Baldwin Teachers Present at ICGS Global Forum on Girls’ Education

Middle and Upper School Spanish Teacher Gabbie Álvarez-Spychalski (P '20, '27) and Upper School Computer Science Teacher and Director of Technology Dr. Thomas Heverin (P '26) both presented at the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools (ICGS) 2026 Global Forum on Girls’ Education in Toronto, Canada, this past June.

 

Gabbie presented her workshop "Cultural Competency: Theory into Action." Cultural competency is a buzzword that has been floating around in education for the past couple of years. But what does this look like in our classrooms? Gabbie shared best practices for creating an anti-bias classroom and worked through case studies that helped put theory into action. These case studies presented instances of microaggressions in the classroom and participants learned and practiced different strategies and language to address them.

 

Dr. Heverin presented findings from his 18-month ICGS Global Action Research Collaborative (GARC) study, “Developing AI-Security Self-Efficacy Through Prompt Injection Research in a High School Classroom.” His research examined how 12 Baldwin students in Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking developed confidence by moving from passive users of AI to active security researchers. Students conducted prompt injection experiments, testing whether they could bypass AI safeguards and examining what those failures revealed about AI security. The study found substantial gains in AI-security self-efficacy, while students also developed stronger systems thinking, critical inquiry, and a greater sense of agency in evaluating emerging technologies.