Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals
This online professional development has two tracks designed to offer you a mode of learning that best fits your professional and personal needs.
This professional development is open to educators of all backgrounds (grade level, subject area, independent or public schools, etc.). The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals allow for curricular connections at all levels. We invite all educators to consider what it means to engage students in thinking critically about global challenges.
We’ve designed this professional development to allow educators to engage with meaningful content around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals while also supporting goals they have for their unique school contexts. Course instructors provide feedback on projects created during the professional development individually or in groups that can be shared with or implemented in their schools. This professional development also awards participants 20 Clock Hours and 20 CTLEs.
Hybrid Track
Where: Online*
When: January 11 - January 31, 2021 with synchronous sessions on Thursdays (January 14, January 21, January 28) from 8:00-9:30 pm EDT
Description: In the hybrid track, participants will attend 3 synchronous sessions with Dr. Gaudelli to discuss the background of the SDGs as well as issues and challenges with the goals. These conversations will prompt educators to consider how to engage the goals with students. Participants will also read scholarship on the goals and interact with colleagues through discussion boards asynchronously. By the end of the professional development, participants will create a teaching toolkit for the SDGs in groups. This professional development should involve 20 hours of participants’ time in total.
Benefits:
- Connect and network with like-minded educators with diverse backgrounds
- Expand your understanding of SDGs through dialogue with educators, Professor Bill Gaudelli and Lehigh's College of Education faculty
- Receive written and verbal feedback from Lehigh's College of Education faculty
*Participation in the synchronous sessions will require a strong internet connection and a headset.
Asynchronous Track
Where: Online
When: January 11 - January 31, 2021
Description: In the asynchronous track, participants are able to complete readings and assignments on the SDGs at their own pace and without attending synchronous sessions. Participants will watch Dr. Gaudelli’s lectures, read scholarship on the goals, and interact with colleagues through discussion boards. Dr. Gaudelli and his course assistant will have available and optional online office hours to further support your work. By the end of the professional development, participants will create a teaching toolkit for the SDGs individually. This professional development should involve 20 hours of participants’ time in total. This track may appeal to international educators in particular given potential differences in time zones.
Benefits:
- Connect and network with like-minded educators with diverse backgrounds
- Expand your understanding of SDGs through dialogue with educators, Professor Bill Gaudelli and Lehigh's College of Education faculty
- Receive written and verbal feedback from Lehigh's College of Education faculty
Units Awarded: Participants will receive 20 Clock Hours and 20 CTLEs for this professional development.
Any attendee who is taking this course for CTLE credit for NY State must enter their name exactly as it appears on the TEACH website in accordance with NYSED requirements.
This January, join Dr. William Gaudelli, Professor and Dean of the College of Education at Lehigh University for online professional development using the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, 2015-2030. Taken together, the 17 comprehensive goals are full of real-world connections to prepare young people for living in a globally interconnected world. No matter your teaching background, this professional development will provide you with meaningful curriculum connections that can be found in the goals, including policy and civic dimensions for social studies, educational access with respect to teaching language and literacy, climate change and species extinction for science educators, and statistical measurements for mathematics teaching. Particular attention will be paid to the current COVID-19 crisis, specifically how the world finds itself in the current situation, what value the SDGs have for addressing the contemporary crises and future ones as well as approaches to teaching about the global pandemic.
Registration Fee: $375
Group/Team Discount (5 or more): 25% off the registration fee, please contact cps@tc.columbia.edu to register.
Register today! Registration is facilitated by Teacher's College Continuing Professional Development office. Please visit their website and follow links to register.
Dr. William Gaudelli
Professor and Dean of the College of Education
Lehigh University
William Gaudelli, Ed.D. is the 8th Dean of the College of Education at Lehigh University. Dean Gaudelli’s career spans more than 25-years as a classroom teacher, researcher, professor, and seasoned administrator. A prominent international scholar, his research areas focus on global citizenship education and teacher education and development.
Dr. Gaudelli most recently served as the Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities, at Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to his department chair role, he was both a faculty member and program director of the social studies program. Before joining Columbia in 2006, Dr. Gaudelli held the position of associate professor and program supervisor at the University of Central Florida.
