Teachers as Leaders
Teachers should be aware that teaching and learning should not be subject-centered nor separate from other disciplines, but should be learner-centered and integrated with other content areas. Teachers need to create a safe, creative and supportive class environment where students will be encouraged to be familiar with a wide range of global concepts that they can apply in new situations. In this sense, students are able to acquire knowledge from different sources around the world and tune in by well practicing them into different contexts.
Expanding the accessibilities of international programs and themes through technologies and multimodal literacies
Considering the limitation of traditional ways of teaching and learning, Good use of technologies, online resources, virtual contexts, or web materials as much as possible can offer teachers and students a wide exposure to cross cultural contexts or dynamics of global learning in other countries. For example, a cultural bridge or classroom cross cultural community between China and the target countries can be built through online learning, virtual gallery, web meeting, cultural correspondence program, and wireless project-based teaching and learning, etc. Teachers and students can have weekly or monthly communication or presentation when they integrate global topics into their curriculum learning in class, such as global warm, economic crisis, controversial customs in foreign countries, or universal injustice regarding gender, race and religion, etc. There could be talks and sharings between teachers of cross countries, and they prepare classes together with different perspectives. Then based on inquiry learning, they demonstrate or model in class to guide and engage students to think, do research, to design and to produce.
Students' engagement in global learning---Create multiple genre thematic units
During this process, thematic units can be encouraged. Teachers can include multiple genres regarding global topics or issues that relates to the theme of the core texts assigned by the curricula. There are many meaningful ways to interpret cultural themes or cultural competence -- such as literature circles/spaces (like Jigsaw group talks, Peers Review, Weekly prompts), Kaleidoscope clubs, and multimedia projects (like video-talk (film) projects, producing virtual biography, etc ) -- to motivate students to read and write about global topics or cultures with a purpose more significant than learning about vocabulary, sentence patterns, and main ideas from texts. Teachers must collaborate to find core themes that are consistent. Then they must find books or young adult literature, create activities or interactive projects that can address those issues, spark the struggling or reluctant learners, and engage and extend their knowledge on the thematic requirement of units in the curriculum. Students can then read, respond to, discuss, and work on a project to explore the target issues, and even connect current events that reflect these issues that they are studying (George, 2001). With this method, a variety of texts are bridged by a certain common global themes, which allows students to use literature, new digital tools, or collaborative group work to pull out big ideas and make connections among the various genres.
Students' involvement in classroom learning---Interdisciplinary curricular planning units
Teachers can integrate global competence across the curriculum by creating interdisciplinary units in which they can collaborate with teachers of other disciplines, such as: language art, science, history, social studies, and art, etc. This is a very practical means for students to engage in global learning. It is of great help to question and “tear down” some of the artificial divisions that exist in school curriculums today, and this encourages teachers to cooperate together to use science, young adult literature, and art to explore “big ideas” with their students and explore the global themes or issues confronting teachers and students in the 21st century (George, 2001). For example, connecting a high school AP English literature curriculum with American history, teachers can guide students to read a core novel--Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, accompanied by some historical adolescent novel during the same time period -- like Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis and Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. AP American history teachers can join in as they read these novels. The AP literature class discussion can center upon literary elements and cultural elements of the novel, while the AP American history teacher can focus on the historical aspects of the work. Like thematic planning within AP literature class, this interdisciplinary curricular planning has been highly effective in helping students make connections between the disciplines that they study each day to know more about the world beyond.
School Involvement
Expanding Teacher Training Program to Promote Teachers’ Global Skills
According to Betty (2007), in the last decade, there have been calls for expanding professional preparation by establishing closer links between schools and communities, schools and their counterparts beyond the nation by having prospective teachers study educational theory and apply their skills through practice teaching, by exchanging ideas and feedback with their peers, and by having teacher educators model their different effective pedagogy in and beyond their own classrooms.
BRS School board has played a crucial role in fostering teachers’ professions and global visions through teacher exchanging learning programs abroad. We need to extend this commitment to all classroom teachers at school and make it an urgent priority through technologies. For example, a safe and trustworthy school culture could be created through pair or group training programs among teachers. This program could be promoted among cross disciplinary groups. Take BRS for example, most teachers have experiences of learning and living abroad. If they are willing to join this kind of program and share their cross cultural experiences or explorations with each other, a mini-global community will be easily and effectively created. Then teachers can integrate these topics and experiences into classroom teaching. This Pair and Talk program can also be conducted through blogs, online forums, web collaborative meeting with the counterparts from target countries.
To build a school culture for globally competent teachers, some inquiry-based lectures, presentations, showcase or projects regarding global teaching and learning integrated with web 2.0 among disciplinary groups can be conducted as weekly or monthly meeting and discussions. Group leaders can be elected every other week to host the discussion. The more opportunities teachers are given, the more contributions they will make to promoting global skills in classrooms.
