And even though we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day this week — on Tuesday, May 3, this year — we truly appreciate them every day. Their challenge is to make learning interesting, creative and fun.
At Divine Savior Academy in Doral, teachers are connecting their students with other seventh- and eighth-grade students halfway around the world — in Sweden.
In an ongoing project, Phil Kurbis, the director of technology integration, co-teaches English classes with Ola Brorson at Thoren Framtid in Växjö, Sweden.
They met through the global EdTech company SMART Technologies, and decided to explore co-teaching.
At first, the students living 5,000 miles apart started their conversation with a simple question: “What’s for breakfast?”
That initial live learning event, at the beginning of the school year, quickly led to discussion of food, traditions and more. They also discussed what it’s like being teenagers in their respective countries.
Gabriela Vargas, director of the World Languages program, said she jumped at the opportunity to incorporate the modern day pen-pal relationship into the Divine Savior Academy curriculum.
She said it reaches far beyond a simple lesson plan.
“This connection will help our students become more aware of the fact that they are just citizens of the world,” she said. “That always creates more empathy for others because you realize that there are people in the world that are different from you, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Both the Doral and Swedish schools are SMART Exemplary Schools. They use a variety of technology including Lumio, Flipboard and others, to create an interactive environment where students have the opportunity to connect their lives, school, city, state and country to each other.
In classes, the students share interests, culture and climate. They practice written, spoken and visual language. And they learn to respect others in a digital environment, including with those students practicing English.
Their teachers use strategies such as small group discussions and multimedia presentations to explore the cultural connections they found between the two schools. Some students have even kept their friendships going by partnering on Playstation and Flipgrid. “The integration of technology in the classroom setting as a means to enhance learning is only effective when it’s age-appropriate, purposeful and is given by teachers who have the know-how and knowledge to make it meaningful and engaging,” said Tim Biesterfeld, Divine Savior Academy’s Head of Schools.
Divine Savior student Ana Ongarato said the Swedish students “are still the same kind of teenagers that we are here. They are laughing between each other and acting just like us.”
Vargas said her students have gotten a wider view of the world.
“They have been able to see that the world just doesn’t end in the community where they are.”
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