This

is a transcript of the presentation delivered by Fran Bidwell and Ginger Haag

at the Centre for Inspiring Minds Celebration of Learning Event, at ACS Cobham
International School, on 16 May 2015.

Slide 1
When we began our journey with CIM in September 2013, we asked the
question
How can all aspects of school life be directed towards the development of
individuals as better global citizens?

This came from the realisation that we are educating young people to participate
in a world characterized by
culturally diverse societies,
interconnected economies, and
problems that transcend national boundaries.
And that we need better skills to do it.

Whilst this has become a priority for school reform efforts worldwide, weve
discovered that it is a neglected area of research.


Slide 2
Were delighted be sharing an overview of the project, our high level goals and
aspirations, milestones and critical junctures.

We began by looking at our demographics, how we conceptualised, enacted and
sustained Global Education in our schools , taking account of our resources. We
considered the following questions
what is there a need to understand about the global,
what is our understanding and
what does our community need, feel and believe?
We could see within students and ourselves the desire to develop the practical
skills and confidence to positively engage, both locally and globally, and examples
of great work taking place, however we questioned whether we had a cohesive
developmental approach. We envisioned being able to audited, make
recommendations for change and assess Global Competencies with as much rigor
as other curricular areas.

We realized that we needed to form our own-shared understanding of global
citizenship and its components, and to be able to clearly and comfortably
articulate it. Our starting point was defining and establishing common
terminology.

Slide 3

Our CIM team was comprised of 7 members of staff across all divisional levels,
and all ACS campuses. Our contributing skills came from our backgrounds as
teachers in languages and the acquisition of language, the humanities and social
sciences, theory of knowledge, pastoral care, service learning, virtual learning, &

CAS, covering both curricular and co-curricular. We each had our own individual
impetus for tackling this question.

Throughout the process, critical cogs in the wheel have been Tom Lehman, Latifa
Hassanali and Ben Hren.

Slide 4

This visual road map outlines the flow for execution and bridging between
where we started and where we are now in understanding the skills and
competencies of GC. We investigated well-known definitions, frameworks and
consulted with experts. It was a non-linear, iterative process, always drawing us
back to the original question.

Our milestones came in our own understanding at different junctures:
That global citizenship is a floating signifier.
That the unique make up of our 4 campuses & the nature of Global
Competency requires a flexible approach
That Intercultural competency is at the core of GC
That whilst it is more difficult to assess in this area it is not impossible, and
new tools are being developed .
We realised that we needed a more concrete foundation for what we were trying
to do, as Global Citizenship it is such a massive field, and we needed to have a
narrower focus. Around this time the UN was having a panel discussion on
Global Citizenship and the Future of Learning One of the panellists was a
professor from Teachers College, and who was describing a new program based
on work by the Asia Society which we were familiar with. This led us into a hiatus
year.

Slide 5
The Global Competence Certificate Program, or GCC, is a new, virtually
administered graduate course offered to teachers, K-12, founded by three leading
experts in the global competence field:
The Teachers College-Columbia University offers world renowned graduate
programs. Their influential work in education policy has lead reform practice in
many educational institutions.
World Savvy offers professional development to help teachers and students
integrate global competence into the classroom, and they offer fully funded
exchange opportunities for middle and high school students.
Asia Society is the leading nonprofit organization that works to ensure college
readiness and globally competent students by providing thought leadership,
stimulating changes in policy and practice, and advancing an educational
response to globalization.
Together these partners ensure each course in the GCC is relevant to teachers
who are attempting to prepare our students to navigate through this ever
moving, fast paced, globalized world.

Slide 6
The Global Competence Matrix is a foundational framework we consider the
heart of the GCC program. It is a tool school communities might use to inform or
develop their understandings and practice of competencies.
Those who nurture these develop, the disposition and capacity to understand
and act on issues of global significance. This framework is constructed around
core concepts of global competence and is scaffolded by the values and attitudes
it promotes, and through certain skills and behaviors.


