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.
IB World School? Built for the MYP — see the alignmentSee it in action
Two minutes inside a cohort
Real classrooms from our Spring 2026 cohorts — Ohio, Minnesota, and Ukraine — exploring the Festivals unit together, live.
“We run every session. You just bring your students.”
The experience arc
What it is
Not a pen-pal program.Not a one-off event.Something new.
Global Cohorts pairs your classroom with international peers for four weeks of live, facilitated sessions inside your existing schedule. Remove any of the four principles below and it stops working.
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.
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.*IB requires some planning by participating teachers when making Global Cohorts a qualifying IDU.
For IB World Schools
Built for the MYP — and for your IDU requirement.
Every unit is aligned to MYP Global Contexts, Key Concepts, and ATL skills. And with a short structured planning step, your two subject teachers make it their own collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit — co-planning guides included for every subject pairing.
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.
The division of labor
Your teacher shows up.Banyan handles the rest.
What Banyan does
- Runs every live session with a trained facilitator — opening each week with an awe anchor from somewhere in the world
- Provides the full curriculum, artifact prompts, and structured exchange
- Matches your partner classrooms and handles all scheduling
- Carries the asynchronous thread between sessions so each week picks up a real conversation
What your teacher does
- Opens the video call — one class period, once a week
- Participates alongside their students as a co-learner, not the sole expert
- Supports the short in-class artifact moments (a video, a drawing, a story)
- Watches their students realize the world is full of kids kind of like them
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
- Teachers who want authentic engagement, not another add-on
- Coordinators looking for repeatable, sustainable global programming
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. Two runs a year.
Each unit runs four weeks — one unit per month. The full sequence runs September through December, then the same four units run again February through May.
Fall · September to December
September
Festivals
“How do communities celebrate who they are?”
October
Murals
“What stories do communities paint on their walls — and why?”
November
Local Legends
“Whose stories shape our communities — and whose are missing?”
December
Gathering Spaces
“Why do people come together — and what do those spaces say about us?”
Spring · February to May · the same four units run again
Flexible entry. Enter in any month, join for a single unit, or run the full sequence — and a class that misses a unit in the fall can catch it in the spring.
Pilot results
Spring 2026 pilot results
Over two cohorts, middle-school classrooms in the United States, Ukraine, and Taiwan completed the four-week Festivals unit together — a Banyan facilitator leading every live session.
“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.