
Excerpt from Designing Voice Introduction by Gala Narezo
Professor and Co-founder of Public Project at Pratt








The offering under Designing Voice: Engagement was designed and developed by Lena Lin and myself . We created a Culturally Engaged-Learning System (C.E.L. System) that would: - Help students embrace and nurture a deeper understanding and respect of their own culture. - Increase student participation and enhance their understanding of academic subjects - Provide an outlet for creative exploration and expression - Be implemented with manageable investments of time and money - Be adaptable and flexible to the educator/student needs This engaged-learning tool aims to encourage educators and students to creatively explore their culture in new ways while simultaneously improving academic competencies. Built around a project-based learning experience, it provides deeper understanding of both cultural and academic concepts, helping students develop creative and innovative problem solving skills needed in the real world. The educators and learners are aided in this process by a set of C.E.L. cards and an interactive game poster, along with this Educators Guide. Besides step-by-step instructions on how to use this education tool, the Educators Guide provides an understanding of the education and design concepts that helped shape it - namely the STEAM movement, Arts Integration (A.I.) and Design Thinking.