Students in Spanish IB have been communicating with their Argentine peers to support the development of their foreign language skills through meaningful asynchronous interactions for a year and a half now. While the main goal of this virtual cultural exchange is language acquisition, the use of POG skills and IBO learner profile attributes supports these interactions, and vice versa, i.e. students use these learning opportunities to enhance and further develop the associated attributes and skills.

POG Attribute: Ethical and Global Thinker

POG Skills: 

• Contributes to solutions that benefit the broader community

• Communicates effectively in multiple languages to make meaningful connections

• Promotes environmental stewardship

For the past several months, Ms. Ana Viamonte, at South Lakes HS, and Ms. María Virginia Muro, at Colegio Sol de Funes in Funes, Argentina, have been collaborating on an ongoing basis designing curriculum aligned learning opportunities so that both groups can benefit from the interactions in more ways than just linguistically. Because we recognize that authentic and valuable learning that should also take place beyond the classroom may not be equally available to all our students, we decided to work together towards this common goal: providing our students with more equitable access to these experiences, which the Global Classroom Project can be instrumental in facilitating.  

Our upcoming common project engages our students in collaborative work on SDG 15 (Sustainable Development Goals): “Life on Land.” This topic aligns with one of the prescribed IB language themes: “Sharing the planet.” The project allows students to critically think about the environmental (and social) issues facing our planet today and ways in which they can contribute to reduce or overcome these challenges. Students will continue to take advantage of the affordances of FCPS approved digital applications to communicate with their peers to discuss relevant concepts and questions on the topic, brainstorm ideas on possible action toward SDG 15, and identifying and fulfilling an actionable plan toward the goal.

Participating Staff:

Ana Viamonte / @email

AmyBeth Kramer / @email