THINK Global School

New York, United States

How can learning be transformed by taking students into the world?

THINK Global School is the world’s first traveling high school. Through its innovative Changemaker Curriculum, student gain firsthand experiences of the world through a combination of place-based and project-based learning. Each school year, students at THINK Global School live and learn in four different countries and participate in projects relevant to the locations they find themselves in.

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HundrED 2020

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2020

HundrED 2019

HundrED 2018

Web presence

2010

Established

60

Children/users

12

Countries

Organisation

Not-for-profit

Target group

All

Updated

March 14th, 2023

Incorporating THINK Global School’s innovative pedagogies doesn’t require a plane or passport; rather, students can find a world of learning possibilities in their own backyard.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

THINK Global School (TGS) was launched as a way for students to learn in the world, rather than just about it. Students travel to four countries per year, where they learn about relevant issues from local experts in the community.

Through their TGS education, students develop empathy for the communities they visit and the soft and hard skills necessary to enact meaningful change in the world.

How does your innovation work in practice?

Through travel, students at TGS experience real-world issues firsthand and interact closely with the communities they immerse themselves within.

Each eight-week term is held in a different country, so students regularly learn in the world rather than about it. Students meet with local experts, guest speakers, and community members as they engage in projects centered around their surroundings.

These firsthand experiences are integral to the TGS experience, as they breed empathy and cultivate a deep understanding of peoples, cultures, and surroundings. Better yet, they help develop the skills necessary to create change in the future.

The Hope Survey is administered bi-annually to measure student satisfaction and success. The results have been astounding, with students reporting high satisfaction regarding engagement, belongingness, autonomy, goal orientation, hope, and academic press. Parents are also surveyed each year to measure their satisfaction with their child's education.

How has it been spreading?

For 2020-21, TGS transitioned to a fully remote model with great success. Students continued working on project modules with the service element shifting to their home communities. We returned to our traveling model for 2021-22 with a 94% re-enrollment rate. Both cohorts visited the UAE for a term, with projects based around the 2020 World Expo.

For the last six years, TGS has maintained a 100% graduation rate and a matriculation rate in the nineties. Our graduates now work in all manner of fields, companies, and organizations.

Moving forward, we are excited about the launch of the THINK Global School Professional Development Center. This will increase our impact exponentially by providing a way for educators worldwide to learn our innovative practices both in-person and remotely.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Prospective students can apply to THINK Global School by filling out the inquiry form on the school website. Applications are currently open for the 2023-24 school year and beyond. The deadline for all 2023-24 applications to be turned in is January 1st, 2023.

Educators can learn more about job openings on our employment page.

All other inquiries: community@thinkglobalschool.org

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

There is only so much that can be learned within the four walls of a classroom, where teachers are largely reliant on lectures, textbooks, and internet materials. THINK Global School believes that engaging in place-based learning and allowing students to engage directly with a wide range of cultures, peoples, and
artefacts is the key to a global education.

Impact

Place-based learning allows students to use all five senses in their learning and visits to sombre sites like Srebrenica in Bosnia allows them to converse directly with those affected by tragedy, and as THINK Global Schools has found, these encounters can shape our students lives in a significant way, often motivating them to create meaningful change in the affected places.

Scalability

While the travel aspect may be problematic for many schools and especially the younger grades, the innovation technique can be used at all levels, scale and scope are age dependant. The approach is being used, to various degrees, by a range of schools worldwide.

Media

Understanding Cohorts at THINK Global School

When we first launched as a school in 2010, we never thought to refer to ourselves as anything but that — a school. Fast forward to today when we have two groups of students traveling in parallel, and the term school becomes a little trickier to define. Moving forward you’ll learn about Changemaker Cohort 1 (CM1) and Changemaker Cohort 2 (CM2), the terms we adopted to describe our two groups of students that are separate in travel but united in learning.New students at THINK Global School (TGS) begin their transformative journey in the United Kingdom during the ten-day Rite of Passage. This is where you’ll ground yourself into our community and become empowered to be the director of your own learning through a series of team-building exercises and exposure to our core values. Following the Rite of Passage you’ll branch off into your respective cohort, joining either CM1 or CM2, and embarking on your own path towards completing the Changemaker Curriculum.Read on to find out more information about cohorts at TGS.https://thinkglobalschool.org/cohorts-at-tgs/

What Are Learning Targets at THINK Global School?

