iEARN is an online platform that has connected more than 2 million youth and 50,000 educators throughout 140 countries as they participate in projects together that tackle real-world issues.
Empatico provides teachers of youth aged 6–11 with a free virtual exchange video platform that allows students to engage in learning activities with partner classrooms from different parts of the world.
Collectively, organizations such as these are reaching millions of students worldwide and are posting positive effects on student engagement, achievement, and preparedness for life outside the school walls. Whether they use the nomenclature of global education, global citizenship education, or globally competent teaching, the goal of these organizations is the same: to cultivate global competence among students.
Global Learning on the Ground
What does global competence actually look like when applied to the "real world" of schools? It looks like high school students in Washington, DC collaborating with peers in Ghana over Skype as they brainstorm ways to apply STEM skills to create a water purification system that would serve the dual purpose of clearing lead from Washington's Anacostia River and pollutants such as pesticides and hospital waste from a lagoon used for fishing and irrigation in Uganda (Ingber, 2017). It looks like 4th grade students taking on the perspectives of American colonists, Native Americans, and British loyalists as they debate whether the colonies should declare independence from the British Empire. It looks like 1st grade students excited to tell their teacher how they are bringing trash-free lunches to school in an effort to reduce plastic pollution after reading a book on the topic as part of small reading group instruction.
Globally competent teaching facilitates the type of learning described in these scenarios—situations where students are actively engaged in and genuinely enjoying the learning process while simultaneously immersed in content-area instruction. Globally competent teaching is the dispositions, knowledge, and skills that teachers draw upon to instill global competence in students (Tichnor-Wagner, Parkhouse, Glazier, & Cain, 2019). Figure 1.2 lists and defines these 12 dispositions, knowledge, and skills.
Figure 1.2. Globally Competent Teaching Elements
Dispositions
Element: Empathy and valuing multiple perspectives
Definition: Educators look inward to recognize the perspectives, stereotypes, and biases they hold and the beliefs and experiences that shaped them. Then they reflect on why their perspectives may differ from perspectives that diverge from their own.
Element: Commitment to promoting equity worldwide
Definition: Educators strive toward the betterment of humanity and the planet as they learn about and tackle issues to promote equity, human rights, justice, peace, and sustainability.
* * *
Knowledge
Element: Understanding of global conditions and current events
Definition: Educators are aware of current issues relevant to the lives of their students, local community, country, and wider world.
Element: Understanding of the ways that the world is interconnected
Definition: Educators understand how forces of globalization have connected our world economically, socially, culturally, politically, and ecologically and see themselves as part of the interdependent world.
Element: Experiential understanding of multiple cultures
Definition: Educators have an awareness of their own cultural practices, values, and norms and seek opportunities to immerse themselves in cultures different from their own.
Element: Understanding of intercultural communication
Definition: Educators have knowledge of verbal and nonverbal strategies to effectively interact with people from diverse cultures.
* * *
Skills
Element: Communicate in multiple languages
Definition: Educators are willing to learn new languages to connect with students and families from linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Element: Create a classroom environment that values diversity and global engagement
Definition: Educators foster a community where students learn from and respect one another's diverse cultures and engage in discussions about global issues from a variety of perspectives.
Element: Integrate learning experiences for students that promote content-aligned explorations of the world
Definition: Educators incorporate global learning into everyday instruction that clearly connects to the world beyond the classroom, using student-centered approaches.
Element: Facilitate intercultural and international conversations that promote active listening, critical thinking, and perspective recognition
Definition: Educators provide ongoing opportunities for students to connect with individuals from diverse countries and cultures.
Element: Develop local, national, and international partnerships that provide real-word contexts for global learning opportunities
Definition: Educators connect with schools, classrooms, or teachers in different countries or with local organizations (e.g., universities, cultural institutions, companies) to provide students with global perspectives as they engage in collaborative inquiries around shared learning goals.
Element: Develop and use appropriate methods of inquiry to assess students' global competence development
Definition: Educators regularly use a mixture of authentic formal and informal assessments (e.g., classroom checklists, project rubrics, portfolios) to provide students with feedback and to inform their own globally oriented instruction.
Source: Adapted from Becoming a Globally Competent Teacher (Tichnor-Wagner, Parkhouse, Glazier, & Cain, 2019). Copyright 2019 by ASCD.
Globally competent teaching brings the world into the classroom and takes the classroom into the world. At its core, globally competent teaching is an innovative instructional reform that shifts teaching and learning to be more authentic and student-centered. It becomes grounded in the real world and relevant to students' lives and interests. People, perspectives, and conditions are constantly in flux, as are the interests and experiences of students every year. Therefore, there is not one standard process or set curriculum for teaching global competence. Though this may seem daunting or overwhelming to be unable to easily follow a series of predetermined lesson plans for those who have never tackled global competence, it is ultimately liberating to have the flexibility to teach what matters to students in a way that feels right and will be most effective within your context.
That being said, there are guideposts that cut across the 12 globally competent teaching elements and that apply to teachers in any location, grade level, and subject area. These "signature pedagogies" of globally competent teaching include 1) integrating global issues and perspectives into everyday instruction; 2) authentically engaging students with issues, people, and places beyond their cultural affiliations and national borders; and 3) connecting their own experiences and those of their students to the curriculum (Tichnor-Wagner, Parkhouse,