Category: Blog

By Dana Mortenson

Whole-school partnerships are at the heart of World Savvy’s work. Since our founding in 2002, we’ve worked with schools across the country to build inclusive, adaptive, future-ready learning environments.

Our World Savvy Partnerships program supports whole schools and districts to integrate global competence throughout leadership, teaching, and learning. This holistic approach allows us to reach the greatest number of students while creating deep, meaningful, and lasting shifts in K-12 education.

But what does that look like in practice?

This summer, we wrapped up nearly three years of partnership with Middle STEAM Magnet, a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) school, located in the Linda Vista neighborhood of San Diego, California.

Montgomery Middle is part of the San Diego Unified School District, the second largest school district in California, and their students are ethnically and religiously diverse, representing more than 15 ethnic groups and more than 60 languages and dialects. At Montgomery Middle, 35% of students are English Learners, 18% of students have an Individualized Education Plan, and as a provision 2 school, all students receive free breakfast and lunch.

The 3-year World Savvy–Montgomery Middle partnership focused on interdisciplinary thinking, building student agency through community research and public presentation, and design thinking in a STEAM environment.

We kicked off year 1 of the partnership by engaging 20 teachers in a day-long workshop. Teachers broadened their understanding of global competence, further explored how to apply STEAM to student learning, and practiced developing a project-based learning unit around the case study of food deserts.

Following the workshop, teachers received active coaching from World Savvy throughout the school year to design and implement two major inquiry-based units that include action projects for their students. We also partnered with Montgomery Middle to plan a design thinking STEAM camp for rising 5th graders.

In our second year of partnership, teachers built on their understanding of design thinking to support students as they developed Knowledge to Action projects.

Students learned about the Sustainable Development Goals and worked through World Savvy’s Knowledge to Action process to develop solutions to global and local issues.

One group of 7th graders was concerned about access to healthy food in their community. In order to provide consistent access to organic produce, they found a food truck that wasn’t being used two days a week, partnered with the owners and local farmers, and created a business plan to sell produce out of the truck.

Another group of students built a sculpture shaped like a wave made up of plastics and trash that they gathered from their neighborhood, saying –

“We wanted to raise awareness about how trash affects marine life and that they’re dying because of it.”

The second year also included support for Montgomery Middle to create a vision for their school that established a shared purpose and a common language for all community members and will help guide their work in the future.

In year 3, World Savvy worked with teachers to organize a fall exhibition and spring showcase of student work. World Savvy encouraged teachers to reflect and adapt and model those practices with their students. Training also included a focus on equity-based classroom practices.

At the end of the third year, students hosted their bi-annual Exhibition of Student Learning. In their Knowledge to Action projects, sixth graders focused on the history and future of the San Diego River. Seventh graders asked how they can be changemakers in their community and designed solutions to local and global challenges. Eighth graders focused on finding their voice. Students wrote poetry to increase awareness on topics connected to the Sustainable Development Goals and designed games highlighting the choices that people need to make in order to survive.

We’re invested in the whole school model of partnership because we know that it maximizes our impact on school culture and student learning.

Teachers at Montgomery noted that their ability to implement a project-based unit greatly increased as a result of working with World Savvy. For many teachers, their ability to help students apply design thinking also grew substantially and they felt more supported in their efforts to build an interdisciplinary STEAM curriculum.

When asked what she took away from the experience of working with World Savvy Jewels Krueger-Selle, a Montgomery science teacher, said, “so many things that I didn’t know before — this whole design thinking process. I always say I’m a scientist before I’m a teacher. I’m an environmentalist. I know there are problems. How do you take these things and inform the kids, but instead of being up in front at the board and saying, ‘This is what’s happening; write these notes down,’ actually bringing this idea of ‘How can we solve things?’ And letting the kids come up with ideas of their own instead of preaching ‘This is what we should do.’

These kids are our next world leaders. They have to figure this out themselves. So knowing now not to be that kind of teacher that I was when I first started ten years ago, when it was mostly me teaching and talking. Now it’s more about guiding the students.”

