HS teacher in ’18 class of Global Fellowship
A Hot Springs Intermediate School teacher was among 48 public school educators from across the country announced this month in the 2018 class of Global Learning Fellows.
Fifth-grade humanities teacher Laura West and other fellows will spend a year building their global competency skills in which they aim to increase their capacity to understand and act on issues of global significance. Fellows are meant to become better equipped to prepare students for global citizenship and create global lesson plans for their students to be shared with
educators throughout the nation and the rest of the world.
West said the program directly ties into her work at the intermediate school, an International Baccalaureate school. She said she integrates concepts of global citizenship into her lessons every day.
“It is easy because that is what our whole school is about,” West said. “It is how I teach, even before I worked at an IB school, just because I do travel so much and I know how countries connect together.”
West previously presented to the Arkansas Education Association to thank them for a $500 professional development grant and detail how she benefited from the funds. She is also a member of the National Education Association and an in-state support provider for National Board Certified Teachers.
AEA President Brenda Robinson informed West of the Global Learning Fellowship program through the NEA Foundation. Robinson previously traveled to Finland with the program.
More than 400 educators throughout the country applied for this year’s class. The final 48 selections form a diverse group of educators from different content areas, school settings and approaches to education.
“We believe that educators are the key to giving students the skills to thrive in an interconnected world,” said Harriet Sanford, president and CEO of the NEA Foundation.
“We created the Global Learning Fellowship to provide professional development in teaching global competencies and to support educators as they integrate these skills into classroom instruction.”
The NEA Foundation is a public charity founded by educators in 1969. The Global Learning program is not funded through the NEA or its membership dues.
NEA Foundation staff, partners and field experts will support the class during the next year with online coursework, webinars and collegial study. The 2018 program will culminate in a nine-day international field study to South Africa next July with experts in global learning.
The fellowship also includes online coursework in incorporating global content and issues into core instruction, an online resource guide and webinars and a two-day professional development workshop in Washington, D.C., in October. Fellows teach throughout the year as they learn about global competence and further integrate global awareness into their lessons.
“Working with these other teachers in this yearlong professional development will teach me better ways to do that in my class,” West said.
West is already an accomplished traveler. She has visited Germany, Poland, Russia and South Africa through professional development opportunities, as well as personal experiences in Australia, Belize, Iceland, Mexico and much of Europe.
West said she has also visited most of the states in the U.S. She was at Angel Island State Park in California when she learned of the announcement earlier this month.
Participants are meant to lead their profession by acquiring the necessary skills to integrate global competence into their daily classroom instruction, advance pedagogy in the schools and districts, prepare students to thrive in the 21st century and contribute to closing the global achievement gap. Fellows can collaborate and learn from each other.
“I want to be in the yearlong professional development and I want to interact with these teachers to see how they are doing global awareness in their classrooms,” West said.
Previous Fellows post replicable lesson plans on open-source platforms. Participants are selected by a panel of peer reviewers. The application for the 2019 program will open in the fall.