If you are new to THINK Global School’s approach to learning, some of the terms we use might seem as foreign as the places our students call home. But that’s ok — we’re here to help clear things up! One term in particular that all prospective students and their parents should become familiar with is learning targets, and in this post we’ll explain what they are, and why they are an integral component of our curriculum.Learning targets serve as the backbone of THINK Global School’s Changemaker Curriculum. At their core, learning targets provide a measuring stick against which our students can assess their acquisition of knowledge during self-directed projects and teacher-led modules. To put it more simply, our learning targets provide a clear statement of what the student and their educators wish to accomplish during a project, while still allowing the student to maintain ownership of their learning.Read More:https://thinkglobalschool.org/what-are-learning-targets-at-tgs/

Looking Back: Why We Developed Our Own Curriculum

One of the questions we are regularly asked these days is “How did you arrive at the Changemaker Curriculum?” This question is understandable given how ingrained standardized curricula continue to be at schools around the world. With the Changemaker Curriculum, we’ve taken a page out of Sir Ken Robinson’s playbook and done away with educational conformity, replacing it with what we believe to be the most innovative and relevant approach to learning that exists today.With that in mind, here’s a little background on why a shift to a curriculum based on the leading educational philosophies made sense for us.https://thinkglobalschool.org/looking-back-at-curriculum/

CM2 Students Share Their Learning During the China PBL Showcase

Each term at THINK Global School is an opportunity for our students to explore a new part of the world and learn firsthand about the social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors that define it. Most recently, our students wrapped up terms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Changemaker Cohort 1) and China (Changemaker Cohort 2), the first of four countries they’ll live in over the course of the 2019-20 school year. Rather than sit in classrooms and engage in teacher-led discussions, students at THINK Global School work on a variety of projects relevant to the places they find themselves in. These come in the form of teacher-led modules, which are term-long projects where students work in teams to answer driving questions, and personal projects, which are student-driven and allow our kids to explore their passions while mastering 21st-century skills. Terms end with a project-based learning showcase, where students demonstrate what they’ve learned during the course of their personal projects and teacher-led modules. Below you can find our most recent Changemaker Cohort 2 Showcase, which was filmed on September 4th, 2019, in Shanghai, China.Read More:https://thinkglobalschool.org/cm2-students-share-their-learning-during-the-china-pbl-showcase/

Understanding The Changemaker Curriculum

New students arriving at THINK Global School are in for a world of new experiences, as our Changemaker Curriculum is drastically different than the traditional curricula used at most high schools. Rather than sitting in classrooms while being instructed by a teacher, students at THINK Global School are expected to demonstrate agency and autonomy, working in teams to craft innovative solutions to our country-specific modules. They are also encouraged to explore their passions through a near-infinite array of personal project subjects, gaining relevant 21st-century skills in the process.So how does the Changemaker Curriculum work? In this post, we’ll explore the various facets that make up the world’s most innovative learning approach.https://thinkglobalschool.org/understanding-the-changemaker-curriculum/

A look at our 2019 term in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Following their ten day Rite of Passage in Northern England, our new students joined returning CM1 students in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the first term of the 2019-20 school year. During their time in BiH, students lived in the heart of Sarajevo’s Old Town, Baščaršija. One of Europe’s best kept secrets (although that secret is getting out), Sarajevo is always popular with our students, and they enjoyed finding chic new cafes nestled among Baščaršija’s well-preserved Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian buildings.This term, all of our CM1 students participated in the same module, a deep dive into the topic of reconciliation — a necessary and ongoing process nearly twenty years after the end of the Balkan Conflict.Students divided into module groups to research and create a product of their choice based on the concept of reconciliation. At the start of the project, they were asked to consider the following driving question: How can we convey the complexities of ethnic and religious reconciliation through our experience of Bosnia and Herzegovina?Read more:https://thinkglobalschool.org/a-look-at-our-2019-term-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/

A Look at Our CM2 2019 Term in China | THINK Global School

After wrapping up their 2018-19 school year in Greece and spending some well-deserved time at home with their family and friends, our CM2 students headed off to China for the first term of their 2019-20 school year. This marked our CM2 students’ third time living and learning in Asia, following terms the previous year in India and Japan. During those terms, our CM2 students had the opportunity to work on modules connected to sustainability, virtual reality, bringing e-commerce to rural areas, and much more. A Look at How Our Students Learned During Their 2019 Term in China

