Real people, real places, real conversation.
Your classroom connected live with classrooms around the world.
A 4-week cohort program that connects your classroom to real students around the world through live sessions, personal storytelling, and genuine international peer exchange. Built to fit inside your existing schedule.
The experience arc
What it is
Not a pen-pal program.Not a one-off event.Something new.
Global Cohorts is a repeatable, live, cohort-based global learning program that creates meaningful student connection through awe-driven experiences, personal expression, and international peer exchange. It all happens inside existing school schedules.
Each cycle pairs your classroom with international peers for four weeks of live sessions that fit into a single class period. A trained Banyan facilitator hosts every session, so your teacher shows up as a co-learner. The curriculum does the heavy lifting. Your students do the connecting.
The result isn't a performance or a one-time cultural exchange. It's a felt experience: students who leave the cycle saying something like "I actually communicated with someone in another country, and they were kind of like me."
Built for IB World Schools and MYP coordinators.
See how Global Cohorts maps to MYP Global Contexts, Key Concepts, and ATL skills.
How it works
The 4-week arc
Each cycle follows a deliberate sequence. The structure isn't arbitrary. Every week is designed to build on the last, moving students from curiosity to genuine connection.
Big Question + Awe Anchor
A front-loaded live experience designed to create genuine awe: an encounter with something unexpected, beautiful, or hard to explain. Students leave with one personal "big question" to carry into the cycle.
Story
Students create a low-barrier personal artifact connected to the theme: a short video, a drawing with narration, a personal story. The focus is expression, not analysis. Sharing their own experience, not performing.
Comparison + Interpretation
Students engage with peer artifacts from their international cohort. They make observations, ask questions, and shift from "my story" to "what I'm learning about you and us." This is where the real exchange begins.
Wrap + Reciprocity Loop
Students respond, clarify, and synthesize. A culminating live connective moment brings the cohort back together, letting students land on something they genuinely feel, not just learned.
What a session looks like
Your teacher shows up.Banyan handles the rest.
A Banyan facilitator opens the session live with an awe anchor: something unexpected, beautiful, or hard to explain from somewhere in the world. The same moment reaches classrooms across multiple countries, each in their own time, all within the same week.
From there, the facilitator moves students through structured exchange: sharing artifacts, asking questions of international peers, building a real back-and-forth. Your teacher isn't managing the room. They're participating alongside their students.
During sessions, students complete a light artifact (a short video, a drawing, a personal story) that gets shared with their international cohort. This is where the asynchronous thread builds. When they come back live the next week, they're picking up a real conversation.
The non-negotiables
What makes Global Cohorts different
These aren't features. They're design principles. Remove any one of them and you don't have Global Cohorts anymore.
Live & synchronous
Every session happens in real time with a trained human facilitator. Not recorded. Not asynchronous. The live element is the point.
International by design
Classrooms are paired with international peers: not simulated global perspectives, but real students from different countries and cultures.
Repeatable over time
Connection doesn't happen in a single session. The 4-week arc is designed to build, each week layering meaning on top of the last.
Human-facilitated
Banyan's trained facilitators host every session, so your teacher shows up as a co-learner, not the sole expert.
Fits inside existing class time
Global Cohorts is designed to slot into ELA, social studies, advisory, homeroom, or enrichment blocks. No new period required.
Low lift for teachers
Teachers participate, they don't plan. Banyan handles curriculum, facilitation, partner matching, and scheduling so your team can focus on their students.
Who it's for
Built for teachers who want something real
Global Cohorts works best in classrooms where a teacher is already looking for authentic engagement: not another worksheet, not another tool, but an experience that actually moves their students.
- Students ages 10–14 (grades 5–8)
- Any subject: English, social studies, advisory, enrichment
- Classrooms with access to basic video conferencing
- Teachers who want authentic engagement, not another add-on
- Coordinators looking for repeatable, sustainable global programming
- Schools tired of one-off cultural events that don't go anywhere
What your school needs
Logistics & pricing
Simple to understand.Easy to budget.
One flat rate per classroom per cycle.No hidden fees.No per-student licensing.Just connect, and go.
Includes all facilitation, curriculum, partner matching, and scheduling.Volume pricing available for schools running multiple classrooms.
Request enrollment informationSchool year at a glance
Four units. One school year.
Each Global Cohorts unit runs 4 weeks and follows the same awe-driven arc. Together they form a full-year sequence, but schools can enter at any point or select individual units.
Festivals
Aug – Sep
“How do communities celebrate who they are?”
Murals
Oct – Nov
“What stories do communities paint on their walls — and why?”
Local Legends
Feb – Mar
“Whose stories shape our communities — and whose are missing?”
Gathering Spaces
Apr – May
“Why do people come together — and what do those spaces say about us?”
Festivals
Aug – Sep
“How do communities celebrate who they are?”
Murals
Oct – Nov
“What stories do communities paint on their walls — and why?”
Winter break
Local Legends
Feb – Mar
“Whose stories shape our communities — and whose are missing?”
Gathering Spaces
Apr – May
“Why do people come together — and what do those spaces say about us?”
Flexible entry. Schools can enter at any point in the sequence or select individual units that fit their curriculum calendar.
Pilot results
March 2026 Festivals cohort
Three middle-school classrooms in the United States and Taiwan completed the 4-week Festivals unit together.
“It made me feel like even though the world is a ginormous place there are still many similarities between many different types of people.
“My students were willing to share — even post videos — with the other schools. There was no awkwardness, which is not normal for middle schoolers.
Built on 17 years of proof
Global Cohorts is built on the same model as our 17-year partnership with Tsai Hsing School in Taipei.
Since 2009, Banyan has delivered daily live sessions to Taipei students in grades K–9. Alumni at Northwestern, NYU, Georgetown, University of Michigan, and more. Global Cohorts has taken that model and made it available to any school, anywhere.
Read the Tsai Hsing case studyReady to connect your classroom to the world?
Cohorts fill quickly. Reach out to learn about upcoming cycle dates, enrollment requirements, and whether Global Cohorts is the right fit for your school.