Your Name and Title: Emily Longenecker, Program Officer
Organization Name: IREX
Co-Presenter Names: Jared Nourse, Program Associate
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Washington, DC, USA
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s): Teachers
Short Session Description: To prepare our students for our increasingly interconnected world, this session will examine practical strategies for taking the classroom past the traditional approach to teaching about other cultures, focusing on food, flags, and festivals, to deeper levels of student engagement with the world.
Full Session Description: The world we face today is little like anything we’ve seen. We can use a device designed in California and built in China with materials from Central Asia to speak to nearly anyone in the world at any time. International trade has reached a level that is roughly $2.6 trillion dollars higher than Gross World Product [or the whole of human economic activity] was in 1975. And we have learned that instability in a remote location can have shockwaves that ripple out and affect every corner of our world.
Classroom presentations and lessons on food, flags, and festivals still inspire wonder in our students about the diversity of our world. But they are no longer sufficient for preparing our students to interact and engage in global society.
In this session, we will focus on practical classroom strategies, including object- and project-based learning; the use of KWL charts; integrating globalized lesson plans into the curriculum; and international communication through language lessons, pen-pals, and blogs. We will also discuss the power of an international network of teachers with global classrooms in student learning, highlighting the role that IREX is playing in building such a network.
IREX, an international non-profit organization in Washington, DC, implements three teacher professional development programs for teachers from over 50 countries, including the U.S. These programs are funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Throughout these three programs, participants are asked to design and deliver lessons and units that promote deep cultural understanding amongst students, as well as the important critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills needed for the 21st century. We will be sharing tools and examples from the programs that can be integrated into classrooms around the world.
Websites/URLs Associated with your Session:
exchanges.state.gov
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