“That’s why my brother’s thumbs are so long!” The once silent room erupted with laughter. The students were engaged in creating a fictitious family based on particular genetic traits. One student had the revelation that his biological brother was not, in fact, an alien but that a dominant trait in his family’s lineage must have caused his brother to grow really long “alien” thumbs. This activity was part of Global Doctors: DNA, a Level Up Village (LUV) course I taught last spring at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Windsor, Connecticut.
From the moment Jody Swanigan, Principal of East Cooper Montessori Charter School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, heard about Level Up Village (LUV), she was determined to bring LUV programs to her school.
“What first drew me in was the emphasis on STEM,” said Jody. But after checking out the global STEAM courses offered by Level Up Village and watching some videos on the website, she saw the connection between LUV’s “Take a Class, Give a Class” model and Montessori education.
Level Up Village has been busy developng several NEW and exciting courses available starting in January including Global Water Crisis and Global Game Strategists. As with all all Level Up Village programs, students tackle real-world issues, apply design thinking and collaborate virtually with Global Partner students via our easy-to-use, mobile-fiendly platform. Not only that, we make it easy for schools to implement by providing the curriculum, the teacher training and the global partners.
You would think as we have grown from just a few US schools to over 150 US schools that finding Global Partners would have gotten harder, but it hasn’t. It’s gotten easier. Why? Because word is spreading.
A great example is our Level Up Village network in Ghana. In November of 2015, we ran just one course with one school in Ghana. In 2016, we will run more than 40 courses with four partners at ten schools in Ghana, as well as in one of the country’s first Makerspaces. Here is how we got there.
…By the third day, our kids knew that what made us feel in the moment were videos that utilized more of three things: eye contact, speaking at length, and personalizing – by saying a partner’s name, and by really responding to what they had said. This became our focus going forward. We talked about how effective communication was something they had the power to model, as well as reflect back.
By Teresa Fellows, Director of Teacher Recruitment for Level Up Village
Great teachers help make Level Up Village in-school, after school programs and summer camp programs the very best. It is a great way to get valuable hands-on STEAM (STEM + arts) experience and learn new skills in the areas of coding and game design, CAD and 3D printing, dissections, genetics and more. We are looking to expand our team of LUV Global Educators – LUV classes are currently running in 16+ states – and we need dynamic teachers to join our team as we continue to grow!
Guest post by Taylor Chustz, Exponential Education
If someone had told my 16 year-old self that I would be sitting in the old post office of a village in Antoa, Ghana, with no power, typing a blog post, I think my 16 year-old self would just laugh and say, “Sounds about right!”