The NEA Foundation has announced that Melissa Collins, a 2nd grade educator at John P. Freeman Optional School in Memphis and a 2013 Global Learning Fellow, has been selected, through a competitive process, to participate in another global learning experience, the Maverick Teachers Global Summit in Kuppam, India.

Over the past six years, the NEA Foundation’s Global Learning Fellowship has provided 190 educators, including Collins, with a year-long professional development opportunity to lead the profession by acquiring the necessary skills to integrate global competence into their daily classroom instruction, advance pedagogy in their schools and districts, prepare students to thrive in the flattened global age, and thus contribute to the closing of the global achievement gap.

Collins has used knowledge gained from this Fellowship to change how she teaches and engages students with the wider world. She created a globally minded lesson plan that has been shared with other educators in her school and online. As part of the Fellowship, Collins traveled with educators from around the US to Brazil, where they exchanged ideas and practices with local educators.

For many educators, the NEA Foundation’s Global Learning Fellowship is the beginning of a learning journey that continues in a variety of ways.  This summer, Collins is taking her knowledge to new heights by participating in the Maverick Teachers Global Summit, joining 35 outstanding educators selected from around the world.

At the Summit, Collins will spend July 17 - 24 with a select group of educators and experts discussing "pedagogies for the future to support education for a sustainable world," according to host Agastya International Foundation.  Agastya aims to revitalize and transform education in India and to provide an affordable model that can be replicated anywhere in the world. Together these educators and thinkers will combine their knowledge and expertise to develop ideas that will help underprivileged students in India as well as their students back home.