SPEECHDOJO EDUCATION FOUNDATION

SpeechDojo’s mission is to equip students with the public speaking skills they need to succeed in their academics careers and societies. SpeechDojo seeks to bridge this educational void through our two public speaking programs delivered within schools – Classroom and Online. The Classroom program involves weekly 45-minute instruction over Google Meet for a total of 15 weeks. It is geared towards students in grades 4-9 with a different bite size topic like 'volume pitch and pacing' or 'writing a speech' covered each week. The focus of this program is confidence-building and half the time is spent on an interactive activity. The Online program has a hybrid delivery model: students in grades 9-12 participate in an introductory and wrap-up 'Dojo drop-in' workshop with the core of the program being our asynchronous gamified online courses. Our three courses - 'Fundamentals of Public Speaking' 'Becoming Presentation Savvy' and 'Acing the Job Search' - were developed filmed and embedded into a gamified learning platform ourselves. Students work through the course during their leadership or career and life skills classes. To-date we have taught or are currently teaching 101 classes and 2620 students in the Classroom program and 12 classes and 300 students through the Online program which was launched last year. In addition to making public speaking education accessible through our in-school programming we also share communication and career development tips on our social media which have over 31 000 followers. Our team consists of 54 dedicated undergraduate and high school volunteers in Edmonton Toronto and Vancouver across our four teams: Classroom Online Marketing and Finance. By focusing on confidence-building and integration with the school curriculum SpeechDojo is committed to building vital communication skills in students. Our goal is to empower students to advocate for themselves in the classroom and ultimately the workforce and broader society.