Slide 7
This slide shows the core concepts and details the components we might use to
measure global competence.
The matrix includes cognitive skills for critical, creative and innovative thinking,
problem solving and decision making; and also non-cognitive skills or
dispositions such as empathy, openness to new experiences, taking perspective,
and communicating and engaging with others. It includes behavior capacities,
both individual and collaborative, that globally competent communities should
embody.
This is a dynamic framework that can be adapted to suit specific learning
communities. The matrix is not just for students, nor does it stop being relevant
at graduation. These are life-long practices, applicable to all individuals who
aspire to be globally competent.
Slide 8
The syllabus in the GCC program is divided into three categories: Think, Learn,
and Do.
The Think courses include Intro to Global Competence and Global Systems,
classes through which we examined how the networks and nodes of globalization
have created a more interconnected, interdependent world and how this push
and pull has affected nation states and specific global issues. We explored
cultural, racial and monetary exchanges, political and educational world systems,
and the consequences of the inequalities among these.
Dialoguing in Global Education, the third Think course, asked us to examine
various interactions among culture, language, and relationships. We considered
the notion of identity and questioned our personal and cultural subjectivities. We
considered the ways in which our interpretations of the world have shaped our
understandings of otherness.
Learn courses include options such as a Poverty course and Aesthetics and
Culture. In the Poverty course, we researched to what extent mitigating poverty
is an important factor in world economics, and how growing and pervasive
poverty is one of our most pressing global issues. We considered how morality,
pragmatism and enlightened self-interest have motivated key global players such
as economists, IGOs, NGOs, philanthropists and social entrepreneurs. The
Aesthetics and Culture course asked us to consider the experimental dimensions
of globalization with special attention to how art in its many forms helps us
empathize and connect across difference and helps us to imagine a better world.

Do courses offered were inquiry-based learning, and curriculum and

assessment. In both we researched several learning approaches and developed
lessons that promote genuine investigation. We crafted effective unit plans
within our own disciplines rooted in the GC matrix and that meet curriculum
standards

Slide 9
Finally, fieldwork is required for all GCC candidates.
Fran and Ginger will travel to Colombia, South America this summer with Envoys,
an organization that addresses and supports a global approach to education.
We will travel to Bogota, Barranquilla, and an indigenous community in the rain
forest near Palomino to work with other educators, social leaders, government
officials and students to develop curriculum and lessons on global citizenship for
high school students.
We are excited to learn more about the award winning education model, Escuela
Nueva which has successfully transformed education in rural Colombia by using
participatory, collaborative learning and by strengthening ties to the community.
It has impacted public policy around the world and is considered according to
the UN Human Development Report to be one of Colombias greatest
achievements.
This, along with the final GCC Capstone Project brings us back to ACS.
Slide 10
In the fall we will be undertaking a Capstone project that supports the
implementation of Global Competency education while addressing a particular
need for our own school environment and that has direct application for our
roles.
Well be designing a project with a framework for instruction and assessment
that will be critiqued and collaboratively developed with our cohort group at
Teachers College.
This will set the stage for us to continue our work with CIM on a narrowed focus
on intercultural competency.
How can our ACS community acquire, promote and engage in current practices for
developing intercultural competence?

Slide 11
We are delighted to have been selected as a CIM project for next year.
We will be preparing inquiry led action research by piloting an online, blended
learning model, creating our own webinar materials based on our 15-month
graduate program.
We will be addressing content areas through a lesson study approach.
The purpose is to
engage practitioners in building a progression of practice.
Participants will engage in in preparatory professional development and then
conduct original action research, resulting in a model for developing research-
informed approaches to building intercultural competencies.
An outcome will be the provision of data and evidence describing
developmentally appropriate approaches to building intercultural competencies

Finally wed like to thank our team for their hard work, as well as CIM and ACS
for giving our team the opportunity to undertake this research.