Dr. Kevin Cordi named Global Teacher Education Fellow with the LongView Foundation

Dr. Kevin D. Cordi, assistant professor of education and literacy and the middle school coordinator at Ohio University Lancaster, has been accepted for a national honor. Out of nationwide applications, Cordi was chosen to become a Global Teacher Education Fellow with the LongView Foundation.  

The GTE fellows are teacher educators who represent a diverse range of expertise. Cordi will be aligned with a mentor who will work with him to design a class so that it prepares him to enable the class to be taught for global learning.  

Under the mentorship of experts in the field of global learning, each of the selected fellows will revise an undergraduate or graduate course which they teach in an initial teacher preparation program. The revised course will include global learning outcomes that will be enacted through engaging activities, resources and assessments aimed at promoting global learning. Fellows will then pilot and assess the revised course with a class of their own teacher candidates during the academic year.

In addition to having access to global library resources, this summer fall, and spring, Cordi will work with a cohort of experts and concerned educators for global education.

Cordi will redesign his middle childhood education course to reflect global learning. He will teach this revised class in the spring of 2022. He recognizes that tomorrow’s classroom is changing.

"We need to invite and recognize that we need to prepare to teach in classrooms without walls," Cordi said. "We can engage in global virtual learning and work to invite lessons in global learning. Many classrooms have more and more cultures represented in the student body. We need to help pre-service educators to welcome but also be prepared for these future classrooms."

Cordi is excited about being part of this program, especially working with his mentor. Cordi will work with Dr. Kathy Short from the University of Arizona. Short is a professor in teaching, learning and sociocultural studies at the University of Arizona whose scholarship and teaching center around children's and adolescent literature in a diverse society. She is the Founder's Endowed Chair of Global Children's and Adolescent Literature at the University of Arizona. She is also the director of Worlds of Words: Center of Global Literacies and Literatures.  

“I am more than excited to learn from Dr. Short. In our initial meeting she shared new literature and we discussed methods that will only benefit not only me, but my students,” Cordi said. “I know I will learn new and innovative global methods to re-look at the class. I can’t wait to provide these resources to my future classes.”

Cordi has traveled and studied global learning when he was a student at Kent State University and spent a semester studying at the University of Sheffield. When he was a teacher, he was a Fulbright Memorial Fund Recipient and studied education methods in Japan. He looks forward to this new adventure. Cordi’s work has enabled him to share in Scotland, England, Japan, Canada, Singapore, and Qatar. 

“I am always a student as much as a professor. There is so much to learn from around the world, I will never stop learning,” Cordi said. “As I tell my students, this helps make us better teachers.”

Find out more about the program at Longview: Overview (longviewfdn.org)

Two other Ohio University professors are Global Teacher Education Fellows, Dr. Jacqueline Yahn at Ohio University Eastern and Dr. Michael Kopish at Athens. “I am in good company and proud to add to the GTEs at Ohio University,” Cordi said.

Learn more about Cordi's Middle Childhood Education program at Ohio University Lancaster.