaboration, leadership conferencing, resource sharing and professional motivation.
