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Worldwise Learning
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Worldwise Learning
A Teacher's Guide to Shaping a Just, Sustainable Future

Illustrations by Chris Gadbury, Foreword by Verónica Boix Mansilla



November 2021 | 360 pages | Corwin

Nautilus Gold Award Winner (Books for a Better World) in Social Sciences & Education

Create inclusive, democratic classrooms that prepare knowledgeable, compassionate, and engaged global citizens.

Today’s global challenges—climate change, food and water insecurity, social and economic inequality, and a global pandemic—demand that educators prepare students to become compassionate, critical thinkers who can explore alternative futures. Their own, others’, and the planet’s well-being depend on it.

Worldwise Learning presents a “Pedagogy for People, Planet, and Prosperity” that supports K-8 educators in nurturing “Worldwise Learners”: students who both deeply understand and purposefully act when learning about global challenges. Coupling theory with practice, this book builds educators’ understanding of how curriculum and meaningful interdisciplinary learning can be organized around local, global, and intercultural issues, and provides a detailed framework for making those issues come alive in the classroom. Richly illustrated, each innovative chapter asserts a transformational approach to teaching and learning following an original three-part inquiry cycle, and includes:

  • Practical classroom strategies to implement Worldwise Learning at the lesson level, along with tips for scaffolding students’ thinking.
  • Images of student work and vignettes of learning experiences that help educators visualize authentic Worldwise Learning moments.
  • Stories that spotlight Worldwise Learning in action from diverse student, teacher, and organization perspectives.
  • An exemplar unit plan that illustrates how the planning process links to and can support teaching and learning about global challenges.
  • QR codes that link to additional lesson and unit plans, educational resources, videos of strategies, and interviews with educators and thought leaders on a companion website, where teachers can discuss topics and share ideas with each other.
Worldwise Learning turns students into local and global citizens who feel genuine concern for the world around them, living their learning with intention and purpose. The time is now.
 
Foreword
 
Preface
The Purpose of This Book

 
The Worldview and Beliefs That Frame This Book

 
An Invitation to the Reader

 
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
About the Illustrator
 
INTRODUCTION: THE IMPERATIVE
Global Competence: Transforming Learning to Action

 
Pedagogy for People, Planet, and Prosperity

 
Book Features and Structure

 
 
PART I: CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION
 
CHAPTER 1: THE WORLDWISE LEARNING FRAMEWORK
Learning in a Globalized World

 
Curriculum Design for Understanding and Action

 
The Learning Process: Inquiring Into People, the Planet, and Prosperity

 
 
CHAPTER 2: CREATING INCLUSIVE, DEMOCRATIC CLASSROOMS
The Democratic Classroom

 
Student-Centered Planning in the Democratic Classroom

 
The Worldwise Learning Planning Process

 
Strategies for Democratic Classrooms

 
 
CHAPTER 3: COMPLEX ISSUES KNOW NO DISCIPLINES
Understanding Issues Using Interdisciplinary Learning

 
The Role of Disciplinary Knowledge

 
A Fruitful Exploration of Interdisciplinary Learning

 
“Up and Out” Transfer

 
The Interdisciplinary Learning Continuum

 
Strategies for Interdisciplinary Learning

 
 
PART II: CONNECT: ENGAGING THE HEART, HEAD, AND HAND
 
CHAPTER 4: PERSPECTIVE-TAKING AND PERSPECTIVE-GETTING
Perspectives as Lenses for Understanding Complex Issues

 
When Perspective-Taking Is Not Appropriate

 
Looking Inward: Understanding the Self

 
Looking Outward: Understanding Others

 
Perspective-Getting: Seeking Out Diverse Perspectives

 
Strategies for Perspective-Taking and Perspective-Getting

 
 
CHAPTER 5: THE POWER OF STORY TO BUILD CONNECTION
Stories Are All Around Us

 
The Storytelling Brain

 
Storytelling as a Pedagogical Tool for Worldwise Learning

 
Stories as Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

 
Beyond Words: Art, Map-Making, and Data Visualization

 
Strategies for Storytelling

 
 
PART III: UNDERSTAND: DEVELOPING “BIG PICTURE” THINKING
 
CHAPTER 6: SYSTEMS, SYSTEMS EVERYWHERE
Understanding Issues Using a Systems Approach

 
What Is a System, Really?

 
Developing Systems Thinkers

 
Strategies for Systems Thinking

 
 
CHAPTER 7: UP TO THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL
Conceptual Thinking to Understand Complexity

 
Levels of Conceptual Thinking

 
Level 1: Concept Formation

 
Level 2: Generalizing

 
Level 3: Transferring Understanding

 
Clearing Roadblocks to Conceptual Thinking

 
Developing Conceptual Understanding Through Case Studies

 
Strategies for Conceptual Thinking

 
 
PART IV: ACT: PARTICIPATING AS GLOBAL CITIZENS
 
CHAPTER 8: CITIZENSHIP WITHIN AND BEYOND THE CLASSROOM
Big Ideas of Global Citizenship

 
What Global Citizenship Is Not

 
Big Idea #1: Global citizens develop global citizen identities.

 
Big Idea #2: Global citizens interrogate and draw connections between the structures, systems, and perspectives that underpin issues, including at different scales.

 
Big Idea #3: Global citizens engage in purposeful, informed action with others.