Teachers are also encouraged to observe other schools’ good example in fostering cross cultural learning and global competence through new technologies, including teachers training, cross-cultural programs, students’ learning, etc. After observation, teachers sit together to talk, demonstrate and share.
School's Support to Involving New Meanings into Curriculum through Exchange Programs
In view of the fact that teachers are teaching in consistency with curriculum in China, the first and most important thing is to internationalize the school curriculum, which will help create a more supportive environment for teachers to prepare students for competent global citizenship in this new era (Bell-Rose & Desai, 2005).
Since the year 2011, BRS teachers and NCSU student teachers have run an exchange program with each other. The exchange enables US and Chinese teachers to spend time learning and teaching in one another’s schools. The program has been as a positive catalyst for possible curriculum change, bringing new meanings and visions of global cultures of diversity into various academic disciplines at BRS, ranging from science, English language learning, social studies to Chinese language art. In addition, exchange teachers with global visions need to have courage to be actively involved in the change of curriculum and play roles as teacher leaders to share, support, and make contributions to its development in physical classrooms. For school leaders, or superintendents, a trust and school community needs to be built to encourage, support and reward teachers who are willing to participate in designing and implementing internationalized curriculum in their classrooms.
For students, some exchange programs among high schools between US and China have been developed by particular international department. Students involved in this program benefit a lot through engaging in living and learning in cross cultural contexts. But there are some problems. Take BRS for example, the exchange programs in the charge of school administrative office is separated from classroom teaching and learning. When BRS exchange students come back to school, they are not encouraged to share and talk in classrooms about their great experiences and explorations. They usually kept to themselves. Classroom teachers have no knowledge of these exchange students nor take any initiatives to organize or activate beneficial talks or engaging projects to develop students’ global competence.
In this sense, if school curriculums involve some specific requirements or details about developing students’ global competence for school staff, teachers, school superintendents to fulfill, a supportive and respectful climate for global learning will be created.
Challenges
Most of us on the path to global competence are still somewhere at the beginning of our journey. Our eyes have been opened and our consciousness raised. Instinctively, we feel a connection with others around the world. However challenging it is, we have confidence, perseverance and tremendous endeavor to achieve it.
Reference:
Picture retrieved from Google Image
Teachers should be aware that teaching and learning should not be subject-centered nor separate from other disciplines, but should be learner-centered and integrated with other content areas. Teachers need to create a safe, creative and supportive class environment where students will be encouraged to be familiar with a wide range of global concepts that they can apply in new situations. In this sense, students are able to acquire knowledge from different sources around the world and tune in by well practicing them into different contexts.
Expanding the accessibilities of international programs and themes through technologies and multimodal literacies
Considering the limitation of traditional ways of teaching and learning, Good use of technologies, online resources, virtual contexts, or web materials as much as possible can offer teachers and students a wide exposure to cross cultural contexts or dynamics of global learning in other countries. For example, a cultural bridge or classroom cross cultural community between China and the target countries can be built through online learning, virtual gallery, web meeting, cultural correspondence program, and wireless project-based teaching and learning, etc. Teachers and students can have weekly or monthly communication or presentation when they integrate global topics into their curriculum learning in class, such as global warm, economic crisis, controversial customs in foreign countries, or universal injustice regarding gender, race and religion, etc. There could be talks and sharings between teachers of cross countries, and they prepare classes together with different perspectives. Then based on inquiry learning, they demonstrate or model in class to guide and engage students to think, do research, to design and to produce.
Students' engagement in global learning---Create multiple genre thematic units
During this process, thematic units can be encouraged. Teachers can include multiple genres regarding global topics or issues that relates to the theme of the core texts assigned by the curricula. There are many meaningful ways to interpret cultural themes or cultural competence -- such as literature circles/spaces (like Jigsaw group talks, Peers Review, Weekly prompts), Kaleidoscope clubs, and multimedia projects (like video-talk (film) projects, producing virtual biography, etc ) -- to motivate students to read and write about global topics or cultures with a purpose more significant than learning about vocabulary, sentence patterns, and main ideas from texts. Teachers must collaborate to find core themes that are consistent. Then they must find books or young adult literature, create activities or interactive projects that can address those issues, spark the struggling or reluctant learners, and engage and extend their knowledge on the thematic requirement of units in the curriculum. Students can then read, respond to, discuss, and work on a project to explore the target issues, and even connect current events that reflect these issues that they are studying (George, 2001). With this method, a variety of texts are bridged by a certain common global themes, which allows students to use literature, new digital tools, or collaborative group work to pull out big ideas and make connections among the various genres.
