april 2020Innovative Learning Newsletter

Global Learning
Camille Edwards, Coordinator

Global Scholars

Broward's Global Scholars continue their learning with a student-focused Canvas course. Students have links to their Global Scholars workbook pages, discussions and assignments. The directions and examples allow them to navigate their virtual learning environment.

Global Scholars teachers are available during their office hours to assist students by scaffolding the lessons and provide additional instructions to ensure students have all the knowledge and tools to succeed while learning at home. An informal survey reported 98% of all Global Scholars teachers where proficient in using Canvas to deliver instruction. Those skills, along with Global Scholars as a digital program, lends itself to a relatively smooth transition to online learning.

Students say they miss collaborating with their international peers. Global Cities Inc., the program provider, closed the discussions in the e-classrooms for all their international classroom for 17,000 students in all 54 cities. It is a security measure to keep our students safe as they complete their distance learning. The teachers' discussion boards remain open for sharing at that level. Teachers are encouraged to share their students' learning as well as strategies they are using to complete the curriculum remotely.

To compensate for the closed discussion in the e-classroom, Global Scholars teachers are meeting with their students using Microsoft Teams. By sharing their screens, teachers are able to have all the students see and discuss in a virtual learning environment.

As we have done for previous units in the program, students will complete a digital project for Unit 4. To ensure equity of access to this opportunity, Global Cities encourages teachers to allow students to either complete the assignment digitally or students can create the required infographic on poster paper and upload as an image. Instructions for both options will be included in Module 3 of the Canvas course.

Still working on Broward's focus on improved writing skills, Global Scholars are using the Posts Rubric to guide the writing they submit to their teachers. The rubric is uploaded into the Canvas course as a reference for students. Each teacher continues to promote the use of the review process he/she introduced to students at the start of the program.

There will be an end of program Community Action Project. The District is working with Global Cities to modify the requirements to our current working environment. Those plans will be shared with teachers and students as soon they are available. In the meantime, Global Cities continues to be a viable learning opportunity for our students.

Out of Eden Learn

Congratulations to Ms. Paz and her fifth grade students at Nova Eisenhower Elementary school. They completed the Out of Eden Learn curriculum on schedule prior to the start of our eLearning.

Regarding the experience Ms. Paz shares, "The kids really enjoyed the program. I wish I could have done more with it because it is very well written and engages the students in a way that most traditional materials are not able to do. My kids really loved the neighborhood walk."