In the morning, the teachers trained how to administer CPR. It was an exciting morning with teachers practicing their lifesaving skills on mannequins. CPR training is a course that teaches people how to help someone who is having a heart attack or is unconscious and not breathing. In the training course, the teachers learned how to recognize when someone needs CPR, how to call for emergency help, and how to perform the steps of CPR correctly. CPR training is an important skill to have, as it can save someone’s life in an emergency.��

In the afternoon, one group of teachers learned about social-emotional learning. The workshop for social-emotional learning was a valuable experience for all our teachers. It provides an opportunity to learn and practice skills that promote emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and social competence. These skills are essential for building healthy relationships, managing emotions, and navigating life’s challenges with resilience and confidence. In the workshop, the teachers engaged in activities and discussions that focused on key topics like self-awareness, self-regulation, responsibility, and social awareness. Through interactive exercises and guided reflection, our teachers shared ways to make social-emotional learning part of the learning and school culture. Overall, the workshop is a powerful tool for personal growth and development.

Some teachers of the �ۿ۴�ý staff participated in a workshop on identifying and supporting students with special needs. The workshop, led by Autism Specialist Dalia Sutton, focused on providing teachers with the tools to identify common behaviors associated with learning and behavioral disabilities. Mrs. Sutton emphasized the importance of early intervention and accurate observation techniques.

As lifelong learners, our teachers are all eager to learn new knowledge and techniques to develop our students’ learning.

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On September 25th, teachers from two Wells campuses gathered for a special professional development day. Teachers from Primary and Early Years participated in this training. This workshop included two sessions and was led by mixed teams of teachers and leadership from Bang Na and Thong Lor campuses.��

Two groups, one big goal:

Our Early Years teachers participated in activities designed to build communication and collaboration between teachers and learning assistants. Our improvement goal was to strengthen communication in our school. This is the first step in modeling language to early years students.��

K2, K3 and Primary level teachers joined in a lively writers workshop session. The teachers practiced�� hands-on strategies. They explored tools that they can use to promote literacy at multiple levels. ”In Writer’s Workshop, Ms. Tracy and Ms. Ann provided us fun, engaging, and practical ideas on how to get students’ interest in writing. As an EAL teacher, I can use these tools to encourage students in building simple to complex sentences. Later on, they will be confident in writing paragraphs, stories and other forms of writing,” mentioned Ms. Addie, the Bang Na campus Librarian.��

��Ms. Sunee from Bang Na’s campus shared her feelings about this session: “I have been given a new perspective on writer’s workshops and am now more equipped to create new and exciting learning opportunities for my students.�� I appreciate the time and effort our school puts into the development of each teacher. Even though it was hard to forget the work piled up on my desk, I was happy to have Anne and Tracy share their ideas with us.”��

Learning together:

In each session, teachers had the opportunity to to build on their existing knowledge, compare communication and literacy instruction strategies and engage in fun, team building activities.��

Ms. Ellie from Grade 2 shared her thoughts after the workshop. “Having an in house PD day was really useful as our administration listened to our needs so we did activities that we could really take back to our classrooms. I enjoyed the writers workshop session because we did a lot of hands-on learning that we can use to help our students be better at the writing process.”��

Conducting professional development within our own organization gives teachers the opportunity to grow as a team. “I found the professional development day valuable, worthwhile, and relevant to my development as a teacher. Through collaboration amongst colleagues, we were able to share our knowledge and learn from each other’s experience,” said Mr. Jordan from Grade 4, Bang Na.

Building our team:

One of the most important takeaways from this day related to the roles of teachers and teacher assistants. In small groups, we listed the roles of homeroom, specialists and assistants. When we compared these lists, it was clear to see that our jobs are always overlapping and interconnected.��

Growing together:

In the future, we will conduct more in-house professional development to address the growing needs of our schools. “I think the idea that teachers are still working to improve their craft sets a good example for our own students. It encourages them to do their best, especially when we return from professional development with these new activities they haven’t experienced before; PD is so visceral and real”, reflected Mr. Russell, the Grade 5 teacher from Bang Na.

