In a world where cultures and economies are increasingly intertwined, preparing students to become career-ready global leaders is essential. As educators, we have the unique responsibility to equip our students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to thrive in a global society. Global teaching practices foster these abilities by embedding intercultural understanding, global awareness, and critical thinking into schools and classrooms. These practices are integral to the Global Leaders framework, ensuring students develop career readiness skills while addressing real-world challenges. With these strategies, students develop the competencies needed for future careers, many of which don’t yet exist.
This guide will walk you through what global teaching practices are and how they can be integrated in your school, providing practical strategies and resources to help your teachers develop informed and engaged global citizens. By the end, you’ll have actionable steps to take back to your teachers and access to additional resources.
Global teaching practices are strategies designed to cultivate key competencies in students, such as communication, flexibility, curiosity, empathy, intercultural understanding, and self-awareness. These competencies prepare students for their future careers and empower them to make meaningful contributions to their communities, both local and global. Students build competencies and develop as global leaders in inclusive, relevant, connected, and empowering classroom communities.
In our work with our school partners, we emphasize these global teaching practices:
Creating inclusive classrooms involves fostering welcoming spaces where all students feel valued and heard. This can be achieved with strategies for integrating different cultural perspectives, supporting all learners, and encouraging student collaboration.
These strategies include things like using a wide range of literature, media, and discussions to represent and celebrate varied cultural perspectives. Books, films, and other media introduce students to global themes, helping them develop empathy and a nuanced understanding of the world.
Example Strategies:
Building relevance means connecting global themes directly to students’ lives. This approach equips teachers to bring real-world global issues into the classroom, linking students’ learning experiences to current events and societal challenges both locally and globally. It helps students understand the importance of their roles in a global community. Cross-disciplinary projects and thematic units are effective ways to create these connections.
Example Strategies:
This practice focuses on empowering students to take charge of their learning by encouraging them to ask questions, explore topics of interest, and make decisions about their learning pathways. It builds students’ confidence as they develop the skills to become independent, globally aware thinkers.
Fostering a sense of agency gives students ownership of their learning, encouraging curiosity and critical thinking. Inquiry-based learning, where students ask questions and research topics of interest, is particularly effective for exploring global themes. Take a look at this in action in the responsible consumption project students at Heritage Middle School launched.
Example Strategies:
Making connections means linking students’ learning to local and global communities, helping them understand the impacts of their actions on the world around them. Teachers are encouraged to help students understand the importance of building relationships and connections. This global teaching practice involves service-learning projects, collaborations with local and global organizations, and exploring how global issues affect everyday life.
Example Strategies:
If your school is new to global teaching practices, start with small, manageable changes. Begin by incorporating just one global teaching practice. For example, if you want teachers to start with building relevance in their classrooms, the first step can be to survey students on issues that are important to them, either local or global.
Once you’ve identified the local or global real-world issues that resonate with your students, work collaboratively with your colleagues to design interdisciplinary projects that address these topics. This can be done as a school-wide project, or individual grade level or classroom initiatives.
Leverage the wealth of resources available from organizations like Participate Learning, Oxfam Education, and the Global Oneness Project. These organizations offer lesson plans, project ideas, and teaching materials focused on the integration of real-life local or global issues in the classroom. The Global Leaders Blueprint for a Better World is an excellent tool for guiding educators through implementing real-world global challenges in the classroom.
Encourage teachers to seek regular feedback from students on what they find engaging and meaningful. Use this input to guide methods for integrating global teaching practices, ensuring that learning experiences align with students’ interests and have a lasting impact.
Global teaching practices open the door for students to develop critical global competencies while engaging in meaningful learning experiences. By fostering inclusivity, building relevance, encouraging student agency, and promoting real-world connections, educators can cultivate global competencies and guide students to become career-ready global leaders.
Explore how our Global Leaders framework transforms classrooms into environments where students become career-ready global leaders. Download our Global Leaders case study to see this framework in action and begin your journey to empower students with the skills they need to thrive in a connected world.
This post was originally published on February 28, 2017 and has been updated.
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