Your Name and Title:
Arshad Bashir
School or Organization Name:
Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA
Co-Presenter Name(s): N/A
Area of the World from Which You Will Present:
North Carolina, USA
Language in Which You Will Present:
English
Target Audience(s):
Educators, International Education Organizers, Study Abroad students
Short Session Description (one line):
How educational and cultural exchange programs foster 21st century skills among students when they are engaged in exchange programs?
Full Session Description (as long as you would like)
US-Pakistan Educational and Cultural Exchange program
Abstract
To foster globalization and 21st century skills, an educational and cultural exchange program has been initiated by ASU-Public School partnership and Office of the International Education and Development (OIED). The program features online collaboration between students from grade 6 to 12, and teachers of Western North Carolina schools and Education City, a school in Pakistan. Language Arts, Social Studies and Science are indentified as core subject areas. By using electronic communication tools like NING and Elgg, teachers will identify common curriculum contents to develop a semester long projects in which students will be engaged in collaborative learning experience through cultural activities like digital photo sharing, story telling, cultural and artifact exchange to improve their cultural competency and development of global citizenship. Teachers and students will share their learning experience online through blogging, skyping, quick topic and other online communication tools. Pre and Post projects assessment will evaluate the success in the program.
CONTENTS OF THE SESSION: The session highlights a developing model for an educational and cultural exchange program between Ashe and Allegany county schools in the ASU Public School Partnership in North Carolina and Education City, a school in Pakistan. The program focuses cross-cultural learning, technological competency and student development in terms of global citizenship and cultural competence. The program also highlights the problems and issues raised as the result of cultural difference among the collaborating groups in this program. The responses of pre-project assessment will be shared to demonstrate the diversity of views on various issues. The major goal of this presentation is to describe a developing framework of a partnership for an educational and cultural exchange between two schools located in different parts of the world. The program is designed to provide an opportunity to the students and teachers in both countries to communicate on common curriculum, culture, language and global issues of common interest. In addressing the need for quality teachers and 21st century schools, the exchange program aims to improve the rigor of teaching by exchanging methodologies, resources and tools, by encouraging collaboration, and by offering professional development in technology and cross-culture exchange. This program provides an opportunity for self-reflection, the exchange of social norms, heritage and culture, the exploration of geography, the building of language, multi-media and communication skills, as well as the expansion of technology competencies. Realization of the interdependent nature of this world is very important for students where they comprehend the distinction of “us” and “them”. Knowledge of the impact of one action on the other communities in the globalized world helps students to develop better understanding of the contemporary world. The program is an effort to reduce cultural differences to human similarities and empower teachers and students to address current issues with a new perspective with an opportunity to think and analyze world issues and global conflicts with greater competence.
PARTICIPANT LEARNING: Participants will acquire knowledge on cross-cultural digital exchange and platforms of web-based learning to initiate collaborative exchange program. Participants will learn to develop flexibility in developing such exchange programs and negotiation with problems and issues that may arise during the execution of exchange projects.
IMPORTANCE: Projects such as this exchange program are essential for understanding of other cultures and development of cultural competency and global citizenship among students and educators. This issue is important because future of education lies in Internationalization and globalization of education. Another aspect of this project is to motivate students to understand global issues and conflict with multiple lenses. It is imperative to address these conflicting issues in the era of globalization to achieve sustainable peace in the world.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: N/A
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