Teach

Where do we start?

Globalizing your classroom doesn't need to take place overnight. The best way to begin globalizing your lessons is to start small. Not every lesson needs to be modified and not every global competency needs to be addressed within each lesson. If we each begin to make some minor changes throughout our curricula, our students will begin to become more global-minded. To get started, you may want to review some of the assessment matrices that are posted on the "Study" page. Next, take one standard from your curriculum and try to think of ways to globalize that particular standard.

Below, on the left, you will find an example of two standards that I modified from the Regents Chemistry curriculum. I hope to incorporate these modifications into my curriculum this year. On the right, you can find an example of a unit plan that I modified to incorporate global competencies throughout as well as an individual lesson plan. The unit plan and lesson plan were both written using the Understanding By Design (UBD) format. Both of these examples were completed as part of my coursework for my TGC Fellowship during the 2015-2016 school year. I was fortunate enough to be able to try out various elements of my unit plan with my general chemistry class this past spring. While we didn't get to the point of connecting with other classes globally, my students shared with me that they loved this unit because of the relevance of the material. My students were shocked by how much water they use/waste on a daily basis as well as how inequitable clean water access is worldwide. Although I only completed a small portion of the activities that I have listed in my unit plan (which is a rather ambitious plan-even for me!), I was pleasantly surprised to even hear from a parent as to what an impact the unit had on her son. She shared with me how her son came home and shared with the whole family his findings from the water diary along with information about the water crisis. He even suggested ways that his family could conserve water better. Mom was quite impressed and I was quite happy to hear how engaging this unit was for my students. I hope to incorporate more of this unit plan during the 2016-2017 school year.

Resources for sample lessons, activities, and ideas to help globalize your lessons

Resources applicable to many subject areas (many of these allow you to search your particular subject):

• National Geographic lessons: This site has some neat lesson ideas that not only provide a global perspective but also real-world applications. These lessons may provide you with some ideas as to how to investigate a topic in an authentic setting.
• TakingITGlobal for Educators (TIGed): This site contains a searchable database of sample global-education themed teaching resources.
• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): This site has some great resources for the sciences and for teaching geography.
• Mapping the Nation: With nearly one million indicators, this map helps you find the global connections your county and state have to the rest of the world. Think about why these connections matter for business, policy, and education. The data is rich and can be used in many ways. This might be a neat site to incorporate into statistics or graphing lessons.
• Gapminder: This is a site that uses statistics about the world's countries and regions to graphically show how the world has changed through time. This tool is interactive and has data on MANY indicators. There is a section for teachers on the site with resources for use in the classroom. The data for many indicators could easily be used to supplement a history lesson as well as any math lessons related to statistics or graphical analysis.

Math & Science Specific Resources:

• IREX - World Smarts STEM Challenge: IREX (along with the U.S. Department of State) are the organizers of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Fellowship that I participated in, which I highly recommend! This school year (2016-2017), IREX is piloting a STEM challenge where they are pairing up interested teams of students and teachers here in the U.S. with teams in Ghana to complete a science-related challenge. For the pilot year, only teachers in the D.C. and Maryland area were eligible to apply, but this would definitely be something to look more into if the pilot year goes well!
• The Globe Program: The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment. This site has some really neat data-collection projects on it. Earth Science and Environmental Science teachers may find some of these to be relevant to the curriculum.
• NASA Wavelength: This site has some fantastic activities and lesson plans for both science and math. While many of these are rooted in the Earth and Space sciences, I came across some really neat activities that could be used in Chemistry and the other sciences as well.
• Global Education - Math Collaborative: For my math colleagues, this site contains sample global math projects that you might be able to incorporate into your curriculum.

History and Language Specific Resources:

• Around the World video project: This video project was originally started by the Nicholas Sparks Foundation. This link will take you to one of the sample videos and there is information below the video to explain the project. I think this would be a really neat thing to try to have our Guilderland students put together. For any of the classes that may be ESL Co-taught, this could be a really awesome project. If anyone is interested in trying it out, let me know as I would love to assist!
• TeachUNICEF: This site contains various lessons and activities for a variety of topics such as gender equality, global citizenship, child trafficking, and poverty.
• Primary Source: This site offers free online seminars to help you expand your global learning. Some of the seminars offered this past spring were: "World War I as a Global Phenomenon", "American Cultural Encounters with East Asia During the Cold War", and "Global Action for Social Justice." They also have a library that contains previous seminars.
• Newseum: This site provides access to the front page of newspapers across the US and around the world. This is really neat!
• Onlinenewspapers.com: This site provides comprehensive access to newspapers from around the world. This site is neat as you can select what language you would like to be able to read. This might be neat for our World Languages and Cultures classes as students can put their language skills to the test by trying to read a current newspaper in the language that they are learning.

