Global Coordinator Presents IVECA’s Model for Success

On April 25-26, IVECA Global Coordinator Ms. Hind El Mimouni presented

IVECA International Virtual Schooling

to the faculty of Education Sciences at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco. Within the conference’s larger theme of Innovative Technology and Interculturality, she shared with the academic audience how IVECA connects schools around the world through a virtual experience in which they are able to interact and develop intercultural skills for global citizenship.

Ms. Hind started explaining how an IVECA semester is typically implemented. Teachers, administrators and educational leaders are all welcome to join our program and the first step is to attend an interactive Professional Development Session in which the technological aspects needed to run the program are presented. After that, classrooms are matched with specific partner schools in different countries according to grade, curricular needs, and target language. For a period of approximately 10 weeks, students study and collaborate via IVECA’s Virtual Classroom, while teachers mediate the learning experience and develop their leadership skills in intercultural competence.

Ms. Hind explained the importance and uniqueness of IVECA’s curriculum design framework developed by the IVECA founder, Dr. Eunhee Jung, IVECA’s program seamlessly integrates participant schools’ pre-existing curricula, national standards to the five dimensions of intercultural competence through engaging and challenging activities. She went further and emphasized that as IVECA is also committed to the United Nations (UN) Agenda of 2030, most lessons are aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and, therefore, has been contributing to this worldwide task of a better world. She remarked on the importance of IVECA’s model, which offers ongoing support and assistance throughout the semester, and also monitors and assesses the growth of students’ intercultural competence.

Ms. Hind elucidated the distinct qualities of IVECA’s programming, and how - beyond our internationally respected and UN-supported curriculum - IVECA is also recognized for its effective applications of synchronous and asynchronous exchange methods. Also unique to IVECA is its regular organization of Global Youth Roundtables in New York where youth UN representatives are able to meet in-person in New York and virtually with students around the globe and engage in a constructive and lively exchange of intercultural skills, knowledge, attitude and awareness. Ms. Hind expressed how special the IVECA experience is for all involved - whether they are students (through our STEAM and Global Citizenship program), teachers or leaders in international and innovative education. Ultimately, the presentation was a resounding success and the audience was deeply moved by IVECA's commitment to promoting intercultural competence of Global Citizens in making a more peaceful and beautiful world.

#IVECA, #IntercuturalCompetence, #TeacherProfessionalDevelopment, #Ed4GlobalCitizenship, #SDGs #ICTinEdu #Teaching #GCED #GlobalCitizen

Collaborating for Global Citizenship

March 26, #IVECA International Virtual Schooling and the Seoul Bukbu (Northern District) Office of Education have signed an MOU to cooperate on promoting #EducationForGlobalCitizenship.

IVECA will support integrating international virtual exchange activities with the national school curriculum, aiming to foster students’ #GlobalCitizenship as well as 'glocal' leadership. The cooperation agreement will facilitate providing intercultural #TeacherTrainingprograms that enable public school teachers to guide their students effectively toward the goal.

"I appreciate the progressive leadership of Mr. Jongbok Seon, Superintendent of the Bukbu Office of Education, and I am honored to have Dr. Utak Chung, Executive Advisor of IVECA International & Korea (Former Director of APCEIU) and Dr. Jae-sung Kwak, Director of IVECA-KOREA for representing IVECA at the very meaningful event. IVECA team looks forward to demonstrating a best practice of #Ed4GlobalCitizenshipimplemented through the global multi-stakeholders' partnership", said Dr. Eunhee Jung, Founder & President of IVECA.

#GlocalLeadership, #InterculturalCometence, #ICTinEducation, #GCED,#GCE, #SDG4.7, #SDG17

Teenage Global Citizens Putting Ideas into Action toward the SDGs

If a visitor walked into to this week’s Live Classes (December 2018), they would never have suspected that these students were strangers just three months ago. Teenagers spoke to one another over Zoom with the diction and poise of informed specialists, engaging in a friendly dialogue that demonstrated deep respect and cultural understanding in both parties.

After this fall semester courses integrated with IVECA, students from the US and Korea demonstrated that the collaborative work of intercultural communication is worth the effort and can create powerful relationships built on mutual respect and cooperation.

Students from Ohio and Gongju brainstormed solutions for local and international issues and shared their proposals with each other for evaluation. Students tackled potential answers to the issues raised in the #SDG’s set by the UN agenda of 2030. As Korea and the US shared their solutions, a rich conversation was created where each country was able to provide feedback on the solutions proposed and offer guidance in how to amend their responses so that each response is strengthened and better informed.

Over the course of three live class sessions, students from Butler Tech High School in Ohio and Hanil High School in Korea presented their semester’s work and research on solutions for Sustainable Development Goals 7, 13, and 15. These SDGs represent the UN’s commitment to finding answers to affordable and clean energy, climate action, and life on land, respectively. Students spoke intelligently and eloquently about ways these problems manifest in their daily lives, through things like deforestation, the rise of invasive species, problems of overconsumption, and the debate over renewable energies.

Debate naturally took place over the proposed solutions and challenges that arise in implementing them globally. Rather than arguing over their differences, the students’ dialogue demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of complex issues. As one student stated, “Having discussions and preparing projects on SDGs were, though a quite tough job to do, we could both inspire ourselves on global problems and widen the spectrum of our perspectives on global issues.” Students realized that intense serious discourse and questioning is necessary to create the most intelligent, scientifically-advanced solutions for our global problems.

A student representative from Korea put it plainly: “through these dialogues, we could understand each other more, established a close relationship between two different countries and become one ‘family,’ crossing the border of ‘friends.’” With stronger relationships built on respect and intercultural competence, there was nothing hindering nothing was hindering the final, inspired message – “It’s up to us to put these ideas into action!”

#Ed4GlobalCitizenship, #InterculturalComeptence, #SDGs, #IVECA#21stSkills