Global Cities Brings Together Educators to Celebrate
a Decade of Impact, Look Ahead
(Washington, DC) – 136 educators. 42 cities. 18 countries. One shared goal.
For three days, teachers and education leaders from around the world came together in Washington, DC to celebrate the Global Cities Decade of Impact and their shared work to help young people engage in global learning and prepare them to solve our world’s biggest problems.
The participating educators represented a total of 528 teachers worldwide who lead Global Cities’ signature virtual exchange program, Global Scholars. Through the Global Scholars Program, more than 116,000 students from 117 cities in 39 countries have engaged with their peers around the world in e-classroom discussion boards. That’s more than 116,000 students who are solving global problems together while acquiring cultural understanding and an appreciation of different perspectives.
Global Cities, Inc., a program of Bloomberg Philanthropies, hosted the convening, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and AFS Intercultural Programs served as co-sponsors.
In addition to being a celebration, the convening was an interactive forum for participants to learn and reflect. Educators emerged from three action-packed days of panels, workshops, speakers, and socializing, having forged strong connections and feeling energized to bring global competency to more classrooms.
“It's very important to have global competency education in my country,” said Isabel Cristina Mora Salazar from Medellín, Colombia. “Right now, I'm the only one teaching [Global Scholars] in Colombia. I'm excited to go home, take what I’ve learned, and invite more teachers to participate."
As Global Scholars begins its second decade, attendees learned about fresh insights, research, and innovation related to the program and global competency education. And they were introduced to new tools and resources that will help scale out global competency learning. Among the highlights:
Gaining experience using an educator- friendly new tool – the Codebook for Global Student Learning Outcomes – to measure global competency learning and to develop customized curricula.
In partnership with Harvard Graduate School of Education, Global Cities developed the Codebook using data from the Global Scholars program to help educators identify when students demonstrate the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that define global competency — and use these insights for effective instruction. Participants did a deep dive into the Codebook, learning how they can use it to prioritize, teach, and observe evidence of the 55 indicators of four core global student learning outcomes: Appreciation for Diversity, Cultural Understanding, Global Knowledge, and Global Engagement.
From a panel of researchers, participants learned about initial findings of studies showing that the Codebook consistently identified examples of global competency learning outcomes in samples of actual work submitted by students in different virtual exchange programs: The Open Canopy, formerly Out of Eden Learn, at Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero, as well as AFS Intercultural Programs.
Speaking on a panel about teaching global competency, Danara Kazykhan from the Kazakhstan National Academy of Education shared how beneficial the Codebook has been to educators about where global competency fits into required curricula: “That Codebook brought together answers for us. We now have this wonderful aligning of the learning outcomes and indicators to the curricula. It’s been an enriching experience.” She recommends educators use the Codebook in their classrooms: “It’s an excellent tool. It’s there for you to use. Start using it and you will find new, interesting ways of using it. The agility of this tool is endless.”
Participating in interactive workshops that help K-12 teachers identify, measure, and nurture key elements of global competency in any classroom around the world.
In sessions facilitated by Global Cities staff, participants delved into how they can integrate global competency into what students are already doing and learning. By the end of the workshops, they found alignment with their own local frameworks and curricula and the global student learning outcomes in the Codebook. Once they found alignment, they identified ways to teach global competency and observe evidence of learning in their classroom context.The workshops were buzzing with activity, with educators interacting with one another and comparing notes and learnings.
“All the workshops were really inspirational,” said Maria Rosa Ena Vidal, an educator from Spain. “We are planning how to expand the global competency ideas with the rest of our school. Now, my head is full of plenty of ideas listening to all of my colleagues. I’m very happy with all the things I’ve learned. When we get home, we’re going to integrate global competency in our curriculum, for all the staff in every single subject in the school.”
After a workshop, Desiree Marion from Detroit described an “aha” moment with the Codebook: “Now I finally see how it aligns with my work and how I can embed it in the curriculum. I need to be more intentional and make relevant connections for students.” Global Cities regularly offers live, interactive, research-based workshops, free to all educators. District or ministry leaders interested in partnering with Global Cities to offer workshops to teachers in their cities can contact workshops@globalcities.org.
Learning about innovative pilot collaborations with partner cities so they can increase the number of schools participating in global competency education in addition to the Global Scholars program.
In Madrid, the Ministry of Education intends to partner with Global Cities and implement an additional customized version of Global Scholars. For this initiative, Global Cities will provide the Global Scholars curriculum and the Ministry will train teachers and create the virtual exchange opportunities.
In Catalonia, Global Cities will customize its workshops for ministry inspectors who oversee that region’s global competency education requirements. They will be trained alongside a set of school leaders and classroom teachers with whom they will work throughout the academic year to support global competency teaching and assessment.
Sharing her excitement for the initiative, Montserrat Montagut Montagut of the Catalonian Regional Ministry of Education said: “Global engagement is the most important thing. It’s unfair that students have to solve the problems we created. By scaling workshops, we will reach more schools, more teachers, and more students.”
In addition to the workshops and panels, participants had opportunities to make new friends, learn about each other’s backgrounds, and have fun in the Nation’s Capital. They heard a performance from the Children’s Chorus of Washington, dined at the National Portrait Gallery of Washington, and toured the monuments.
“How wonderful it’s been to meet my international colleagues, many of whom I’ve seen online in Zoom meetings or even worked on projects together. I finally get to meet them and work with them and learn about who they are and have a laugh with them and enjoy them,” said Margaret Borger, a middle school teacher in Queens in New York City. “I want to be able to share with my students that they can also get that wonderful comradery, that community. That’s what I really am taking from this wonderful event.”
Ten years into Global Cities’ work, Founder and President Marjorie Tiven set the stage for the next decade:
“We know that global competence will figure into any effective approach to our shared future. We know that Global Scholars has modeled such approaches to the educational needs of the future. Our challenge now is to scale out the work of helping students develop global competence. Thanks to each of you, we have a strong foundation and have already made tested and proven elements of Global Scholars available to educators outside our program.”
