Fernando M. Reimers et al.

and student agency in shaping the high school curriculum as ways to
personalize learning.

One of the pedagogical principles on which this design was grounded was
to rely extensively on project~based learning and on active learning method—
ologies, such as Design Thinking, that place students at the center of their
learning. We also sought to give students abundant opportunities to dem—
onstrate understanding in the form of products that could be shared with
peers, teachers, and other audiences, including students in other grades in
the school and parents.

We also sought to create multiple opportunities for students to directly col—
laborate with peers in other countries with the use of technology for proj—
ect—based work and remote communication. We viewed this collaboration

as a way to help them find their common humanity with diverse students.

The curriculum also provides multiple opportunities to directly engage stu-
dents and teachers with parents and community members who can directly
contribute knowledge and experience to support global education and there—
by help students identify authentic connections between the local and global.

Throughout the entire K—12 curriculum, but particularly in grades nine
through twelve, are opportunities for students to pursue their personal inter—
ests with greater depth, and to co—construct with their teachers a significant
portion of the curriculum.

As we undertook to design the World Course, we sought both to use a
twenty—first-century—skills framework to guide the development of the
curriculum and to include in it opportunities to develop specific glob—
al competencies. The first implication of this aim is that it is necessary
to dedicate time to the curriculum and to recognize that attempting to
achieve global competency through curriculum infusion would at best
produce only partial and inadequate results. The second implication of

lvi