At my school, we struggled with how to assess global learning. As part of the work of our ILT (Instructional Leadership Team), we created rubrics to unify assessment across the school but when it came to assessing everything from community service, engaged citizenship, and global education, there were many skeptics at the table.
It shouldn't have been that difficult. As we discovered early on in the TGC online course, there are many people who have thought long and hard about this and have come up with useful and accessible ways to assess global competency. I've chosen to highlight three:
- The Global Education Checklist (Czarra for the AFGE and the CCSSO)
- The Intercultural Competence Value Rubric (AACU)
- Educating for Global Competence matrices (Boix Mansilla and Jackson for the Asia Society and CCSSO)
I had the good fortune to work with Veronica Boix Mansilla at the inception of Project Zero's Interdisciplinary teaching and learning project from 2003-2006. More recently, she invited me to attend a March 2016 workshop at Tang Institute at Phillips Academy, Andover, titled "Global Education Assessment Symposium: Designing for Impact." The attendees heard from leaders in the global assessment field and then designed and assessed existing global programs at our various schools for impact.
I. Global Education Checklist
Let's start with Fred Czarra and the Global Education Checklist produced as part of the American Forum for Global Education in concert with the Council of Chief State School Officers.
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Czarra, a longtime consultant on global education and assessment, served as a principal consultant to the Comprehensive Social Studies Assessment Project created back in the late 1990s by the Council of Chief State School Officers. What's useful about his global education checklist (2002) is that it is a terrific starting point. As a school integrates global education into its curriculum, it's essential that they have some sense of what students already know (in part based on their own lives as well as the curricula they have experienced) as well as what they need to know. Czarra's list of questions is comprehensive and leads to thinking about everything from the state of a school's building and facilities to its tech capacity to its interest in exchanges, both virtual and in person. The checklist is a "must do" before embarking on modifications to curriculum.
II. The Intercultural Competence Value Rubric
To my surprise, there is an entire industry of folks devoted to designing and customizing rubrics and assessments to measure cultural and global competency. There are impossible to evaluate because you have to pay for them before you see them!
But there is much to learn from other educators at all different levels who are engaged in the effort to measure cultural and global competencies. At the college and university levels, it appears that many institutions are concerned about assessing students global awareness before determining whether they are sufficiently capable of handling an educational experience overseas. There are lessons from that for primary and secondary educators.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) developed an Intercultural Knowledge and Competence Value rubric. It focuses principally on cultural awareness, communication strategies, and measures of curiosity, openness, and empathy. The rubric is a useful way to think about measuring competency.
II. The Intercultural Competence Value Rubric
To my surprise, there is an entire industry of folks devoted to designing and customizing rubrics and assessments to measure cultural and global competency. There are impossible to evaluate because you have to pay for them before you see them!
But there is much to learn from other educators at all different levels who are engaged in the effort to measure cultural and global competencies. At the college and university levels, it appears that many institutions are concerned about assessing students global awareness before determining whether they are sufficiently capable of handling an educational experience overseas. There are lessons from that for primary and secondary educators.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) developed an Intercultural Knowledge and Competence Value rubric. It focuses principally on cultural awareness, communication strategies, and measures of curiosity, openness, and empathy. The rubric is a useful way to think about measuring competency.
III. Educating for Global Competence matrices
Without question, the best and most practical tool for measuring global competency are the matrices created by Veronica Boix Mansilla and Tony Jackson as a joint project of the Asia Society and Council of Chief State Schools Officers).
Boix Mansilla and Jackson identify four key global competencies:
and they argue in their 2011 book Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World that education for global understanding can be integrated into virtually every discipline taught in American schools.
Their matrices support this integration. It is easy to turn these global competence matrices into rubrics and adapt them to fit virtually any assignment or project a teacher might offer that in some way touches on global ideas and thinking.
Without question, the best and most practical tool for measuring global competency are the matrices created by Veronica Boix Mansilla and Tony Jackson as a joint project of the Asia Society and Council of Chief State Schools Officers).
Boix Mansilla and Jackson identify four key global competencies:
- Investigate the world beyond their immediate environment, framing significant problems and conducting well-crafted and age-appropriate research.
- Recognize perspectives, others’ and their own, articulating and explaining such perspectives thoughtfully and respectfully.
- Communicate ideas effectively with diverse audiences, bridging geographic, linguistic, ideological, and cultural barriers.
- Take action to improve conditions, viewing themselves as players in the world and participating reflectively.
and they argue in their 2011 book Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World that education for global understanding can be integrated into virtually every discipline taught in American schools.
Their matrices support this integration. It is easy to turn these global competence matrices into rubrics and adapt them to fit virtually any assignment or project a teacher might offer that in some way touches on global ideas and thinking.
Many additional models of assessments for global competency exist. I've listed several below that may be useful to you.
The KSA Paradigm of Global Competence
Darla Deardorff, Process Model of Intercultural Competence and the Pyramid Model of Intercultural Competence
Bennett, Competence matrix
These articles may also be of interest:
Gosia Stergios, "Identifying Global Learning Outcomes," Tang Institute at Andover, 2016.
Gosia Stergios, "Identifying Global Learning Outcomes," Tang Institute at Andover, 2016.
Darla K. Deardorff, "International Education Outcomes Assessment: A Changing Paradigm," IIE Networker, 2015. Web. iie.org/iienetworker