SUGGESTIONS FOR PROMISING PRACTICES FOR GPA PROJECTS:

Pre-Seminar: 

 Provide for a well-known scholar to be connected with the project as Key Personnel: one 

who is respected both by Americans & host country nationals. 

 Use share software or listservs to post itineraries, updates, and other information to group 

members. 

 Provide a session that focuses on understanding host country ways of thinking and being 

and attendant non-verbal communication patterns. 

 Develop group norms together and have all agree upon them. Revisit them often during 

in-country travel. 

 Have participants sign off on Terms and Conditions for the project. 

 Develop a “Special Topic” list of interests for the group. Each participant takes 

responsibility for one topic from this pre-determined list and on assigned dates 

throughout the in-country program, the participant will present to the rest of the group on 

this topic. 

 Provide a photo and brief biographic information of host family or educator mentor along 

with their contact information. Encourage participants to be in contact prior to 

international travel. 

During Host Country Program: 

 Have participants take turns taking, typing up & disseminating to the group clear notes on 

each lecture. At the end, each participant will have extensive notes on each lecture to 

refer back to.

 Participant mentoring: 

o Pair each participant with a host country educator mentor during his or her stay. 

o Provide guidance and supervision to these mentoring programs. 

o Have participants spend a significant amount of time with their mentors, having 

dinners in their homes, shadowing their work in an educational setting, provide 

opportunities for them to do curriculum research with their mentor's guidance and 

input. 

o Require that host country mentors have previous experience working with U.S. 

educators. 

 Lectures: Arrange for intensive question and answer follow-up sessions after each 

lecture to inform curriculum development. 
 Incorporate several hours/week for guided curriculum project research during business 

hours of seminar program.

Post-Seminar: 

 Schedule formal follow-up and dissemination such as a series of workshops over the 

course of the next year that includes announcements, discussion, curriculum meetings, 

presentations, critique of lesson plans, review of curricular products for content, 

accuracy, and appropriateness, and preparation for publication. 

 Arrange follow-up visits to the local area from host country educators to serve as guest 

lecturers during the summer, and to speak in local educational settings. This can result in 

an effective media blitz about the effectiveness of the GPA project, as well as 

significantly strengthened ties due to follow-up visits.

Curriculum Development: 

 Develop curriculum ideas using the K-W-L (Know-What-Learn) model. 

o K: What do you do? What is the status of {the host country} in your curriculum? 

o W: What do you want to do? Where are the gaps? How can the seminar 

contribute to enhancing your curriculum? 

o L: What did you do? 

 Evaluation of curriculum units: 

o Evaluated by content, curriculum and area specialists for accuracy 

o Revisions made prior to web posting 

o Track website hits 

o Feedback page on website for comments about units 

o Follow up on feedback with unit revisions one year later 

 Arrange for participants to receive stipends from their school districts or postsecondary 

institutions for working on their curriculum plans. This work can be done both with an 

assigned curriculum specialist and independently. 

 During the Fall and Spring after the host country seminar, participants arrange to offer 

classes to test the curriculum so designed. Teachers will share with other participants the 

resulting student work and their own critiques of the learning process, listing what they 

will do to improve the offerings for the next time. Revised units will be circulated among 

geographic area centers in the U.S. and statewide or within the U.S. IB system.

 Plan a mini-conference the following spring to showcase the curricula that have been 

developed by the group.

Evaluation:

 

 At the pre-departure orientation (pdo): have all participants complete a pre-departure 

evaluation form detailing their knowledge of the local language and culture, as well as a 
survey instrument that focuses on their intercultural knowledge and awareness and 

expectations for the program. This survey will form a baseline to measure participants’ 

activities, perceptions, attitudes and willingness to engage in global education. 

 In country: hold weekly group sessions devoted to reflection and evaluation. This ongoing process will allow the project team to mark trends in participation, changes or 

alterations in perception, and also provide teaching enhancement opportunities. Require 

each participant to keep a journal, so as to record and reflect upon his/her experiences in 

the host country, and to use those experiences as inspiration for their classrooms in the 

U.S. 

 Post project: require participants to complete an evaluation of the program using the 

survey from the pdo. Use these as a comparison to the previous results. Conduct an 

additional evaluation several months upon return from the host country asking the 

participants to explain how the seminar experience has affected their teaching thus far. 

Provide for anonymous feedback about the program. These can be compiled and kept on 

file for future use in project improvement. 

 Impact Assessment: develop an open-ended evaluation to measure quantitative and 

qualitative changes in student perceptions of and attitudes toward global education. This 

should be designed to determine how participants shared information with students, 

including changes in the curriculum, colleagues, volunteers, youth groups, the 

community at large and the media. 

 Report on measurable outcomes in the IRIS system to help strengthen Congressional 

support for the GPA Program: e.g., As a result of this GPA project, XYZ College and 

ABC High School both plan to initiate student study abroad programs to {host country}. 

Outreach:

 

 Connect with state teacher networks. 

 Find ways to utilize your students in your outreach effort. 

 Consider ways to bring outreach to disadvantaged students and others that have not 

historically been exposed to area and international studies. 

 Use rapidly developing new technologies to amplify your outreach effort and widen, your 

audience, but don’t let technology substitute for the human connections essential to 

effective outreach. 

 While you should have as comprehensive an outreach program as possible, don’t try to be 

all things to all people. Cover three main areas, but develop a special niche in one where 

you are badly needed and have the most to offer. 

 Set high expectations for the impact of your project’s outreach, but don’t be overly 

ambitious and dilute your efforts. 
 Create or strengthen your outreach network across institutions and areas of study—try 

email listservs, linked web sites, meetings and mini-conferences. 

 Examples of outreach techniques: 

o Lecture and discussion programs 

o Partnerships with area high schools 

o One week teacher institute 

o Participate in Statewide teachers’ retreat

o Use email to pair up high school students and area studies postsecondary students 

with GPA participants 

o Calendar of events on web and email 

o Mailing list of department chairs at two- and four-year colleges in area 

o Colloquia 

o Extension and evening programming in international studies 

o Special lecture series 

o International career day 

o Educational and Scholarly Publications: monographs, journals, newsletters 

o In service teacher training workshops 

o Connect graduate students, K-12 teachers, and high school students to study a 

specific international problem for one year 

o High school model UN 

o Teachers’ Resource Center

o International speakers bureau 

o Consulting 

o Partnerships with two and four year institutions 

 Graduate students to teach courses at partner institutions 

 Graduate students to mentor undergraduate students 

 Faculty from partner institutions invited for seminars 

 Faculty to lecture at partner institutions 

o Translation service to community 

o Internet homepage with depth, links, accessible documents 

o Curriculum guides, slide sets, videos 

o Distance learning interactive broadcasts to schools 

o Seek other grant funds to support outreach projects 

o Pursue in-kind or grant contributions from area organizations for new technology 

and equipment 

o Professionals and visiting scholars from abroad for lectures, training and 

networking 

o Story telling sessions at local public libraries 

o Weekend programs in more distant or rural areas