School Information

WHAT WE DO

Level Up Village is globalizing the classroom!

A social impact company based in Tarrytown, NY we deliver pioneering global STEAM (STEM plus Arts) enrichment courses that promote design thinking and collaboration on real-world problems between students from around the world. Our courses provide students with the necessary 21st century workforce readiness skills they need to be prepared for the global economy.

Level Up Village has run courses in close to 1,000 schools and in 20+ countries around the world, with almost 60,000 participating students:

For more information, find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

LEVEL UP VILLAGE

Hello, my name is Amy McCooe,

Level Up Village was founded on the belief that global education provides a path to a more peaceful and productive world. By giving children from different countries an opportunity to communicate and collaborate together at an early age, we help provide them with the necessary skills to succeed in the global village.

Our mission is to globalize the classroom. We provide the curriculum, the technology, the teacher training and access to our network of global partners around the world to facilitate seamless global collaboration between students. We have already seen amazing results as students from Nagarote, Nicaragua, to Dallas, Texas, to Karachi, Pakistan, learn to work together through hands-on STEAM classes with social impact. Our courses cover topics such as CAD & 3D printing, programming, coding, video game design, web design, and more. Our collaborative, ever growing global course lists solidify relationships and build a love for science and iterative thinking.

LUV started in late 2012 with one class with eight students in Connecticut and has now worked with 60,000 students around the world. On a daily basis, students and their global partners send and receive hundreds of video letters and collaboration files to each other and spend time video chatting with each other through the LUV Global Communication Platform.

Each global partner organization who works with us can be assured that its students will receive abundant exposure to cutting-edge STEAM courses as well as ample opportunity to practice English communication skills. Our extensive professional development portal provides seamless online STEAM training for our Global Partner teachers.

Welcome to our team and thank you for helping spread global education throughout the world.

Amy McCooe

Click on the image below to watch a short slide show about Level Up Village:

GLOBAL COMPETENCY

How globally competent are you?

Teacher Self Assessment:

Before we get started with learning about global competence, take some time to think about what you might already know. To give you an idea of where you are on your global learning journey, we have provided a link to the Globally Competent Learning Continuum created by ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Don’t worry, no one will see it except you. It is a great way to determine where you are in your thinking and teaching for global competence and will help you set personal and professional goals for the future.

There are 12 essential elements focusing on Dispositions, Knowledge and Skills. An example for Empathy element is provided below. Click on the hotlink to access the full resource web page. To use this tool read each element from left to right deciding where you best fit on the continuum from just beginning (Nascent) to Advanced. We highly recommend that you take note of your results and save them. You may then revisit this continuum at the end of LUV course teaching experience to re- evaluate yourself and reflect your professional growth.

CONNECTIVITY WITH A LUV GLOBAL PARTNER

OUR COURSES:

LUV courses usually run for an 8-week period – weeks 1-4 include STEAM Foundation topic activities and on-line profile preparation and sharing, with the introduction to global competency and digital citizenship. Weeks 5-8 allow for four course video exchanges and collaboration project work to be shared and discussed. We recommend planning to spend 60-90 minutes per week on these activities – completion is flexible within the 7 day period – all activities are due by Friday of each week.

Weeks 1-4:

Course overview and introduction to global competency Foundational classroom discussion/STEAM work Demonstration of LUV Platform and LUV Code of Honor

By the end of Week 4:

Completion of LUV Profile:
5 ‘About Me’ Questions
3 ‘About Me’ Videos
Favorite music, films, photos chosen

Weeks 5-8:

Weekly interactions with partner – collaborating, communicating, sharing, iterating

CLICK HERE to view an example curriculum
CLICK HERE to view an example workbook
CLICK HERE to view an example assessment packet

Click on the image below to watch a video of a typical 1:1 exchange between a student from Dallas connecting with a student from Bangladesh, discussing their Global Scientists course:

ISTE STANDARDS FOR LUV COURSES

Level Up Village is the first organization to receive the ISTE Seal of Alignment at the Proficiency Level for the 2016 ISTE Standards for Students. LUV’s pioneering global STEAM courses also align with NGSS and Common Core standards and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Empowered Learner

1.c – Use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Digital Citizen

2.c – Demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.

Knowledge Constructor

3.d – Build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

Innovator Designer

4.a – Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
4.c – Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.

4.d – Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.

Computational Thinker

5.d – Understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.

Creative Communicator

6.b – Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.

Global Collaborator

7.a – Use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning. 7.b – Use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints. 7.d – Explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions.

LUV COURSES

LUV offers global STEAM courses to students from pre-K through to 9th grade.

Please click here for a full course list with summary information for each course.

For a more in-depth look at our courses we can also provide 4-page flyers which provide more detail on the weekly activities and demonstrate the alignments to standards – an example of one of these flyers for our Global Inventors course is provided here and digital copies for all courses can be found here:

LUV COURSE RESOURCES

During a LUV course students will connect with their partners via the LUV Global Communication Platform. Teachers login via the Teacher Portal where they will find all the resources necessary for training, preparation and management of the course. The curriculum also contains a full materials list with links to easy ordering of supplies, should any be required. 1:1 Students login via the Student Portal.