Edited by Yael Harlap Global Citizenship

IN THIS CHAPTER, we will pose exercises
that will stretch your imagination to
engage with teaching and learning as you
consider how to:
• Create opportunities for students to
work in small collaborative groups
within the classroom setting
• Build on content that is learned within
a relevant context, which emphasizes
learning that extends beyond the
classroom
• Shape the extent of power and
responsibility students have for
shaping the classroom environment
and their learning experience

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Road to Global Citizenship: An Educator’s Toolbook
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Consider creating opportunities for students to work in small collaborative groups within the classroom
setting. As students work collaboratively with peers on complex, open-ended problems, they develop
the skills and dispositions for engaging in a community of inquiry, and potentially also for taking
collective action on issues important to them. Collaborative work, when set up thoughtfully,
encourages students to practice managing and resolving conflict. In addition, carefully designed
pair-work and group-work enhances learning whether or not global citizenship is a goal.
1
When students engage in collaborative
work, they may experience:
• Shifting passive behaviours of
listening, observing, and note-taking
to active problem-solving,
contributing and discussing
• Moving from a private presence in the
classroom, with few risks of exposing
themselves, to a public one, with
many risks
• Moving away from competing with
peers to collaboratively working with
peers
• Uncertainty of their responsibilities as
a learner as they shift from learning
independently to learning inter-
dependently
• Struggle with seeing teachers and
texts as the sole sources of authority
and knowledge, to seeing oneself and
the community of peers as additional
and important sources of authority
and knowledge.
When teachers shift to a more