Teachers are learners too!

From Friday, September 30th through Sunday, October 2nd, eight members of the Elementary Faculty attended professional learning workshops facilitated by presenter-practitioners from the International Baccalaureate, Primary Years Program. These IB PYP East-Asia Regional Workshops were hosted in Yokohama.

Teachers from Seisen and other international schools participating in an IB PYP workshop at Yokohama International School  

Through a variety of learning techniques and small group discussion participants acquired new perspectives, deepened previous learning and engaged in personal and group reflection with peers from other international schools in the region. A key feature of all workshops was modelling by presenters, of inquiry based strategies (approaches to teaching) which we can apply directly to our work with students.

Teachers sharing their learning from the IB PYP Workshops

Professional development opportunities are sometimes criticised for their reliance on one-shot, short-term, or episodic delivery. At Seisen, we believe that it takes sustained investment of time and effort to harness the power of professional learning to improve student learning outcomes. Seisen is proud to be part of the IB PYP network which enables us harness the power of on-going, continuous professional support to enhance our elementary PYP. Moreover, we are committed to in-house collaborative teacher practice, inquiry and discussion integrated with the day-to-day work of teaching, planning and assessment to support improvements in practice. We look forward to applying our new learning in classrooms with students in the coming months!

Teachers reflecting on their practice to see how they can implement some of the strategies and approaches to teaching from the workshops