This is Minji Oh from iEARN-USA. I am an intern for communication and development position as part of the Korea West exchange program. As part of a special project to share stories about the iEARN community, I was fortunate to interview Rebecca Hodges, an active iEARN-USA member, and learn about her experience in iEARN and the impact of collaboration on her and her students. I am happy to share Rebecca’s story!

Rebecca Hodges is an anthropologist, international educator, and big fan of iEARN. She has a Bachelors of International Relations, Masters in Islamic & Near Eastern Studies, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology based on fieldwork on the Education Reform for a Knowledge Economy in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Rebecca is an International Baccalaureate Anthropology and Theory of Knowledge teacher and serves as Social Studies department chair at Lausanne Collegiate School, an international school in Memphis, Tennessee USA.

Rebecca is committed to world class education and has been involved with iEARN since 2005.  She co-presented on social media integration with iEARN Jordan’s director Khitam al-Utaibi at the 2013 iEARN Conference and Youth Summit in Doha, Qatar.  She loves iEARN’s slogan to “learn ‘with’ the world, not just ‘about’ it” and believes iEARN projects are some of the best opportunities to connect with other people around the world in a systematic way.

Rebecca shared her reflection about what the students thought about their iEARN project experience: 

“When you learn with other people, your viewpoint broadens. You get to see other perspectives. The students care so much more about iEARN projects than normal assignments because they get to work with other people and get to talk to them. It makes them feel more real.”

Check out a video example of Rebecca's students project work in the Finding Solutions to Hunger Project. 

How did participating in a global exchange project impact her students? Rebecca shared that the projects “help people think outside of their own perspective - my students normally do not think about the world outside of their state but now they’ve looked at things through the eyes of other countries. It got them to think about outside of their perspective and to see into different cultures.”

At the 2018 iEARN Conference, Rebecca hopes to connect with more teachers around the world to build long-lasting relationships needed to facilitate excellent global, collaborative, fun, challenging, and empowering projects.