Ditch the Notebooks, Pass the Passport

Where in the world are the globally minded? The Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning is headed to New York City June 29-30 to host its fifth annual Partnership for Global Learning Conference. This two-day event connects the business-minded with the academic-minded and the policymakers with the resource providers to dissect best practices and enhance global partnership in education.

The conference looks to create a platform where policies can prosper that ensure the upcoming generation of leaders are capable of managing an interconnected world. It’s an ultimate one-stop shop for those seeking to learn from top-ranking education innovators, leading teachers from high-performing countries and policy makers who plan on sharing their models of success.

This year’s key note lineup boasts world-renowned journalist Dan Rather, Lucy Gray, co-chair of the Global Education worldwide conference, Steve Hargadon (Web 2.o Labs/Global Ed Conference), Lucy Gray (Global Ed Conference), Julie Lindsay (Flat Classroom Project) and other avant-garde ed-thinkers.

So how do you build student global competence? The world may have become much smaller with the advent of the Internet and mobile technologies, but what can we do day-to-day in classrooms to make our students more globally aware?

Veronica Boix-Mansilla and Anthony Jackson are the co-authors of Educating for Global Competence, where they discuss how, in a world faced with unprecedented migration, students and learners alike must be prepared to live in a society filled with linguistic, cultural and religious diversity.

The two offer interdisciplinary examples about how to make students more globally aware. The co-authors suggest asking students to track production patterns of everyday items such as iPods, Nike products and Fender guitars, to learn about the positive and negative impacts of job migration and globalization.

In another example, students in a classroom in Reggio Emilia, Italy were curious to know how fax machines work. The teacher organized a lesson plan, encouraging students to predict how the fax machine works to connect them to their sister school in Washington, DC. By creating an international bridge, these students learn about the world through a self-guided experience.

In a world like today’s, where the far has become near, it is crucial to make all of our students global citizens.

Keep Calm and Learn On,

Nora

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Image Available Under CC Licensure by Mickey I.