Global Learning for Sense of Belonging
The GloBe (2021 – 2023) gathered together the notions of pedagogical and shared leadership, co-teaching, Global Citizenship Education, as well as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in a unique way.
Global Learning for Sense of Belonging, GloBe, was a three-year Erasmus+ KA2 funded project, carried out by civil society organisations and higher education institutions in Finland, Portugal and Romania in 2020-2023.
GloBe was targeted for teachers and principals working around the themes of Global Education and Learning (GEL), Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pedagogical and shared leadership, co-teaching, whole-school approach and school eco-system thinking.
GloBe brought together 56 participants from the three countries. GloBe participants were built up from Cohorts 1 and 2, officially, ‘seniors’ and ‘juniors’, as we called them. Both Cohorts facilitated and organised one – two -semester long whole-school processes and events around GEL, thematic day/week and/or community engaging festival events, which came to be known as ‘The Things’ – culminating the learning and work of the GloBe participants.
The term ‘the Things’ started as a joke for not inventing any better concept to describe all and everything the schools planned to do. Soon, however, it become a shared concept and common language within the project, uniting the participants and creating in a funny way ‘the sense of GloBe belonging’.
Altogether there were 20 schools developing their ‘Things’ in seven different cities: Oulu and Jyväskylä, in Finland; Lisbon, Braga and Viana do Castelo in Portugal; and Cluj-Napoca and Floresti, in Romania. The project activities reached and benefitted directly around 6200 students and 570 staff members within the schools.
At the heart of the GloBe was a five-step pedagogical process.
The objectives of the GloBe were:
to deepen and broaden the scope of day-to-day work of school principals towards pedagogical and shared leadership
to enhance teachers’ shared and co-teaching professional capabilities to cross disciplinary and grade-level boundaries in schools, and
to introduce new “sustainable future” learning modules to actively engage students.
Building understanding in the interdependent world
The GloBe encouraged to cross grade-level and disciplinary boundaries. It built understanding about the broad and complex themes of educational equality and equity, human rights, active citizenship, environmental issues, and sustainable consumption that manifest differently, and yet similarly, globally and locally. It aimed to advance policy – research – practice dialogue by bridging policy stakeholders at the international, national, and municipal level, researchers and specialists on educational leadership and Global Citizenship Education, civil society organisations, and moreover, leaders and principals, teachers, and pupils at schools.
GloBe developed an online learning platform entitled “Handbook for Global Educationalists” available here. The Handbook highlights practitioners’ point of view and is developed for the use of teachers and school leaders, and other educational professionals.
Some other outputs developed prior, during and after the training activities are only for the use of the GloBe-team members (Learning Diaries written by the participants) and some others are shared between the schools and participants, to support the continuum and further development of the ‘Things’.
“We will continue to make our Thing even better this year. We try to plan our schedules and contents better and make The Thing an annual event.”
“We intend to continue focusing on GloBe themes, involving the Citizenship and Development subject, but also other subjects and school projects, repeating and improving some activities already implemented. The seeds sown and the ideas designed must be (re)used, without a doubt.”
“Yes, we will be doing the Thing, because it is part of our school curriculum and we have created it to be part of the phenomena we study every year.”
Handbook for Global Educationalists – Practitioners’ Point of View
Whats up?
The Pedagogical Process
At the heart of the GloBe was a pedagogical process, that comprises five steps. The first and the last training were residential international seminars, whereas the second and fourth took place in local schools in each three partner countries. The third training was a webinar.
GloBe comprised two groups of professionals. For both groups, we selected one leader/principal and two teachers from three schools from three countries. In total, we trained 54 professionals to support each other nationally and internationally.
In Search of Inspirational Ideas
Three-day seminar comprised of lectures and participatory group exercises.
Main themes:
Pedagogical and Shared Leadership.
Co-teaching.
Global Citizenship Education and Ethical Globe Issues Pedagogy.
Agenda 2030 and SDG’s.
Included brief Pre-assignment (Introductory reading and short reflection). The pre-assignment is the foundation for Professional Portfolio (5ECTS) developed during the learning process. Initiates data collection process for the project researchers to examine participants professional growth and test theory of change.
The step also initiated data collection process for the project researchers to examine participants professional growth and test theory of change.
