While IU’s campus may seem quieter in the summers, the season marks one of the busiest for our Center for the Study of Global Change (Global Center), especially when it comes to professional development for Indiana educators. This year, Global Center staff and collaborators were able to support educators across the state who in turn bring global learning back to their students this fall. These educators teach in a variety of settings and fields from kindergarten to collegiate level health fields and everything in-between.
Continuing a long-standing collaboration, the Global Center partnered with the IU School of Education’s Global Education Initiatives Director, Dr. Vesna Dimitrieska, and the Hamilton Lugar School’s National Resource Centers to offer multiple programs that enhanced teacher development across Indiana.
In June, the Global Center co-sponsored a five-day professional development called the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) Summer Institute led by Dr. Dimitrieska. Dual-language programs use a bilingual approach to Indiana core curriculum classes, allowing students to study the same subjects as their peers in both their native language and a second language. This summer more than 60 K-12 educators from across the state attended the institute, gaining resources for implementing and maintaining these programs in their schools
Later that same month, the Global Center hosted our Global Deliberations Collaborative (GDC) Institute, a two-day training on how to engage in respectful dialogue about challenging global issues. Eighteen P-16 educators attended, diving deep into the deliberation process and learning how to promote open-minded, informed, and engaged citizenship in the classroom. Graduate students from the Hamilton Lugar School worked with an in-service teacher to develop case studies on different global issues. Using these case studies, educators participated in the GDC process in a mock classroom setting. The institute participants had the opportunity to develop their content knowledge about various global issues in different world regions, as well as work on the pedagogical content knowledge on integrating global deliberations in their own classrooms. Learn more about this 4-step process and request a teacher training workshop at your school at accessglobal.indiana.edu
K-12 education professionals from across Indiana also had the opportunity to expand their classroom literacy deepening their knowledge of engaging with picture books using a global learning lens during the annual Global Literacy Invitation Project this June. This five-day workshop which is hosted at the School of Education and funded by the Global Center and IU’s National Resource Centers, teaches 3rd – 6th grade teachers to how to use globally themed picture books to create lesson plans with a developed cross-cultural lens for their students. Students engage in open-ended inquiry of globally and locally relevant topics and parts of the world. Learn more about this project.
In addition to our work with K-12 educators, the Global Center also partnered with the IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning’s Service-Learning Program to host the biennial Global Community-Engaged Learning Course Development Institute. The Institute began with a series of virtual meetings and Canvas coursework during the spring 2025 semester and culminated in a two-day in person workshop at the IUB Wells Library. 13 faculty members from three different IU campuses representing a diverse set of disciplines participated in the institute. Driven by increasing student success and serving Indiana and beyond, these faculty members worked to develop or revise a new global community-engaged learning course that included elements of global community-engagement in their syllabi, course learning outcomes, and student assessments. One participant stated: “I’m encouraged by all of the side conversation about collaboration and brainstorming… [the facilitator] set up a relaxed yet super productive [learning] environment.” This upcoming academic year, attending teachers will be sharing their work with their home departments and faculty networks.
In total, the Center’s summer efforts left more than 100 educators from pre-school to Ph.D. better equipped to serve their students. As students from around the world return to Indiana University—and to their elementary school classrooms— this fall their instructors will have more practical experience and training on how to cultivate globally-ready leaders thanks to the Center for the Study of Global Change’s continued programming.
Check out the Global Center’s blog on Global Employability and learn more about Curriculum Internationalization in this article which highlights the 2025 Institute for Curriculum and Campus Internationalization.
Leave a Reply