Suggested Practices for Educators

Supporting Respectful Dialogue & Building Community
One of the major goals of The Open Canopy is for students to connect respectfully and thoughtfully with others. This document offers some suggested practices for educators to use as they encourage good digital citizenship among their learners. It also answers specific questions about how The Open Canopy is monitored and moderated.

Encouraging Thoughtful Cross-Cultural Inquiry & Exchange
This document is intended to make The Open Canopy’s aspirations for students’ experiences with cross-cultural inquiry and exchange more explicit. We hope educators will find these suggested practices helpful as they support their students in developing their thinking about different cultures—ones that are both close to and seemingly very far from home.

Participating in The Open Canopy & Other Online Learning Communities
On The Open Canopy, students engage in meaningful learning experiences offline, then share their work on the Open Canopy platform where they have the opportunity to make authentic connections with their online peers. This document shares tips and resources intended to support educators and caregivers who may be new to this learning format.

Nine Powerful Teacher Moves for Deepening Student Dialogue
How do we support students to go beyond just "liking" an online post? What strategies and tools might we offer to deepen their exchanges?  This document shares teacher moves for using and extending a resource known as The Dialogue Toolkit (DTK). The Nine Powerful Teacher Moves for Deepening Student Dialogue emerged from a series of interviews with educators whose students participate in global online learning communities. In these teachers' classrooms, students use the DTK to support thoughtful dialogue in both online and in-person discussions.