Are you looking for ways to help your students make connections locally and globally?

My Top Five International Learning Opportunities :

• Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education: I just came across this site and am quite excited by what I found. This site has established global math and science projects you can join NOW. There is a project running this fall titled, "Core Concepts of Systems Engineering" which is a three-week project that will involve collaborating with students around the world, and its FREE to join! This is site worth bookmarking for STEM teachers as new projects are constantly being added and run.
• WorldWise Schools: This is a Peace Corps program for schools which offers speakers on global topics, correspondence with a current Peace Corps volunteer, lesson plans, teacher guides, videos and global education links. Two things that I really like about this program that I didn't know about is that schools can sign up to be matched with a Peace Corps volunteer currently in the field to exchange stories, pictures, and artifacts from their experiences while they are in the field or with a returned Peace Corps volunteer that can visit the classroom to speak about their experiences.
• Generation Global: This site allows teachers the ability to transport their classes across the world in a single afternoon. Online and through videoconferences, students interact directly with their peers around the world, engaging in dialogue around issues of culture, identity, beliefs, values, and attitudes. It is free to join and the creators have mapped their program to our Common Core standards in ELA and History.
• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC): The Royal Society of Chemistry offers a global chemistry experiment every year. Classes can register to participate for free. Students have the opportunity to conduct their own experiments based on a particular project/theme and then upload their data and videos to the site in order to share with other global participants. Students also have the opportunity to view the experiments and data of other participants from around the world. I can't wait to see what project is introduced this year as I would like to have my students participate. This is a site that the Chemistry department may want to bookmark and review in order to follow upcoming project opportunities.
• Global SchoolNet: Global SchoolNet's mission is to support 21st century, brain-friendly learning, and improve academic performance through content-driven collaboration. They engage educators and youth in e-learning projects worldwide, to develop science, math, literacy and communication skills, foster teamwork, civic responsibility and collaboration, encourage workforce preparedness, and create multi-cultural understanding. This site offers several programs and competitions that may be of interest to our students. One particular program that sounded really interesting is their "Newsday" program. In the Newsday Project, students will write articles and post them for the whole world to see. Then they will read and choose articles from other schools to download and include in their own newspaper!

My Top Five Local Resources:

• Albany Institute of History and Art: Founded in 1791, the Albany Institute of History & Art is one of the oldest museums in the United States. The museum education department’s mission is to connect our community to our collections and exhibitions through lifelong learning opportunities that serve toddlers to older adults. This institute offers a variety of in-person and virtual teacher PD workshops and they are willing to design a program to suit your needs. They also offer distance-learning programs for students (for a fee) and they offer sample lessons and activities online that complement their current displays. They also offer a large variety of public and family events such as lecture and film series, gallery talks, book-signings, etc.
• Islamic Center of the Capital District: The Islamic Center of the Capital District (ICCD) of New York is a non-profit, non-political, religious and educational institute. We serve as a bridge between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities here in the Upstate New York Capital District area, for the purpose of promoting mutual learning and understanding. This might be a great resource to check out while teaching about different religions. If you are looking for a guest speaker to talk with your students about what it means to be Muslim, this may be a good place to start.
• Mayor's Office of Energy and Sustainability - Albany, NY: The city of Albany is one of the first six municipalities in NY to achieve certification as part of the state Climate Smart Communities (CSC) program. This site contains many resources regarding energy conservation and sustainability. In September, they are hosting a day-long program to turn a metered parking space into a unique, temporary, public space in order to call attention to the necessity of urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat. This might be a neat project to try with our students! Check out the project here: Park(ing) Day Call for Participants.
• University at Albany University Art Museum: This university museum offers many program that are free to the public. The Museum brings together artists, critics, writers, poets, and scholars to address key issues in contemporary art and culture through rigorous and provocative talks, conversations, debates, seminars, screenings, and readings in an informal setting. Programs are held at the Museum and other campus locations.
• U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants - Albany Chapter: USCRI Albany helps refugees and immigrants to gain personal independence and economic self-sufficiency. They host trainings and workshops that assist refugees and immigrants in becoming full participants in all aspects of American life. On the explore the issues tab, there are some excellent resources regarding the refugee crisis. Since we have a local chapter, this might be a good contact for reaching out to regarding a guest speaker that might be able to come in to discuss this with our students.