He has published over 60 scholarly pieces and three books. His research in global citizenship education and teacher development is widely read among scholars and has garnered over 900 citations on Google Scholar. In his latest book, Global Citizenship Education: Everyday Transcendence, he offers an analysis of global citizenship education in various locales.
Dr. Gaudelli is a frequent keynoter at international conferences and guest lecturer at various universities. Over the past five years, Dr. Gaudelli has given over 40 invited keynotes and talks, most recently in China, Italy, Israel, Thailand, Japan, India, Poland, Hong Kong, and South Korea. He has participated in panel discussions and conferences with UNESCO, UNAI, UNAOC, and WFUNA and a wide-range of professional organizations.
He co-founded the Global Competence Certificate (GCC) program in partnership with Asia Society and World Savvy, two global education non-profits. The GCC is built in an online environment that promotes high-touch interactions between faculty and students while leveraging digital technologies to enhance participant experience. Dr. Gaudelli was also elected to the South Orange-Maplewood School Board in 2011 where he served for over three years, part of the time as board vice-president.
Dr. Gaudelli completed his master’s degree in 1995 and his doctoral degree in 2000 at Rutgers University – Graduate School of Education in social studies education. He taught social studies in the Hunterdon Central Regional High School for ten years prior to moving into higher education.
Our name notwithstanding, Teachers College at Columbia University was founded on the proposition that education alone can’t correct our society’s inequalities — that to maximize the life chances of all people, we must also support poorer communities’ physical and nutritional health and psychological wellbeing. Thus, fields such as education psychology, nursing education, nutrition education, special education, conflict resolution and spirituality and education were created at TC, and for more than a century we have prepared psychologists, nutritionists, health educators, speech pathologists and other professionals, as well as teachers and school leaders.
Today, more than a third of our tenure track faculty are psychologists and health educators, and we continue to take a multidisciplinary approach, combining our strengths across fields to tackle the world’s most challenging problems. We offer more than 100 programs in our four core areas of expertise — education, health, psychology and leadership — and conduct research on topics that range from the impact of poverty on the brain to the legal basis for a Constitutional right to education; from hip-hop pedagogy to the revival of Inca languages in Latin American schools; from the study of motherhood as a developmental stage to the exploration of resilience in military veterans; from the impact of microaggressions on mental and physical wellbeing to language development in children on the autism spectrum; and so much more.
When we speak of education, we mean education writ large — the study of how people learn, and how they should be taught, in all fields. And that, ultimately, is why we continue to proudly call ourselves…Teachers College.
Overall:
“I was thrilled to discover that there are many resources I can use in the classroom, from examples of hands on activities to great lesson plans.”
“Through the videos, reading, and researching information for the teaching toolkit, I discovered numerous ideas and activities for teaching the goals in my classroom and introducing the goals to the younger students at my school.”
“I loved learning about the history of SDGs and how it is and always will be a work in progress and a proof that humans do care about each other. The critique of the goals was fascinating and eye-opening on the constant presence of the imperial norms in the world.”
“This course opened my eyes to endless opportunities within global education.”
Future Directions:
“I would like to start a sustainability committee at my school. I might also like to lead a PD group at my school on how to implement the SDGs 2015-2030 into the classroom curriculum.”
“I will plan all the units for my AP class around the global challenges the College Board recommends we cover and the SDG goals and targets I've learned about.”
“I plan on using the information as I work and coach the multi age middle school team in my building.”
“I cannot imagine teaching a foreign language without including SDGs.”
Examples of Participants’ Projects:
- High school interdisciplinary unit (Latin, history, and English/language arts) about global inequality (SDG Goal 10)
- Sixth grade science unit on clean water (SDG Goal 6)
- Interdisciplinary project (Spanish and English) in which students create a PSA in both languages around hunger and responsible consumption and production (SDG Goals 2 and 10)
- Handbook on tackling inequality (SDG Goal 10) within US schools, e.g. tracking or leveling, for school community
- Upper elementary school lesson plan exploring issues of inequality (SDG Goal 10) such as immigration through young adult literature
- Middle school interdisciplinary lesson (math and English) on quality education for all (SDG Goal 4)
- Middle school interdisciplinary unit (social studies and science) on climate action (SDG Goal 13) leading to a capstone research project
Please direct inquiries about this professional development to the Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals, 2015-2030, course assistant, Melissa Mitchem, at mcm2267@tc.columbia.edu.