New School Student Ambassadors

The Project will provide an international project-based participatory learning experience that:

Project-based educational programs will be delivered to teams that combine Chinese and US students through online, interactive environments making maximum use of social media, social production, collaboration, and communication (text, audio, video) tools. New School Student Ambassadors has fully developed and piloted joint US-Chinese participatory learning, project-based programs using open source course management, electronic portfolios, and activity management systems. Through a network of collaborating professionals and organizations, we support teacher/coaching professional development in both China and the US.

Our participatory learning programs are designed to have a positive effect on increasing cross-cultural educational experiences, developing student global awareness and cultural sensitivity, improving creativity and innovation through cross-cultural teamwork, solving real-world problems, and simulating 21st century working relationships in a global knowledge economy.

The online project-based learning activities are designed to serve as preparation for exchange trips and face-to-face visits between participating Chinese and US students. Through a unique collaborative relationship with Chinese organizations aimed at improving educational opportunities in impoverished regions, our US-Chinese student exchange will focus on the sustainability of sensitive cultural, economic, and environmental ecosystems, and prepare US and Chinese students for international education programs and meaningful work in a knowledge economy.

The Project is the first significant attempt to demonstrate a sustainable project-based experience that fosters participatory learning between US students and students from impoverished regions of northwest China. As China makes significant economic and geopolitical progress at the dawn of the 21st century, the challenge is to develop programs that include populations that have not yet fully participated in the benefits of modernization and globalization and who are also part of a fragile ecosystem of cultural and ethnic sub-groups. There is no better place than northwest China to demonstrate the benefits of participatory learning to prepare students, both US and Chinese, for productive lives and quality opportunities in a 21st century economy, while preserving a balance of ethnic and cultural continuity.

The vision of New School Student Ambassadors is to leverage a collaborative network of organizations, talented professionals, and community interest groups to create and deliver highly innovative educational and cultural exchanges between widely disparate groups of learners. The programs that deliver these experiences will capitalize on the nearly frictionless cost of collaboration, communication, and social media tools that define the interactive World Wide Web and virtual worlds now accessible in every remote corner of the planet. The result will be a cross-cultural experience that thoroughly prepares learners for a deep and respectful appreciation for the unfamiliar spirits of people who live their daily lives much differently than we do.

In 2009, New School Student Ambassadors will team up with joint venture partners in China to develop and launch a pilot private school model to bring US style education opportunities to post-primary students in rural regions of ethnically and culturally diverse northwest China (including the provinces of Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Xinjiang).