THINK Global School selected as a HundrED 2020 Global Innovation

https://thinkglobalschool.org/think-global-school-selected-as-a-hundred-2020-global-innovation/We are pleased to announce that THINK Global School was selected by HundrED, a global education non-profit based out of Helsinki, Finland, for the HundrED 2020. This is the third consecutive year that THINK Global School has been selected to a HundrED Global Innovation Collection, which annually highlight 100 of the brightest innovations in K-12 education from across the world. Each of the innovations were evaluated on the criteria of impact and scalability by members of the HundrED Academy. Selected innovations were reviewed on their merits by teachers, students, leaders, innovators and other HundrED Community members. This year, 2008 innovations were reviewed by the committee of experts, with THINK Global School making the final cut of 100.According to The HundrED Academy, THINK Global School was chosen due to its unique pioneering status and ability to create a scalable impact, reaching 14 countries. The school is making a difference in the realm of global education by having students live and learn in four different countries a year. THINK Global School’s Changemaker Curriculum, which focuses on social-emotional learning alongside place and project-based learning, is in the HundrED’s eyes the factor that really makes THINK Global School stand out.This year Head of School Jamie Steckart and Class of 2019 Alumni Alicia Husselin had the honor of speaking at The HundrED’s Innovation Summit which took place at the Nokia Executive Experience Center in Espoo, Finland. Head of School Jamie Steckart participated in a panel dedicated to innovative learning spaces, while Alicia took part in a panel on student leadership and agency. School founder Joann McPike and Marketing Director Lee Carlton also attended the three-day summit, which featured education innovations from across the world — all utterly unique but entwined by their ability to help every child flourish. Reflecting on the conference, Lee Carlton shared, “I’m always amazed by the quality of innovations I witness at the HundrED and this year was no different. It was really interesting to see how many of the innovations are moving in the same direction as us by placing a focus on experiential learning, student agency, and wellness. It’s further proof in my eyes that TGS has positioned itself well to serve our students’ best interests and allow them to develop as individuals.”

15 Things to Do Before You Graduate THINK Global School

https://youtu.be/SZrlTlOXZ7s

Implementation steps

Rationale

No one expects the classroom teacher/administrator to vault into the intensive school reform design that characterizes THINK Global School. Yet it is surprising how little teachers, administrators, and students know about the communities that surround the four walls of their school.

We know as educators and citizens that the problems facing our communities may be local in effect, but stem from global issues. It is imperative that the institution of education takes an active role in solving these problems through real-time application. Our neighborhoods, communities, states, and countries desperately need the creative energy of the young people entrusted to our care, yet we provide very little opportunity for our kids to take an active role in making change.

“Creative neighborhood leaders across the country have begun to recognize this hard truth, and have shifted their practices accordingly. They are discovering that wherever there are effective community development efforts, those efforts are based upon an understanding, or map, of the community's assets, capacities and abilities.”

Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets," by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight.

Pre-experience research

Understanding your community

Before walking out the door of your school you need to understand the communities your students will be interacting with as they design and complete projects and field experiences.

Begin by mapping the assets of your community. Use the attached resource tool to help you create such a map. I recommend using a mind mapping tool to record your findings. At TGS we use MindMeister.

Size and scope determine the length of the project. Advice: Start small! At THINK Global School, due to the logistics of travel, implementation time can run into the months as we scout locations, make contacts with experts, and attend to other logistical needs. But as mentioned, these projects can be scaled to fit the needs of any community, and implementation times will differ greatly by the size and scope of the project. Some schools might need one month, others one week.

The Task

Now that you have completed the asset mapping of your community, begin with this driving question: How can we implement a field experience to explore a small piece of our community in depth?

Select learning targets (standards) you want the students to master after completion of the experience. The longer the experience the more targets you can incorporate. If you’re feeling collaborative, partner with a colleague who doesn’t teach in your subject area. You’ll be using our Project-Based Learning Template for planning purposes. The document has all the links and resources with a place for your creativity to run wild.

b. Decide on a Summative Assessment: See these Assessment Resource documents for guidance and ideas. Here is a great external link for Assessment Ideas.

c. IMPORTANT NOTE: The above documents and links are for the use of planning day projects. For the scope of this tool kit, we limited field experiences to those where students go home at the end of the school day. These concepts are scalable for all ages of students.

NOTE: Adding overnight/travel elements brings a whole list of planning areas and concerns/considerations. We recommend partnering with experienced professionals if you want to add that element to your school day. Feel free to contact us at TGS if you need further guidance.

Insights

Helpful hints to make the transition to a THINK Global Schools model

Be open to the idea that as a teacher you don’t have all the answers.

b. Always start small and then scale up.

c. When it is feasible, allow students to take the lead: the same planning documents can be given to students to have them plan their own projects. As mentioned before, at TGS the Changemaker Curriculum requires students to develop 40% of their own learning guided by their advisors.

d. Let your students voices/passions drive the activity.

Other Informational Links:
a. Overview of TGS
b. How use Technology at TGS. TGS is an Apple Distinguished School

c. Teacher Designed Module Catalogue