Global Learning's Effect on Education

World Education Rankings

Dr. Z went to Jordan for a conference and held a class session while he was in his hotel room. This was absolutely fascinating. Without doing anything we got to meet a man from Jordan and one from Australia and talk to them for a little bit. We shared with them what we had been working on in class and they shared a little bit about themselves with us.

It just goes to show how easy it could be for teachers to collaborate with teachers from around the world. We all have different specialties and I can only imagine if we could find people that specialized in different topic from around the world and had those people present those topics to our classroom how well they would be received.

I think Global Learning has the ability to bring the United States on top of the achievement board. If our teachers would get in touch with the teachers from, for example, North Korea and Finland and observe how it is what they do and how they do it and maybe discover ideas that we are missing here. It is no secret that we are falling further behind and our students are struggling so any help we can get from other countries we should take.

Reading Brigade Labels

During class today we created this video about what makes us special. Just by looking at us you wouldn't be able to tell what it is that we care the most about. We created this video so that you could learn more about us and what we love.

Using Problem-Based Learning

PBL occurs when the teacher’s role is that of a facilitator. S/he models what should happen, scaffolds, and monitors the students’ learning. The students work in groups to learn about real-life problems. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. *

Flickr- Josie Fraser

I think that this is a great way to encourage collaboration and interest by having students learn about topics that most likely affect them or someone that they know. We don’t always want to learn about topics that we will never have to deal with in life and knowing that what you’re doing affects someone is a great motivator.

Here is an example of a list of PBLs.

* Hmelo-Silver, C.E. (2004). Problem-based learning: What and How Do Students Learn?. Educational Psychology Review, 16(3)

Aha Blog 5

While working on our final project Lauren suggested an activity for us to do called Theatre of the Oppressed. It was a big eye opener to me that when we face situations we have many scenes playing out in our heads which is a big part of visual literacy. I struggled a little bit at first trying to figure out how the two fit in, but since visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. When we think and are presented with situations we visualize them in some way and from there take further action.



I came across this website that’s a periodic table of visualization methods. It has examples of data, information, concept, strategy, metaphor, and compound visualizations. It would be a great tool for someone to use when trying to figure out how to best represent an idea. By scrolling over each ‘element’ an example would come up with a short overview.