
What is Global Competence?
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World Savvy's Global Competence Matrix
This matrix was created in collaboration with Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Asia Society to support the launch of The Global Competence Certificate (GCC) — an online Master’s level certificate for in-service teachers to build a globally competent teaching practice. This matrix guides the development, implementation, and evaluation of all of World Savvy’s programs and services.
Behaviors
- Seeks out and applies an understanding of different perspectives to problem-solving and decision-making
- Forms opinions based on exploration and evidence
- Commits to the process of continuous learning and reflection
- Adopts shared responsibility and takes cooperative action
- Shares knowledge and encourages discourse
- Translates ideas, concerns, and findings into appropriate and responsible individual or collaborative actions to improve conditions
- Approaches thinking and problem-solving collaboratively
Values & Attitudes
- Embraces new opportunities, ideas, and ways of thinking
- Engages willingly and openly with others
- Demonstrates self-awareness about identity & culture, & sensitivity and respect for differences
- Values multiple perspectives
- Finds comfort with ambiguity & unfamiliar situations
- Reflects on the context and meaning of our lives in relationship to something bigger
- Questions prevailing assumptions
- Adapts to new situations and is cognitively nimble
- Chooses empathy
- Demonstrates humility
Skills
- Investigates the world by framing questions, analyzing, and synthesizing relevant evidence, and drawing reasonable conclusions that lead to further inquiry
- Recognizes, articulates, and applies an understanding of different perspectives (including their own)
- Selects and applies appropriate tools and strategies to communicate and collaborate effectively
- Listens actively and engages in inclusive dialogue
- Is fluent in 21st-century digital technology
- Demonstrates resiliency in new situations
- Applies critical, comparative, and creative thinking and problem-solving
Core Concepts
Building global competence is a journey, not an endpoint. It is an evolving, ongoing process that we engage in throughout our lives — not a checklist or a destination. These core concepts frame our understanding and assumptions of what the world is and will be:
World events and global issues are complex and interdependent.
One’s own culture and history is key to understanding one’s relationship to others.
Multiple conditions fundamentally affect diverse global forces, events, conditions, and issues.
The current world system is shaped by historical forces.