Widening Circles—Global Social Impact Program

Online Classroom

Participants will join a shared online learning space via the Omprakash EdGE online learning platform for ongoing critical dialogue and reflection to support their civic engagement and social impact.

The EdGE classroom is designed to help students reflect on the complexities of striving for justice across differences of culture and power and to examine one’s own location within global flows of power and resources.

Each ‘unit’ within the classroom is oriented around an essential question. The essential questions are as follows:

• Unit 1: What are the risks of trying to 'help others' when crossing significant differences of culture and power—and how might 'raising consciousness' offer more expansive possibilities for social change?
• Unit 2: How can storytelling be a force for raising consciousness—and in that sense, how can you document your summer experience in a way that is thoughtful, creative, and impactful?
• Unit 3: What prevailing ideologies and policies have created our current moment of extreme social and environmental inequality—and what might it mean to imagine alternatives?
• Unit 4: What assumptions underpin popular ideas about poverty, affluence and development—and to what extent might non-linear perspectives offer viable alternatives?

Please note that while this program is not for UC Davis credit, it is academic in nature so students should expect to engage in the online classroom through readings and multimedia content for each unit and to share reflections through responses and observations to the learnings as well as the creation of a digital portfolio.

Certification

Students who successfully fulfill program expectations will earn an EdGE Certificate in Critical Global Engagement. The following are expectations for earning a certificate:

• Participation in the online classroom.
• Creation of a Digital Portfolio by the end of the summer which includes at least three storytelling posts.
• Participation in the final Digital Symposium.
• Ongoing thoughtful engagement with the EdGE Mentor.