Philanthropy and global education are important endeavors
that have the potential to positively change the world. The Pearson Foundation, the National
Education Association Foundation and EF have co-founded a program called the Global
Learning Fellowship. The mission of the
Global Learning Fellowship is to provide educators with the knowledge, expertise
and disposition needed to teach in a culturally diverse world. Through participation in the fellowship,
educators become global leaders acquiring the skills necessary to integrate
global instruction into their classrooms and districts. The objective of this program is to create
global competency through a summer exchange program. Educators who participate
in the program have traveled to China and Brazil, learning about the cultural
and societal impacts that affect both countries’ educational systems.
Global competence means that a citizen has the knowledge,
skills and dispositions to act creatively and effectively on solving issues of
global significance, such as reducing poverty, disease, wars and climate
change. In order to be globally competent and economically competitive,
citizens need to be innovative entrepreneurs.
The ability to be adaptive, respond to change and to creatively problem
solve are key traits of a 21st century learner. These traits are also critical in creating
innovative entrepreneurs and global competitiveness. The Global Learning Fellowship provides
educators with an opportunity to expand their horizons, immersing them in a
cultural experience that transforms their world view. Additionally, through the
participation in continuous professional learning groups, educators work
collaboratively to develop integrated, global lessons that stress critical
thinking skills and creativity. It is
through this collaboration that educators can advance their pedagogical
practices, and, thus, contribute to the closing of the achievement gap.
Much research demonstrates that educators that focus on route
memorization of facts and teach primarily for success on state tests have
unmotivated, low performing students.
Conversely, educators that focus on critical thinking skills and creative
problem solving tend to have students who are more motivated to learn and are higher
achieving. Educators who teach to levels
that are higher on Bloom’s taxonomy create students who are more adaptable and
can transfer knowledge from one situation to another. The Global Learning Fellowship trains
educators to create transformative lessons that espouse the highest of Bloom’s
taxonomies—evaluation and synthesis. Students who are taught in a
transformative manner are able to analyze information and support it with
evidence in a creative and original way.
Conversely, students who are not taught in a transformative manner, may
only be able to regurgitate information, and, not wholly understand its
meaning. Additionally, educators know
that in order for students to evaluate and synthesize information, they need to
have some relationship to the content.
Students are not motivated by content; they are motivated by
the characteristics that a particular assignment calls on them to accomplish. The
Global Learning Fellowship provides a context for educators to create meaning
and application for their students. For
example, a Global Fellow educator can study how climate change has affected the
economy and culture of Brazil, and, then create several lessons that relate
those learnings to the American economy and culture. Consequently, the educator has created a
transformative lesson in which students are evaluating and synthesizing,
looking for global relationships. The educator is helping students become
motivated to learn and understand the world in which they live, thereby,
promoting global competency.
The power of the Global Fellowship is that it helps ensure
that educators are inspired to bring back what they have learned to their
students and district. The program
values global equity by promoting dialog between people of different cultural
backgrounds. Educators from all fifty
states travel together to a foreign country.
They develop a powerful relationship as they explore and reflect upon
their own prejudices and preconceptions.
They forge bonds with educators across the globe, developing critical
friends that energize and motivate their students to want to learn.
It has been said that the business of schools is to create
engaging learning experiences that promote workforce ready students. The Global Fellowship program is an
organization that makes the world a better place to live. This organization achieves this through its
generous support of educators around the world.
The sponsors of the program have created a website with outstanding
resources that support educators in their pursuit of global competency. By
providing experiences as those described, the program not only transforms the
lives of educators, but also the lives of the educator’s students. These students may never get the chance to
travel outside of their small communities; however, the Global Fellowship
program connects these students to other cultures by promoting global
competency in their teachers.
I personally had the privileged opportunity to travel to Brazil--Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero to tour schools and learn as much as I could about the Brazilian culture. I have come back a changed person. I have learned that the world is much more inter-connected. The biggest take-home was that we all desire to build meaningful relationships-- to know that an appreciation of the power of education can create opportunities and transform the world into a better place for all! Below is a slideshow glimpse of this powerful experience that the NEA Foundation and Pearson provide...Thank you to my new Global Friends!
For more information, visit: http://www.neafoundation.org/pages/nea-pearson-foundation-global-learning-fellowship/
See more blogs from Brasil- http://www.neafoundation.org/blog/
See more blogs from Brasil- http://www.neafoundation.org/blog/
