The International Educator Announces Partnership with CGC for International Schools

The International Educator (TIE) will help promote the Common Ground Collaborative (CGC) across TIE’s media properties to spread awareness of the CGC’s innovative approach to international education and a better understanding of how students learn.

The International Educator, the oldest and most widely distributed newspaper covering international education around the world, announces a new partnership with the Common Ground Collaborative (CGC), designed to bring its message of a new and innovative learning approach to educators around the world.

"Through this association, we hope to use our platform of global circulation and leadership in the field of international education to spread the CGC's message about how schools can transform their curriculum and environment, to not only better support learning, but to actually teach children how to learn," says Forrest Broman, President and founder of The International Educator (TIE).

The CGC is an analytical, inquiry-based program that explicitly teaches children how to learn in a collaborative fashion.

Two colleagues at the International School of Brussels, both co-trainers in curriculum design for the Principal's Training Center (PTC), set out to redesign the entire school's learning model and the result is the Common Ground Curriculum.

Kevin Bartlett, the Director of the International School of Brussels (ISB) and Gordon Eldridge, the ISB Curriculum Director, concluded that schools are ineffective at the central element in their core business. They do not actually teach students how to learn in explicit, organized ways.

"It’s odd how some problems are so stubborn. Despite decades of international education, a conspicuous gap lies at the heart of the international ‘learning business’: the lack of a coherent, complete, connected curriculum," says Bartlett who set out to close this gap, or in his words, "wrestle this obdurate problem to the ground."

With hundreds of international schools all over the world, Bartlett saw inconsistencies in curricula and pedagogical approaches. “Very simply, everywhere we looked, we saw disconnected silos where we wanted to see systems. Disconnected curriculum models, internally disconnected schools, disconnected global conversations among schools. We felt a compelling need to address those three interrelated problems,” says Bartlett.

To rectify this, the collaborative has designed a set of learning standards intended to provide students with a cognitive toolkit to equip them as independent learners. A matching set of teaching and leadership standards is also provided to help teachers best facilitate the learning process and grow professionally. “We set out to create a connected curriculum, connected schools, and connected conversations, through the Collaborative,” explains Bartlett.

With input from international schools from around the world, and greater visibility of the Common Ground approach through the affiliation with TIE, interest in the CGC has grown rapidly and full membership will be opened to international schools worldwide in the summer of 2015.

The International Educator (TIE), based in Hyannis, MA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing links among teachers and international schools worldwide. In publication for over 25 years, TIE is a quarterly newspaper featuring the latest in international school news and developments for K-12 educators around the world. TIE’s website, Tieonline.com, offers the widest selection of K-12 teaching and administrative jobs available anywhere. TIE's sister company, the Principal's Training Center (PTC), is the leading professional development training institute for international educators around the world.

Follow story.

---

Please fill out the form below if you would like to post a comment on this article:

Nickname

(this will appear with your comments)

Email

Comments

---

Comments

There are currently no comments posted. Please post one via the form above.

MORE FROM

FEATURED ARTICLES