Global Perspectives Criteria

Definition

Global Perspectives entails a critical analysis of and an engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability. Through global learning, students should

  1. become informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences,

  2. seek to understand how their actions affect both local and global communities, and

  3. address the world’s most pressing and enduring issues collaboratively and equitably.

Framing Language

Effective and transformative global learning offers students meaningful opportunities to analyze and explore complex global challenges, collaborate respectfully with diverse others, apply learning to take responsible action in contemporary global contexts, and evaluate the goals, methods, and consequences of that action.

Global learning should enhance students’ sense of identity, community, ethics, and perspective- taking.

Global learning is based on the principle that the world is a collection of interdependent yet inequitable systems and that higher education has a vital role in expanding knowledge of human and natural systems, privilege and stratification, and sustainability and development to foster individuals’ ability to advance equity and justice at home and abroad.

We hold to the principle that global learning cannot be achieved in a single course or a single experience, but is acquired cumulatively across students’ entire college career through an institution’s curricular and co-curricular programming; given, however, that the Global Miami Plan requires only 6 credit hours of Global Perspectives, we see these classes as an intellectual and political point of departure in a process of lifelong learning that includes global perspectives, self-awareness, cultural diversity, social responsibility, applied knowledge, and an understanding of global systems.  Global awareness, especially, remains as an ideal point toward which we should vigilantly and assiduously strive.  To fulfill the Global Perspectives requirement, a class must begin to penetrate a student’s cultural, ethnic, national, and linguistic insularity.  A Global Perspectives class will be multinational and comparative, and it will extrapolate global patterns of geopolitical, economic, and historical shifts.

As this rubric is designed to assess Global Perspectives on institutional, curricular, and pedagogical levels across a student’s undergraduate education, the benchmarks (levels 1-4) may not be all be directly applicable to a singular exercise or assignment, but all courses denoted as Global Perspectives should implement as many of these goals as possible during the semester.

To Qualify as a Global Perspectives course for the Global Miami Plan, a class must fulfill criteria in the six areas delineated below, clear benchmarks in all areas, and accumulate 8 total points toward these benchmarks, milestones, and capstones.

Global Perspectives Rubric
Criteria Capstone = 3 points Milestone = 2 points Benchmark = 1 point
Global Self-Awareness: in the context of global learning, the continuum through which students develop a mature, integrated identity with a systemic understanding of the interrelationships among the self, local and global communities, and the natural and physical world. Analyzes the global impact of one’s own and others’ specific local actions on the natural and human world. Evaluates ways that human actions influence the natural and human world.

Identifies some connections between an individual’s personal decision-making and certain local and global issues.

 
Perspective Taking: the ability to engage and learn from perspectives and experiences different from one’s own and to understand how one’s place in the world both informs and limits one’s knowledge. The goal is to develop the capacity to understand the interrelationships between multiple perspectives, such as personal, social, cultural, disciplinary, environmental, local, and global. Synthesizes other perspectives (such as cultural, disciplinary, and ethical) when investigating subjects within natural and human systems. Identifies and explains multiple perspectives (such as cultural, disciplinary, and ethical) when exploring subjects within natural and human systems. Identifies multiple perspectives while maintaining a value preference for own positioning (such as cultural, disciplinary, and ethical).

Cultural Diversity: the ability to recognize the origins and influences of one’s own cultural heritage along with its limitations in providing all that one needs to know in the world. This includes the curiosity to learn respectfully about the cultural diversity of other people and on an individual level to traverse cultural boundaries to bridge differences and collaboratively reach common goals.

 On a systems level, the important skill of comparatively analyzing how cultures can be marked and assigned a place within power structures that determine hierarchies, inequalities, and opportunities and which can vary over time and place. This can include, but is not limited to, understanding race, ethnicity, gender, nationhood, religion, and class.

Analyzes substantial connections between the worldviews, power structures, and experiences of multiple cultures historically or in contemporary contexts.

 Explains and connects two or more cultures historically or in contemporary contexts with some acknowledgement of power structures. Describes the experiences of others historically or in contemporary contexts primarily through one cultural perspective, demonstrating some openness to varied cultures and worldviews.
Personal and Social Responsibility: the ability to recognize one’s responsibilities to society--locally, nationally, and globally--and to develop a perspective on ethical and power relations both across the globe and within individual societies. This requires developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning and action. Analyzes the ethical, social, and environmental consequences of global systems and identifies a range of actions informed by one’s sense of personal and civic responsibility. Explains the ethical, social, and environmental consequences of local and national decisions on global systems. Identifies basic ethical dimensions of some local or national decisions that have global impact.

Global Systems: the complex and overlapping worldwide systems, including natural systems (those systems associated with the natural world including biological, chemical, and physical sciences) and human systems (those systems developed by humans such as cultural, economic, political, and built), which operate in observable patterns and often are affected by or are the result of human design or disruption. These systems influence how life is lived and what options are open to whom. Students need to understand how these systems

1) are influenced and/or constructed,

2) operate with differential consequences,

3) affect the human and natural world, and

4) can be altered.

 Analyzes major elements of global systems, including their historic and contemporary interconnections and the differential effects of human organizations and actions, to pose elementary solutions to complex problems in the human and natural worlds. Examines the historical and contemporary roles, interconnections, and differential effects of human organizations and actions on global systems within the human and the natural worlds. Identifies the basic role of some global and local institutions, ideas, and processes in the human and natural worlds.

Knowledge Application: in the context of global learning, the application of an integrated and systemic understanding of the interrelationships between contemporary and past challenges facing cultures, societies, and the natural world (i.e., contexts) on the local and global levels. An ability to apply knowledge and skills gained through higher learning to real-life problem-solving both alone and with others.

Plans and evaluates more complex solutions to global challenges that are appropriate to their contexts using multiple disciplinary perspectives (such as cultural, historical, and scientific).

 Formulates practical yet elementary solutions to global challenges that use at least two disciplinary perspectives (such as cultural, historical, and scientific).

Defines global challenges in basic ways, including a limited number of perspectives and solutions.