Jim Spellicy, College Board consultant and AP Economics teacher at Lowell High School in San Francisco, guides AP Summer Institute participants through a particularly challenging problem at Yongsan International School in Seoul, South Korea.

The first multiple-session AP® Summer Institute in Asia was held in Seoul, South Korea, July 28-Aug. 1. The institute was organized collaboratively by the College Board and the Fulbright Commission (Korean-American Educational Commission). Yongsan International School of Seoul was host to the events, which were attended by 70 teachers, counselors and administrators from 30 schools in seven countries, representing international schools, Department of Defense schools and Korean schools.  AP teachers were offered sessions in multiple subjects — calculus, economics, English, history and science. A session for AP Coordinators, counselors and school administrators incorporated panels on international university admissions presented by the Fulbright Commission in Seoul and representatives from leading institutions in Korea, including the KAIST (formerly known as Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Korea University, Seoul National University and Yonsei University’s Underwood College. Discussions are under way for next year’s AP Summer Institute in Asia. 

For more AP professional development events outside of the United States, please visit
the International Events page.

AP Annual Conference Panel Emphasizes Education as Key in Solving Global Problems, Offers Resources for Educators

Jean-François Rischard

Jean-François Rischard said it is critical for today’s students to understand the world around them in order to tackle the challenges it presents. “The next generation must come to see themselves first as global citizens, second as national citizens,” he said during a special panel attended by more than 350 educators held during the AP® Annual Conference in Seattle in July.

Rischard, an economist and lawyer originally from Luxembourg, has served as a vice president at the World Bank and now lives in Paris. In 2002, he published “High Noon:  20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them,” detailing urgent but unsolved environmental, economic and societal crises that will require new approaches if we are to succeed in conquering them in time.

Rischard was joined on the panel by Clayton Lewis, head of the Washington (D.C.) International School, and Caryn Stedman, curriculum and instructional specialist and international exchange coordinator at Metropolitan Learning Center Interdistrict Magnet School for Global and International Studies in Bloomfield, Conn. 

Lewis emphasized that education must evolve to “anticipate what is about to come.”  In an academic setting, students and their teachers should be able to examine the past, present and future in all disciplines that relate to the challenges we face.

Stedman has seen these ideas at work in her school, where the curriculum seeks to integrate disciplines and give students the skills needed to live in a flat world. “We wanted to go beyond the ‘five F's’ — fashion, food, famous people, flags and festivals,” she said.  “More privileged students may be exposed to these things outside of school, but in a school with many students from underserved populations, the exposure to global cultures and issues is invaluable.”

Rischard and Lewis have been involved with the Global Issues Network, an initiative that links students from schools around the world to collaborate on the world’s most pressing global problems. These experiments show that young people can more readily adopt a can-do attitude than the current political leaders can, and many programs on global issues will come from younger generations. “It’s a boost of energy to see these students opening their minds to new possibilities,” Rischard said. “They sound like prime ministers of nations should sound. They’re not afraid of new solutions.”

Participants of the panel expressed keen interest in the resources on global issues and internationalizing curricula, several of which are listed below:

Resources for Higher Education Institutions:

    American Council on Education —
    Center for International Initiatives

    Sen. Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization
    (colleges and universities)

    Center for Capacity Building in Study Abroad

Some 65 international school counselors and EducationUSA advisers in the U.S. Department of State global network spent a sunny week in June on the Georgetown University campus learning the “A to Z” of college admissions counseling in a unique program developed by the College Board’s Office of International Education. Counselors who are new to their job also benefited from a special workshop led by veteran professionals Susan Staggers of Cary Academy in Cary, N.C., and Jane Lowery of Lincoln — The American International School of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Participants will be working with U.S. expatriate, host-country and third-country students in global schools, some as far away as Cameroon, Qatar and Tajikistan. Many of them counsel students on applications to universities in Canada, Australia, Europe and Asia, as well as in the United States. The Summer Institute’s college fair with representatives from about 40 American institutions helped the counselors discover the range and depth of academic programs and services available to their students. Program sessions focused on all aspects of the admissions process: testing, essays, recommendation letters, school profiles, online applications and technology tools, financial aid and scholarships, ethical and cross-cultural considerations, visas, etc. Special highlights included a behind-the-scenes tour of Georgetown University’s undergraduate admissions office and a closing dinner at the French Embassy. For more information about the planned 2009 Summer Institute or college fair, please contact ieworkshops@collegeboard.org.

EducationUSA advisers from such countries as Armenia and Zimbabwe on Capitol Hill during U.S. Department of State training organized by the College Board

Nearly 120 U.S. Department of State EducationUSA advisers from six continents,
regional advising coordinators and staff came to Washington, D.C., in May to participate in
professional development
activities focusing on
college admissions and financial aid for international students. The event, which was organized by the College Board’s Office of International Education, featured sessions on technology tools in advising, career counseling techniques, outreach to underserved students and sports scholarships.  

Panel discussions on the U.S. admissions process and liberal arts curricula fostered interaction with college admissions counselors. The advisers also strategized with Indiana college and university representatives on Web site marketing and information-sharing on foreign educational systems, then enjoyed a private tour of the U.S. Capitol and a reception with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. Small-group activities centered on how to make the most of a campus visit and learning about the diverse offerings of American higher education institutions. The group explored the newly reopened Newseum in downtown Washington and capped off the program with an awards ceremony for peer-nominated advising achievements. All participants continued the next week at the annual NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference at Washington’s Convention Center, where a key highlight was their EducationUSA Country Fair with poster exhibits from 135 nations.

The NAFSA conference served as the capstone of the three-week, U.S.-based training program for 20 of the advisers who were selected by U.S. embassies worldwide to pursue mid-level professional development in the College Board-administered grant program. This started with hands-on training sessions in Washington and a week of campus group visits in clusters of two- and four-year institutions in the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The College Board will be seeking new institutional hosts for the fall 2009 USBT program. For more information, click here.

Guest teachers attend class during the Chinese Guest       Teacher Summer Institute at Stanford University,       July 28- Aug. 6

In July, the Chinese Guest Teacher Program welcomed its third group of teachers from China to the United States. During the 2008-09 school year, 130 schools and districts will host 193 teachers. The program, which began in January 2007, places Chinese teachers in elementary and secondary schools across the country for one to three years to promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture in U.S. schools.

The program is a collaboration between the College Board, the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages and China’s Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban). The program began with 37 teachers in its first year, and its popularity boosted the number of teachers to 64 by August 2007 and almost 200 for this school year. More than half of the current teachers have opted to continue teaching in the United States for another year.

When the new teachers arrived, they participated in the STARTALK Guest Teacher Summer Institute at Stanford University, which prepared them for their assignment in one of 32 participating states. The institute — which offered instruction on communication strategies, classroom management and K-12 foreign language teaching standards — was supported by a grant from STARTALK, which is one the of the projects of the National Security Language Initiative, a multiagency effort to expand foreign language education in critical but seldom-taught languages.
 
“Our College Board guest teachers are making an investment in the future — ours and theirs,” said Jim Montoya, vice president for relationship development, who was on hand to
greet the teachers. “They are clearly as excited about sharing their language and culture
with American students as they are about eventually taking back to their students in
China their firsthand experiences with American culture. These trailblazing teachers are true cultural bridge builders.”

Click here to see events and workshops in the International region.

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and workshops in the International region.


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