Germantown Friends School is excited to be one of the founding members of the Global Online Academy, a not-for-profit organization offering world-class online courses—including Comparative Government: Campaigns and Elections, Medical Problem Solving, Environmental Economics and Urban Studies: The Evolution of Cities—taught by passionate and gifted teachers from the world’s leading independent schools. There are currently 21 schools in the GOA consortium, including Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., Lakeside School in Seattle, Punahou School in Honolulu and The Dalton School in New York.
The mission of the Global Online Academy is to replicate in online classrooms the intellectually rigorous programs and excellent teaching that are hallmarks of its member schools; to foster new and effective ways for students to learn; and to promote students’ global awareness and understanding by creating truly diverse, worldwide, online classroom communities. Global Online courses will be limited to 18 students per class, who will work independently as well as collaborate on projects using Skype, the Internet and the telephone. The courses, for students in eleventh and twelfth grades, are meant to supplement, not replace, traditional classes. This fall, Biology teacher Alyson Solomon will offer an Introduction to Bioethics and in the spring, Upper School English teacher Meg Goldner Rabinowitz will lead her very popular Media Studies course.
As a founding member of the Global Online Academy, GFS can now offer courses that would not otherwise be available to our students, as well as share our own teachers’ expertise with students beyond our campus and make our signature courses more widely available. The Global Online Academy program brings together great teachers and great students in an interactive, rigorous learning environment; provides a wide range of courses that challenge, motivate and stimulate students; and creates classroom identities that represent global perspectives by tapping into geographical, cultural and ethnic diversities made possible by a rich online environment.
In addition to GFS, Lakeside, Sidwell Friends, Punahou and Dalton, the Global Online Academy’s participating schools include Albuquerque Academy (Albuquerque, NM); Catlin Gabel School (Portland, OR); Cranbrook Schools (Bloomfield Hills, MI); Head-Royce School (Oakland, CA); King’s Academy (Madaba-Manja, Jordan); American School in Japan (Tokyo); The Blake School (Minneapolis); Greenhill School (Addison, TX); The Harker School (San Jose, CA); International School of Beijing (Beiging, China); Isidore Newman School (New Orleans); Jakarta International School (Jakarta, Indonesia); Latin School of Chicago (Chicago); Noble and Greenough (Dedham, MA); The Westminster Schools (Atlanta); and Windward School (Los Angeles).