You did it. Your first international project happened — your students met another classroom, you held a session across time zones, something travelled between two countries that wouldn’t have travelled otherwise. That is the hard part, and it is already behind you.
This is a kind, unhurried checklist for what to do after your first international project — twelve small prompts grouped into three sections. The point is not to evaluate yourself or to plan a bigger second project. The point is to take a quiet moment to notice what happened, hold on to the parts you want to remember, and leave yourself a few notes that future-you will appreciate the next time you open a project template.
Nothing in this checklist is required. Tick what is useful, skip what is not. The work maps gently onto the Reflection phase of the Class2Class methodology — applied this time to you, the teacher.
Why the days after your first international project are worth a small pause
A project leaves traces. Some are in the students’ work, some are in the screenshots, and some are in the small impressions that fade if nothing is done with them — the moment a quiet student spoke up, the joke that landed across two languages, the activity that worked better than you thought it would.
The point of this short checklist is not to extract lessons under pressure. It is to gently catch those traces while they are still warm, so the next time you imagine an international project it feels familiar instead of unfamiliar. The first project already changed something in your classroom. This is how you let it change you, too — without making a project out of the reflection itself.
Take a quiet moment to reflect and try to question yourself about the positives parts of the project and on what’s to improve in the next one.
Checklist 1: Take stock of what just happened
This first section is the celebration. Read each prompt, sit with it for a minute, and write a sentence if one comes — or move on if it doesn’t.
- [ ] Name one moment from the project that surprised you. A student who spoke up, an exchange you didn’t plan for, a piece of work that turned out better than expected. Write one sentence.
- [ ] Notice which of the C2C competencies your project actually touched. The eight are Intercultural Communication, Global Awareness, Collaboration & Teamwork, Digital Literacy, Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving, Emotional Intelligence, Adaptability & Leadership, and Creativity & Innovation. Most first projects touch three or four. Even one is meaningful — and you didn’t have to grade anyone for it to count, because in C2C, evidence is read at the group level, not the individual.
- [ ] Spot the Agency moment. Was there a point where students took initiative, made a decision, or improved something on their own? Agency runs across all competencies as a transversal lens; it usually shows up small first. The main point here is to spot an action or a suggestion that any of your students could have got to and point it out.
- [ ] Name one thing your partner classroom did that you would borrow. In the My School project, teacher Gisel Crespo (Argentina) used the same simple format with two different partner classrooms — Jhansi Ravikumar’s in India and Olenka Sydorenko’s in Ukraine: each class prepares a presentation about their country, city, and school, and then both meet online to share it. Same reusable structure, two different exchanges. There is no shame in copying a good idea, the network exists for exactly this. You can read about this project here.
Checklist 2: Notice what you’d adjust after your first international project
This section is for the small honest noticings — not the full retrospective. One observation per box is plenty. Resist the urge to fix everything; first projects are not supposed to be optimised.
- [ ] Which of the four project phases felt thinnest? The phases are Definition, Execution, Reflection, and Dissemination. Most first projects feel a little thin in one of them — usually Dissemination, sometimes Reflection. Naming the one phase that felt thin is enough.
- [ ] Write your 1-1-1 list. Three sentences: one thing to keep exactly as it was, one thing to gently change, one thing to drop. Three sentences. That is the whole exercise.
- [ ] Notice the logistical thing that took the most energy. Time zones, scheduling, tool setup, language. Just notice it. Most of these soften on the second project, on their own.
- [ ] Write down one thing you would not change for anything. This one matters more than the adjustments. The part that worked is the part you keep — and it is usually a part you didn’t plan.
You can also look at the common project-based learning patterns C2C has gathered from teachers, as a soft reference — not as a checklist of mistakes, but as a way of noticing that whatever felt rough is something other teachers have also felt.
Checklist 3: When you’re ready, imagine project #2
Take this section whenever it feels welcome. Some teachers do it the week after the first project closes; others wait a term. Both are fine. The C2C three project approaches exist so that each project can be a slightly different shape, not a bigger version of the last one.
- [ ] Notice which of the three C2C project approaches your first project used. Explore Cultures offers an intercultural exchange perspective, a window into how another classroom lives, learns, and sees the world.
Explore Global Challenges offers a shared-investigation perspective — students from different contexts examining the same global question, often anchored to one UN Sustainable Development Goal.
Create Solutions offers a co-design perspective: students from different countries proposing solutions to a real audience, with Design Thinking layered onto PBL.
The three approaches are not levels of difficulty; they are three different perspectives, each with its own kind of growth. - [ ] Choose the perspective you’d like project #2 to offer. The same approach with a new country, a new topic, or a new season is a real choice — a second Explore Cultures kind-of-project deepens intercultural relationships. A different approach is also a real choice — switching to Explore Global Challenges or Create Solutions gives your students a different lens on the world. There is no preferred direction.
- [ ] Pick three ingredients for project #2: a curriculum topic, one SDG, and one returning partner. Your first partner if they are available; if not, you can always connect with new teachers at the Connect section on the platform. Three ingredients are enough for a brief — the rest comes later.
- [ ] Open the Project Creation Assistant when you’re ready, and let it propose. The Assistant scaffolds, you decide what stays. Nothing it suggests has to make it into your project. You are the teacher; the AI is a helpful first draft.
A soft three-step close
If you take only three things from this checklist, take these:
- Write your 1-1-1 list before the screenshots fade. Three sentences, no more.
- Send your first partner classroom a short message thanking them — that’s it. Not a proposal for the next project; just a thank-you.
- When you feel ready, open the Project Creation Assistant with your topic in mind and see what it proposes.
If you would like a recap of the four phases or a starter checklist for the next project, the First International Project Guide on Class2Class is the gentlest reference. There is no rush. The first project was already a brave step.