GEMS and BFA Celebrate Global Learning with IVECA

Target 4 – Engaged Community Partners
FWSU staff and students will collaborate, innovate, create and conceptualize ideas and learning with local, regional, state, and global partners to make
a difference in their community, state, and world.

Action Step – Develop partnerships with global partners to
carry out a project related to units of study

Indicator of Success – Collaborative student projects/partnerships become part of the fabric of the broader community.

Once again students from both Georgia Elementary School and BFA Middle School engaged the broader global community to enhance their understanding of intercultural competence. This semester eight classrooms of students interacted and learned alongside students from Mexico and South Korea. The students interacted virtually on a weekly basis with their peers through a learning management system (LMS) provided by International Virtual Schooling (IVECA). 

The goals of IVECA match the FWSU Action Plan goals to expand the opportunities for our students to become leaders and learners in a global society. Our students will need the skills obtained in IVECA to thrive in the world they will enter after high school. Starting the process of understanding how to work and learn with students from around the world is beneficial.

This is the third consecutive semester that our students and teachers have participated in the virtual exchange. Next year we plan to continue and to add other countries where our students are paired with a school in order to find peers to share their learning.

The highlight each year of the program is the “live class” culminating event. Students meet each other face to face via a video link to discuss their learning and to just have fun. It is always a pleasure to see the excitement and the smiles on the faces of the students when they participate in the live class.

Thank you to the following teachers for participating this spring  — Ben Psaros (BFA), Melinda Carpenter (BFA), Andrew Sealy (BFA), Jen Skerrett (BFA), Alexis Bell (GEMS, Kay Lee (GEMS), Sandy Leclair (GEMS) and Karen Lehning (GEMS). Without their hard work this remarkable program would not have been available to our students.