Please stay tuned for information on Global Kids' Summer and Fall 2010 professional development offerings for individuals. See below for descriptions of trainnings we have offered in the past.

Infusing Social Action into Your Curriculum: Darfur as a Case Study
Young people crave opportunities to take action on critical issues, and concern about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan resonates deeply with youth. This session will provide educators with interactive strategies for teaching about Darfur, ideas for guiding youth-led action, and practical tools and resources to integrate into programs and classrooms.

Games-Based Education
Since 2002, Global Kids has been a leader in the use of online games to promote global awareness, engaged citizenship, and 21st-Century learning skills. In this training, educators will play games they can use with their youth, create their own game designs, be introduced to free, web-based tools to support students to design their own games, and understand how game play and design can lead to deep learning.
 
Transforming Youth From Social Media Consumers to Creators
Global Kids has been a leader integrating social media tools within educational programs to develop 21st Century skills since 2000. With the emergence of online media from Youtube to Wikipedia, the new digital generation is presented with opportunities to broadcast their voice in unprecedented ways. In this training, educators will be engaged in hands on activities using social media tools that have educational applications, such as blogs, digital comics, maps and more, and hear about successful case studies from a variety of educational settings.

Environmental Service Learning Projects
Earth Day on April 22, along with Global Youth Service Day on April 23 – 25 are prime opportunities to engage students in meaningful service learning projects which integrate academic skill building. The training will introduce educators to service learning methodology and philosophy, demonstrate strategies for incorporating service into the school or after school environment, and provide tools and resources to design environmentally based service projects.

Creating a Safe Space I: Conflict Resolution
Students learn best when they feel safe, respected, and empowered to make well-informed decisions and choices when confronted by conflict. This training will provide theoretical and practical methods for recognizing, analyzing, and responding creatively to conflict situations, as well as strategies for building communication, problem solving, peer negotiation, and teambuilding skills in the classroom or afterschool environment.

Creating a Safe Space II: Cultural Diversity
In our increasingly multicultural and globalized society, it is imperative that young people develop the skills and attitudes needed to interact effectively and respectfully with people whose backgrounds and experiences are different from their own. This training will equip educators with strategies for promoting positive intergroup relations and creating caring communities; examining stereotypes and learning to appreciate their own and other cultures; building skills in bias-awareness, critical thinking, problem-solving and team-building; and infusing caring community concepts into the curriculum and learning environment.

Understanding Youth in the Digital Age
How do you respond when your student friends you on Facebook? How can you formalize the learning that youth experience through digital media without losing the juice? How do you support a young person to act ethically online when those social spaces are so foreign? In this training, Global Kids will introduce you to cutting edge approaches to thinking about the digital generation in terms of how they learn, the ethical issues they face, and what it all means for your ability to reach youth.

Developing Global Citizens
Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a point of reference, Global Kids will provide participants with creative tools and techniques to engage young people in examining their role in society and understanding what it means to be a global citizen in a complex, interconnected world. Educators will learn how the UDHR can be used for year-long inquiry and project-based learning that build the 21st-Century skills of young people, including critical-thinking, literacy, cross cultural collaboration, global awareness, digital media literacy and the use of technology.

Interactive Teaching Strategies
Participants will explore core experiential learning techniques and popular education practices that educators can apply to differentiate instruction in their classroom, after school, or summer program and engage students with diverse learning styles. Facilitation skills and youth development strategies will be integrated into the session. All participants receive sample Global Kids curriculum and materials.

For more information please call 212-226-0130 or e-mail pdtrainings@globalkids.org.