Taking Ideas Into Schools
This step took the core topics introduced and discussed in the step 1 into participants’ schools. The aim was to engage the whole-school community to vision co-creatively how to bring to life global education and the selected SDG’s. This step was facilitated by the national project teams. As a result
- the schools got an idea about their practical doing
- the pupils initiated their reflective portfolios
- the principals and teachers produced reflective learning diaries about pedagogical and participatory processes
The step produced data for the project researchers to examine implementation of whole-school approach.
Testing and Piloting New Ideas
Webinar was held to share ideas that were developed in schools in three countries. The peer-support enabled the participants to get new insights to reflect their every-day work and professional identities from the perspective of pedagogical and shared leadership, but also through the lenses of global education and sustainable future working and learning environment.
The step 3 produced data, country cases, for the project researchers to examine pedagogical processes and global education.
The Thematic Day
Step 4 was all about implementation and therefore, essential for the pedagogical process and project as a whole! It made use of the global education and participatory approaches that were introduced in step 1, further developed in step 2, and reviewed in and revised after step 3. It gave evidence for the participants about their professional capabilities around the core themes of the GloBe. Participants and schools/pupils documented and produced reflections about implementation in different audio-visual formats.
The data from three countries and and local contexts fed into testing of Theory of Change.
Sharing and Reflecting Ideas
Reflective closure of five-phase learning process comprised of pre-assignment and three-day international seminar.
The pre-assignment was about finalising participants’ professional portfolios.
The seminar comprised of reflection, participants’ presentations, group discussions, facilitated exercises, lectures and feedback from project experts.
The seminar was also the time for the second group to start their five-phase pedagogical process and a kick-off for mentoring processes.
“I LEARNED SO MUCH… new approaches, strategies, ideas, awareness of the extreme importance each SDG has in our lives and practices. I learned to celebrate ideas, narratives, experiences.”
“Today I feel more empowered to act and transform as I find support from this GloBe network. I have a team inside and outside the school and that provides the security and motivation that feed hope for a more promising future of education.”
“It was very interesting to find out the information on the other countries’ education system, seeing that the schools are not so different from ours and that we all share the same goals and some of the setbacks.”
Partners in Finland
Rauhankasvatusinstituutti (RKI)
The Peace Education Institute (RKI) was the main project coordinating organisation to ensure the smooth running of the project. We have extensive expertise on the core themes of the project and long experience in teacher training and working towards a more peaceful society through educational activities. In addition to coordinating responsibilities, we contributed substantively to all activities and outcomes of the GloBe.
University of Oulu (UOULU)
UOULU contributed to GloBe with research findings on global education and learning, drawing on research both in Finland and internationally. UOULU’s students who have courses in global education organize international learning events to which the collaboration partners are invited. As interns, students assisted the project partners and carried out studies related to the main themes.
University of Jyväskylä (JYU)
The University of Jyväskylä (JYU) and the Institute of Educational Leadership (IEL) brought into GloBe its unique experience on research and development work in education leadership and collaborative teacher learning in Finland and internationally. Currently, IEL works, for instance, to establish a national model for qualifying, induction and in-service education in educational leadership. In addition, GloBe will benefit from IEL’s peer-mentoring network.
Partners in Portugal
Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo (IPVC)
We were the coordination team of the GloBe in the Higher School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, a lovely city in the North of Portugal. We brought to this project the experience of working with future teachers, teachers and schools in finding ways for educational approaches that develop a sense of Global Citizenship, participative and engaged with the social change that leads us to a fairer and sustainable world!
Fundação Gonçalo da Silveira (FGS)
FGS contributed to the GloBe project from its consolidated experience in working in collaboration with schools and educators in Global Citizenship and Development Education processes. As a Civil Society Organization, we bring also experience in building collective knowledge for the well-being and common good, with different types of organization and people, including academia.
Partners in Romania
Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza Din Iași (UAIC)
UAIC is the oldest higher education institution in Romania. It enjoys high prestige at national and international level and cooperates with number of university networks and associations. UAIC team brought into GloBe project management experience and expertise particularly in the fields of psychological councelling and educational leadership.
Peace Action, Training & Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR)
PATRIR believes deeply in the value and importance of global education in the classroom. As an Institute we brought our experience from working in education globally, advancing peace education in schools, and working with ‘Round Tables’ here in Cluj where we bring together schools, the school inspectorate, civil society organisations and more, working together to advance and improve the quality of education for all our children.
The project is funded by Erasmus+
