The GlobalEd Project

www.globaled.uconn.edu

The GlobalEd Project is an interactive problem-based simulation designed for middle and high school students in the USA. The GlobalEd simulation is embedded in the academic course of social studies at several schools in 14 states across the USA. The simulation lasts for approximately 5 weeks (but can be adjusted to shorter time periods), during which classes of students at various schools engage in international negotiations to develop a treaty over the web using synchronous and asynchronous classroom technologies. Before the simulation begins, each class is assigned a real-world country (i.e., France, Nigeria, China) to represent during the simulation. Each country is also assigned five topic areas to be addressed during the negotiation. The topics are contextualized in five areas: International Conflict and Cooperation, Human Rights, World Health, International Economics, and Global Environment. In this preparatory phase, students study about the people, economy, governmental structure, history and culture of the country they will be representing so that they may act as that country, not as a group of Americans running the country. Students also study about the policies of their assigned country regarding the topics they will be negotiating, as well as how to solve problems, make decisions and conduct negotiations. The teacher has the role of a facilitator and is responsible for directing the class through the material to be covered. Once the simulation begins, each group must act "in character" of the country they represent, as if they were actually the government of the country and as if it were six moths into the future. Students interact with participants from other schools during scheduled weekly conferences but also during non-scheduled e-mail contact. The goal for each group is to negotiate a treaty with at least one other country in the simulation.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical strategy for posing significant, contextualized, real world situations, and for providing resources, guidance, and instruction to learners as they develop content knowledge and problem-solving skills (Mayo et al., 1993). Additionally, PBL aids students in developing reasoning strategies as well as self-directed learning strategies (Airasian 1996). According to Bednar, Cunningham, Duffy, and Perry (1992) ".learning must be situated in a rich context, reflective of real-world contexts for this constructive process to occur and transfer to environments beyond the school or training classroom" (p. 22). One of the best ways to provide an authentic and rich context in an academic situation is through the use of PBL. PBL has proven to be effective in simulating real-world contexts. In a PBL environment, learners work in teams reviewing, critiquing, testing each other's ideas, and engaging in collaborative knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). The GlobalEd Project follows the characteristics of the PBL design by facilitating the collaboration between groups of students in order to solve real world problems on international issues.

Bandura (1986) defined self-efficacy as, "People's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses" (p. 391). Individuals make daily decisions that are determined by their personal efficacy judgments. Self-efficacy influences choice of behavior, effort expenditure and persistence as well as thought patterns and emotional reactions. According to Bandura (1994), "people with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided" (p. 1). Setting goals, increasing interest, being strongly committed, sustaining effort, quickly recovering from a failure, and reducing stress are characteristics of people who present a high level of self-efficacy. On the other hand, people with low self-efficacy doubt their capabilities, have low aspirations, demonstrate weak commitment, give up quickly when facing obstacles or adverse outcomes and are slow to recover from failures.

Research has demonstrated that self-efficacy can be a valid predictor of performance outcomes, including academic achievement and behavior (Olivier & Shapiro, 1993; Schunk, 1991) and it has been proven to strongly impact student performance in academic settings.

Success in the GlobalEd simulation helps participants build a stronger sense of personal efficacy and reduce conflict by increasing communication and awareness of the perspectives of others. Previous findings have demonstrated increased self-efficacy related to the use of educational technology, increased self-efficacy related to academic skills, greater understanding of other people's perspectives, increased negotiation skills and better decision making.

GlobalEd in Cyprus 2007

The GlobalEd in Cyprus took place between February and end of March 2007. 122 participants along with 14 instructors took part in the simulations. The participants were divided into 10 groups, which represented the following countries: China, Venezuela, Nigeria, India, Brazil, Germany, France, Pakistan, Kenya, Japan. The three simulations took place on March 17, March 24 and March 31 2007. Below the Cyprus Simulation Conference Schedule is demonstrated analytically:

Leaders of the ten countries decided to come together in order to tackle a number of issues all related to the commitment of the international community for peace and sustainable development. Invitations were sent to countries with great regional power and influence with the hope these countries would represent their regional needs.

Conference organizers decided to focus on three topics. With a looming worldwide energy crisis and with the understanding that nuclear energy is a cheap and clean solution for the energy needs of many countries, the first topic dealt with alternative energy sources and especially with the viability of nuclear energy as a solution. A number of conferences, conventions, and international treaties address the problem of hunger, yet, the problem still exist. The second issue was addressing world hunger as a human rights issue. Finally, in recent years the UN, individual countries, and a number of regional organizations have been called on carrying out peacekeeping missions. While those missions can be a great tool for the international community there are many questions related to the rules and operation of these forces. With a focus on the recent tragedy in Darfur, Sudan the third and final issue was international peacekeeping.

Each group had to conduct research on two levels. Firstly, they had to get familiar with the country they were representing. Knowing their country's history, geography, culture, and social structure in general was a great start, but they should also learn about their country's government, economy, and what the main problems their country currently deals with are. Have in mind, that they had to represent their country in the coming round of negotiations so the more they knew the better.

Second, they had to learn about the issue area their group would have to focus on. They started with the scenario, but expanded their research even more using other credible sources. Then they were able to know what their country's positions on the topic of discussion were and what their goals in the coming negotiations were. They should always stay true to representing their country even if personally they disagreed with that position, after all this is the work of real-world diplomats. When studying the topic of focus, they should also learn a little about what the position of other participating countries were because then they were able to anticipate their moves and tailor their interaction to what works with each country. They could use the country policy positions page on the web-site for that.

Finally, read over the agenda questions and were prepared to discuss those questions. Still, they were there to make progress on the issues at hand and they were welcome to raise any questions or concerns they may had to the international community, or come up with their own creative policy proposals for addressing these issues.

One last task was to prepare an opening statement for the first day of negotiations. Opening statements needed not be long, or seek to communicate everything a country-team knows about the issue, but were intended to spark interest and dialogue. The best opening statement was one that followed diplomatic protocol in welcoming other delegates to the negotiations, expressed in a concise fashion their country-team's position as well as its major goals and objectives for that particular issue area negotiation, and outlined a general roadmap for attaining those goals and objectives.