 
Strategies for Global Citizenship

 
 
CHAPTER 9: BEING A WORLDWISE EDUCATOR
Global Competence as an Ongoing Journey

 
Connect Phase for Worldwise Educators

 
Understand Phase for Worldwise Educators

 
Act Phase for Worldwise Educators

 
Strategies for Worldwise Educators

 
 
Appendix A: Sample Unit Planner: Pollinator Power!
 
Glossary
 
References
 
Index

Often most curricular reforms start with asking ’What’ to change - resulting in recycled old ways to teach the ’same’ - garnished with activities that masquerade as agency.  This book starts with the ‘WHY” and sets out to invite the ‘WHO’ into designing the journey of change.  What you get are simple, yet mature frameworks and proven strategies to support educators in empowering their students with the tools to see the wondrous interconnectedness of life and their role to sustain and nourish this web. This book is a must for all those who want their children to graduate with optimism and skills to design a more compassionate, sustainable tomorrow, today!

Kiran Bir Sethi
Founder, The Riverside School and Design for Change

"Educating young people to be ‘worldwise’ and to integrate heart, head, and hand in order to become the citizens the world so desperately needs has just become a whole lot easier. This brilliant and essential book provides the vision, blueprint, examples, and direction that teachers can utilize right now to ensure their students – and the world they will shape – are both able to thrive."

Zoe Weil
President and Co-Founder, Institute for Humane Education

How can we, as teachers, create classrooms that tap students’ innate desire and capability to shape a better world and how can we use this as a catalyst to develop our students’ knowledge, skills, understanding, and dispositions?  Worldwise Learning delivers what it promises. Through a clear vision, an easy to follow framework, ready to use strategies, and real examples drawn from classrooms around the world, educators now have a guide to turn this aspiration into a reality. Transformative learning centered on local, global, and intercultural issues not only speak to students’ passions and lived experiences, but it cultivates the modern skill set needed for students to pursue their own dreams and to become a transforming influence in our world.

Tiffanee Brown
co-author of Concept-Based Literacy Lessons and consultant

Carla Marschall and Elizabeth O. Crawford, with Worldwise Learning, have delved deep into the complexity and multifaceted nature of providing learning journeys for children to become contributing global citizens, something the world needs desperately. I particularly love the emphasis and support around co-planning lessons.

Emer Beamer
Founder and Learning Lead at Design-a-thon Works, Ashoka Fellow

Carla Marschall and Elizabeth O. Crawford have written a masterpiece that affords a guide for educators to build, alongside their students, a just and sustainable future. Not only do the authors present a vision for transformative education, they offer a dynamic learning cycle, practical strategies, and stories from diverse classrooms throughout the world to support the development of students’ global competences. This book is a must-read for the 21st century educator.

Jacob Sule
Executive Director, iRead To Live Initiative, Nigeria

Marschall and Crawford compel readers to see schooling in a different way, one that is focused more on worldwise learning. Using examples from their own lives and schools around the world, they illustrate how teaching and learning can be more globally-minded. For any educator or community member who wants to critically reflect on their own practices and work to envision a more sustainable approach to education, this book is for you.  

Dr. Emily Liebtag
Co-author of Difference Making at the Heart of Learning: Students, Schools, and Communities Alive with Possibility

Worldwise Learning opens a door on to the kind of learning that David Perkins has memorably called ‘life worthy.’ This is a door that many teachers are looking for as the importance of connecting learners to local and global issues, and to their sense of passion and purpose strains against more traditional models of learning that no longer serve our needs. 

Stuart MacAlpine
Senior Programme Specialist, LEGO Foundation

Collaborative Learning Network will make it a priority to share Worldwise Learning with each team of thoughtful educators we are fortunate to work with.  The inspiring stories, spotlights, and strategies in each of the chapters will deepen the practice of educators around the world.  This book illustrates many ways to meaningfully connect learners to their natural curiosity, to understand the world around them and to extend their learning into harmonious action.

Nick Salmon
Founder and CEO, Collaborative Learning Network

This book represents a message of hope for the future, calling on educators to honour each of our stories, passions and concerns. Through a pedagogical framework designed to give students meaningful connection with their lived experiences, deep relational understanding through being seen, heard and valued and empowerment to take authentic action in their communities, Worldwise Learning demonstrates how educators can design learning for students of all ages to become positive contributors to the world. With inspiring spotlights, practical strategies for applying and transferring learning, and easy-to-follow ideas for co-planning with students, Worldwise Learning provides educational tools and frameworks that align with Globally Reconnect’s vision: to co-create a harmonious world in which we can all flourish. This beautiful book will be a must-read for all educators co-creating with us.

Kavita Tanna
Founder, Globally Reconnect

We are living at a time when global competence is essential, not only for individuals but also for global stability, prosperity, and peace. And yet developing globally competent students is complicated. Luckily Worldwise Learning has provided a roadmap that recognizes the value of voice and agency, as well as the transformative power of storytelling to engage, illuminate, and, perhaps most importantly, connect young people across a diversity of cultures and geographies.  In this very large world that is going to keep getting smaller and more interdependent, the message of Worldwise Learning – Connect, Understand, Act – has never seemed more relevant.  

Kayce Freed Jennings
Senior Advisor of Girl Rising and Director of U.S. Educators Program

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ISBN: 9781071835944
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