This is just one story of a World Savvy partner school, and we know that every school is unique. That’s why every World Savvy school partnership is custom built in collaboration with the school in response to their specific needs. Are you interested in becoming a school partner? Get in touch to start the conversation.

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By Dana Mortenson

As elementary students embark on their academic career, many of the jobs they will hold decades from now are positions we can’t even conceive of today. To be successful in the decades ahead, we need to help students develop an understanding of the world and complex global issues, an appreciation and respect for cultural differences, strong problem-solving and collaboration capabilities, and comfort with ambiguity and change. If districts and schools across the country arm their teachers to build a globally competent teaching practice, as a country, our students will be much better prepared to face the challenges of the coming decades.

Effective Strategies

So, how can we effectively support teachers as they seek to build a globally competent teaching practice and equip their students with the skills they’ll need for the future?

It starts with giving teachers the time and the tools to build their practice, with the latitude to:

• Shift their role from the center of the classroom experience, to a facilitator and guide of the learning experience. 
• Use personal narratives—both from students and from those impacted by the issues the class is studying—as an opportunity to build empathy, understand perspectives, and authentically engage in problem solving. 
• Maximize opportunities for project-based learning to support student inquiry, critical thinking, and deeper learning.
• Provide learning structures and strategies that allow students from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and explore topics about which they’re passionate.
• Create learning experiences that allow students to integrate and develop social emotional skills, cognitive skills, and interpersonal skills.
• Support meaningful connections for students with peers from around the country, and around the world, in the service of problem solving and cultural understanding.

Global Teaching In Action
While it’s true there can be barriers to teaching in a globally competent way, districts and schools across the country are still making great strides in creating these environments. Let’s look at a few:

In its strategic plan adopted in September of 2014, Minneapolis Public Schools established “ensuring all students graduate ready for college and career with global competencies for the 21st century” as a central tenet. The district and its schools place a high value on recognizing the importance of bilingualism and biliteracy, and supporting teachers in leveraging its very diverse student population to build global competence across the student body.

According to Deputy Education Officer Elia Bruggeman, part of the success is based on an increased focus, among teachers and district staff, on topics such as globalization, diversity and inclusion, technological advancements, and changing demographics as key considerations in preparing their students. 

Across the district, 27 percent of Minneapolis Public School students speak a language other than English at home, and nearly 100 languages are spoken by its students. To date, the district has seen significant success providing teachers with resources to support project-based learning as a way to bring together diverse groups of students and build key skills such as problem solving and respect for multiple perspectives. 

Global competence also is prominently featured in the strategic plan of Mill Valley School District in California. Teachers in the district are given the autonomy to design curriculum with a focus on deepening student understanding and helping students achieve at high levels.

Superintendent Paul Johnson emphasizes the importance of thinking of teachers as designers, not being too prescriptive, and allowing them space to create and innovate within the district-wide global studies emphasis.

Building 21^st century skills, including critical thinking and problem solving, agility and adaptability, empathy, and entrepreneurialism, is an expressed value in the district, and project-based learning is encouraged.

Last fall, Mill Valley identified three teachers who were passionate about global competence, and enrolled them in the Global Competence Certificate as a way to build their knowledge. Beyond this, teachers are key voices in the district’s broader plan to create an articulated global studies curriculum from K-8, and they are given structured time to collaborate and wide license to create new approaches. With the training they’ve acquired, these teachers serve as district-wide leaders, sharing best practices in global competence and helping model the implementation of the district-wide global competence goals.

With both of these districts, and in an increasing number of schools and districts across the country, leaders are recognizing the importance of helping their teachers build a practice grounded in global competence. And thanks to them, as today’s students head toward graduation, we are ensuring that the next generation will be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to thrive in our global society.

Additional tools and resources to support teachers:

• Primary Source provides online teacher training
• Global Nomads Group for connections to classrooms abroad
• iEARN for classroom project-based learning

This essay was originally published on Ed Week in 2015. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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