A curriculum lead needs to be a strong facilitator, and able to confidently implement a curriculum with volunteers by reading a facilitator guide. Look for the following in your curriculum lead:
- Previous experience with experiential learning methods. Specifically, they need to be comfortable with setting up and facilitating learning activities as written in the facilitation guides(which may not necessarily their "natural" way of facilitating), so as to spark a particular discussion during a facilitated debrief.
- Comfort with facilitating group planning and collaborative decision-making methods, such as open space, World Café, or other similar formats.
- Experience with adapting curricula to different groups and contexts.
Most likely, your curriculum lead will be someone who works with the volunteer learning function in your council, either as a staff member or high-level volunteer (if a volunteer has previous corporate training experience and time to devote to the project, they may be an excellent fit for this role).
Curriculum Lead Checklist
- Read the facilitation guides for the three core workshops: Intro to the Three Processes, Skills for the Three Processes, and Progression in Girls' Leadership.
- Do what you need to do to get comfortable facilitating the three workshops: make notes, practice what you'll say out loud (we highly recommend this), practice facilitating the workshops for your friends/cats/stuffed animals.
- Acquire the supplies you'll need for each workshop (a detailed list is included in each facilitator guide).
- Prepare the supplies for workshops (package them neatly, get them organized and labeled) and edit/print the handouts.
- With the project lead, prepare the agenda for the core team meeting. Use our
planning_1day_core_team_agenda or
planning_2day_core_team_agenda meeting agendas as a starting point.
- Identify someone to help you co-facilitate the core team meeting. While it is possible to do it alone, it's much easier to facilitate with someone else. (Trust us.)
- Help your co-facilitator get up to speed on the workshop facilitation. Practice it together so you know who will do what, and how.
- Facilitate the core team meeting.
- Pat yourselves on the back!
- Facilitate (or help facilitate) any needed professional development and planning sessions with other staff and volunteer groups. Tip: involve other staff (and/or volunteers) in this, so you're not the only one who can facilitate the workshops.
- Oversee (or assist with) the integration of the curricula into your council's standard workshops for volunteers.
- Be a resource to other teams who are integrating the curricula into their ways of work; help them adapt the curricula to fit their context.