Students' involvement in classroom learning---Interdisciplinary curricular planning units
Teachers can integrate global competence across the curriculum by creating interdisciplinary units in which they can collaborate with teachers of other disciplines, such as: language art, science, history, social studies, and art, etc. This is a very practical means for students to engage in global learning. It is of great help to question and “tear down” some of the artificial divisions that exist in school curriculums today, and this encourages teachers to cooperate together to use science, young adult literature, and art to explore “big ideas” with their students and explore the global themes or issues confronting teachers and students in the 21st century (George, 2001). For example, connecting a high school AP English literature curriculum with American history, teachers can guide students to read a core novel--Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, accompanied by some historical adolescent novel during the same time period -- like Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis and Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. AP American history teachers can join in as they read these novels. The AP literature class discussion can center upon literary elements and cultural elements of the novel, while the AP American history teacher can focus on the historical aspects of the work. Like thematic planning within AP literature class, this interdisciplinary curricular planning has been highly effective in helping students make connections between the disciplines that they study each day to know more about the world beyond.
School Involvement
Expanding Teacher Training Program to Promote Teachers’ Global Skills
According to Betty (2007), in the last decade, there have been calls for expanding professional preparation by establishing closer links between schools and communities, schools and their counterparts beyond the nation by having prospective teachers study educational theory and apply their skills through practice teaching, by exchanging ideas and feedback with their peers, and by having teacher educators model their different effective pedagogy in and beyond their own classrooms.
BRS School board has played a crucial role in fostering teachers’ professions and global visions through teacher exchanging learning programs abroad. We need to extend this commitment to all classroom teachers at school and make it an urgent priority through technologies. For example, a safe and trustworthy school culture could be created through pair or group training programs among teachers. This program could be promoted among cross disciplinary groups. Take BRS for example, most teachers have experiences of learning and living abroad. If they are willing to join this kind of program and share their cross cultural experiences or explorations with each other, a mini-global community will be easily and effectively created. Then teachers can integrate these topics and experiences into classroom teaching. This Pair and Talk program can also be conducted through blogs, online forums, web collaborative meeting with the counterparts from target countries.
To build a school culture for globally competent teachers, some inquiry-based lectures, presentations, showcase or projects regarding global teaching and learning integrated with web 2.0 among disciplinary groups can be conducted as weekly or monthly meeting and discussions. Group leaders can be elected every other week to host the discussion. The more opportunities teachers are given, the more contributions they will make to promoting global skills in classrooms.
Teachers are also encouraged to observe other schools’ good example in fostering cross cultural learning and global competence through new technologies, including teachers training, cross-cultural programs, students’ learning, etc. After observation, teachers sit together to talk, demonstrate and share.
School's Support to Involving New Meanings into Curriculum through Exchange Programs
In view of the fact that teachers are teaching in consistency with curriculum in China, the first and most important thing is to internationalize the school curriculum, which will help create a more supportive environment for teachers to prepare students for competent global citizenship in this new era (Bell-Rose & Desai, 2005).
Since the year 2011, BRS teachers and NCSU student teachers have run an exchange program with each other. The exchange enables US and Chinese teachers to spend time learning and teaching in one another’s schools. The program has been as a positive catalyst for possible curriculum change, bringing new meanings and visions of global cultures of diversity into various academic disciplines at BRS, ranging from science, English language learning, social studies to Chinese language art. In addition, exchange teachers with global visions need to have courage to be actively involved in the change of curriculum and play roles as teacher leaders to share, support, and make contributions to its development in physical classrooms. For school leaders, or superintendents, a trust and school community needs to be built to encourage, support and reward teachers who are willing to participate in designing and implementing internationalized curriculum in their classrooms.
For students, some exchange programs among high schools between US and China have been developed by particular international department. Students involved in this program benefit a lot through engaging in living and learning in cross cultural contexts. But there are some problems. Take BRS for example, the exchange programs in the charge of school administrative office is separated from classroom teaching and learning. When BRS exchange students come back to school, they are not encouraged to share and talk in classrooms about their great experiences and explorations. They usually kept to themselves. Classroom teachers have no knowledge of these exchange students nor take any initiatives to organize or activate beneficial talks or engaging projects to develop students’ global competence.
In this sense, if school curriculums involve some specific requirements or details about developing students’ global competence for school staff, teachers, school superintendents to fulfill, a supportive and respectful climate for global learning will be created.
Challenges
Most of us on the path to global competence are still somewhere at the beginning of our journey. Our eyes have been opened and our consciousness raised. Instinctively, we feel a connection with others around the world. However challenging it is, we have confidence, perseverance and tremendous endeavor to achieve it.
Reference:
Picture retrieved from Google Image