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  3. Quick Start Guide: Global Issues
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  2. Global Issues
  3. Quick Start Guide: Global Issues

Quick Start Guide: Global Issues

Welcome

New? Find everything you need to know to get started with our Global Issues program and get to work preparing for the Future Problem Solving competition season.

Program overview
Our Global Issues program uses imagined “what if” future scenarios to describe real world problem situations needing to be solved. Students predict problems and solutions for 20-30 years from now.

Getting started

  1. Get familiar with how Global Issues works
  2. Review the 6-step problem-solving model
  3. Get familiar with the current season schedule 
  4. Review an example of student work with evaluation
  5. Develop your plan for coaching practice problems

1. How Global Issues works

In Global Issues, students learn to thoroughly research and analyze real world issues and use our proven 6-step problem-solving method to develop relevant action plans. In only a two hour competition window, they apply their problem-solving skills and their topic knowledge to an imagined future scenario.

2. 6-step problem-solving model

Students use the 5Cs of 21st Century Learning throughout the Future Problem Solving process. With each step, they predict possibilities for a topic-related situation 20 to 40 years in the future. Students use our 6-step process to develop a relevant action plan for an imagined future scene on an assigned topic.

Global Issues Problem Solving Process All 6 Steps

3. How the competition season works

Each school year, students get 3-5 opportunities, based on their progress in local and regional competitions, to solve important global challenges.

Review the season topics

The website Topics Center is your one-stop shop for current and past topics information and links to topic-specific resources. Find everything you need on each topic page:

Review a future scene example

Review the available competition season topics materials

Review your local FPS calendar

4. What student work looks like

Students complete the 6-step process for the future scene they are addressing. In each example, you can read a future scene, the student work, and the evaluation highlights together.

Coaching tool tip
Our Global Issues champions publications offer new coaches a wealth of resources to use as a mock competition or step-by-step practice. What’s inside:
– Step-by-step introduction: Step instructions, how to’s, student tips, and helpful resources links
– What an evaluator looks for: Scoring breakdown and scoring rubric
– Future scene: Competition future scenes by division
– Meet the winners: Photos and biographical information
– Student examples: Complete winners booklets for both team and individual submissions are shown by step
– Evaluation examples: Side-by-side display of scores for three evaluations and curated comments from evaluators
Learn more

5. Top tools for coaching practice problems

This Resources Library has free tools to help you get started with the 6-step process. Use these tools to give your students a strong basis for the first three steps of the problem-solving process.

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April Michele

April Michele Bio

Executive Director

A seasoned educator, April Michele has served as the Executive Director since 2018 and been with Future Problem Solving more than a decade. Her background in advanced curriculum strategies and highly engaging learning techniques translates well in the development of materials, publications, training, and marketing for the organization and its global network. April’s expertise includes pedagogy and strategies for critical and creative thinking and providing quality educational services for students and adults worldwide.

Prior to joining Future Problem Solving, April taught elementary and middle grades, spending most of her classroom career in Gifted Education. She earned the National Board Certification (NBPTS) as a Middle Childhood/Generalist and later served as a National Board Assessor for the certification of others. She was trained and applied the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) in Humanities, which helped widen the educational scope and boundaries beyond the U.S. In addition, April facilitated the Theory and Development of Creativity course for state level certification of teachers. She has also collaborated on a variety of special projects through the Department of Education.

A graduate of the University of Central Florida with a bachelor’s in Elementary Education and the University of South Florida with a master’s in Gifted Education, April’s passion is providing a challenging curriculum for 21st century students so they are equipped with the problem solving and ethical leadership skills they need to thrive in the future. As a board member in her local Rotary Club, she facilitates problem solving in leadership at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA). She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute and earned her certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Edyth Bush Institute at Rollins College.