Our 8 week course was arguably more challenging than most of my doctoral level courses. They came at us hard and fast, we read hundreds of pages a week, explored rich media sources on global ed, participated in webinars with experts in educational technology, global education, and teaching, and created products, I mean written products, video products, media products, all sorts of products to demonstrate our learning and mastery. We learned. A LOT. Some days too much. But we also got to know each other and what an amazing group of teachers - each of them is a beacon of what is right in the world of education and they have already taught me so much. My fellow teachers in this course reminded me of my current students - curious, philosophical, hard-working, motivated, interesting, and willing to take on a challenge.
Throughout the course, we had no idea where our field experience was going to be, so we couldn't target our learning to any one region, country or educational system. The course enabled us to apply what we were learning to our own disciplines so that we could take it right into our classrooms. I mostly focused on emergent disease and the organisms that cause these diseases. And in December, I found out my field experience would be in Senegal this spring. I'm heading to west Africa - pretty exciting if I do say so myself and I cannot wait for the adventure! You can follow me on this grand journey right here, I'll be blogging on location, posting picts, and hopefully posting video for my peeps. As I type, my students are creating storyboards for homework tonight on an emergent disease of their choice. They don't even know it yet, but it's all part of my globalized lesson plan on emergent disease. I'll be blogging about that here as well and maybe even posting links to their videos. In a few weeks I'll be heading to DC for the global education symposium and getting to meet with my fellow fellows (see what I did there?). I think it is going to be a powerful learning event for all of us and of course we're excited to meet our traveling companions (shout out to Tyler, Mary, Brielle, Jessi, Barbara, and Anita). In preparation for our trip to Senegal we have to get a few vaccines. Attention students (and teachers too) - this is where the work/fun begins! In the comments below, please let me know what vaccines you think I need to travel to Senegal and why...remember support with evidence and credible sources. Another question you might opt to answer: what emergent diseases are associated with parts of west Africa? Future posts will include information about some of the neat techie stuff I learned in my course and hopefully examples of how I'm using it in my classroom. My students are pretty awesome and I expect they'll do great things I can share with you. This will give them an opportunity to share their work and learning with a broader audience and maybe get some constructive feedback.
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About this Blog:I am a former Teachers for Global Classrooms Fellow, a program of the U.S. Department of State. I have completed graduate level training in Global Education and traveled to Senegal in April with the program to explore their educational system. This blog is a piece of the global education guide I have created to support other teachers and students in globalizing their classrooms. My focus area is life and environmental science and understanding the interconnectedness of Earth. For more information on the fellowship please visit the IREX website. Archives
March 2017
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