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The post Professional Development at Thong Lor appeared first on �ۿ۴�ý | American International School - Wells.

�ۿ۴�ý Bang Na campus started off second semester with useful professional development for teachers, teacher’s assistants and staff.

Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Training

�ۿ۴�ý Bang Na campus started off second semester with useful professional development for teachers, teacher’s assistants and staff. In the morning session, Ms. Debbie Thompson, First Aid Solutions, along with her colleagues presented a workshop on effective CPR practice. Highlights of the session were how to detect if someone is breathing and measures to take to ensure the safety of the person involved. We also learned how to successfully perform CPR. Other topics included how to use automated external defibrillators, how to stop bleeding or choking, and how to successfully cope with burns and seizures.

Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy

In the afternoon Dr. Peng and Ms. Chawisa presented our school wide Child Protection and Safeguarding policy.�� This session included warning signs and protocol to keep our students healthy and safe from harm. The entire day was a great community learning experience! Now we are more equipped to take care of our students mentally, emotionally and physically.

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The post Professional Development at Wells Bang Na appeared first on �ۿ۴�ý | American International School - Wells.

Lawrie Shier – Headmaster, Wells Thong Lor

The post Teacher In-Service first appeared on �ۿ۴�ý | American International School - Wells.

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On the other hand, appropriately employing positive and proactive classroom management strategies allows teachers to help students become better learners. This is obviously the case because as the rate of disruptive behavior drops, the engagement in learning increases, for all students. Positive classroom management strategies are founded upon principles that advocate healthy interpersonal connections between teacher and students, use of preventive measures (rather than reactive or quick-fix approaches) and doing away with demeaning, offensive, traditional discipline techniques.

Hence, to further strengthen and provide teachers with practical repertoire of classroom management tools, �ۿ۴�ý hosted the Conscious Classroom Management: Unlocking the Secrets of Great Teaching full-day workshop on Jan 16, 2010. Seventy-seven participants, consisting of teachers and administrators from Wells, and various other international schools in Bangkok, Rayong, and Shanghai gathered to learn about proactive strategies to reduce disruption and enhance positive interpersonal connections for better teaching and learning.

The speaker, Rick Smith, who hails from California, is a national bestselling author and international teacher-trainer. The workshop was engaging and inspiring from the start till the end. Participants felt that they learned a lot of useful tools that would be used in their own classrooms to make learning meaningful and fun.

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The workshop was arranged by the College Board as a follow-up to an AP workshop held in Honolulu, Hawaii this past summer, attended by Wells’ AP Biology teacher Mr. Brian Salter-Townshend and AP Chemistry teacher Mr. Dan Betts.

Conducting the workshop was Ms. Marian DeWayne who has been teaching AP Chemistry, honors chemistry, AP Environmental Science and AP Physics at Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho for over twenty years.

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Teachers were shown how to teach a single concept using multiple teaching approaches such as engaging lecture, visual, rote, sequential, color, modeling, chain, and cooperative techniques.�� Ways to combine and use techniques were also demonstrated at the session.

Discussion about meeting individual student needs led teachers into thinking and talking about students who are at risk. Often, students suffer not because of what they do or do not do; but rather because of what a teacher does or does not do. For example, if a teacher writes extremely small characters on the board, some students will be at risk of being visually challenged when it comes to copying down notes from the board. However, if the teacher was perceptive, he/she would prevent difficulty in viewing the board by writing big enough characters – this benefits every student alike. Hence, it is highly possible that many negative experiences of students at school is not solely because they are not ready to learn but also because teachers do not differentiate instruction. Success in learning comes from both student characteristics and teacher efficacy. One variable alone will not be sufficient to define the quality of education. By default, the two variables are interdependent.

The conclusion of the matter: “The focus of our efforts, therefore should be on enriching our institutional and professional capacity and responsiveness, rather than categorizing and penalizing students for simply being who they are.” (taken from The 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform – The National Commission on Excellence in Education)

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