SESSION 6

Margaret Alvare z / Beth Pfannl / Liz Duffy Gender Diversity TPS - Function Room 7 Gender Diversity and Leadership: Associated Challenges and Opportunities in Creating Equitable, Inclusive and Just Communities in EARCOS Schools - Based on the results of the Diversity Collaborative global survey on diversity and leadership in international schools and other research on DIEJ practices, a panel of diverse educators from the EARCOS community will discuss why and how we can all recruit, support and develop diverse communities of educators at our schools. The panel will examine, in particular, gender diversity and associated challenges and opportunities. Panelists will share both successful practices and initiatives as well as obstacles to creating inclusive, equitable and just communities at EARCOS schools.

Harvey Alvy New Principals TMS - Meeting Room 1 The Life of New Principals: Challenges Faced and Tips to Succeed - This workshop will examine the challenges (and surprises!) faced by new international school principals, and offer practical strategies and tips to succeed. The practical recommendations will focus on building relationships, positively impacting the school culture and, most importantly, teacher and student success. The workshop will also address how the principalship has changed in recent years, especially in relationship to leadership and management responsibilities. Critical workshop concepts are drawn from The Principal’s Companion (Corwin Press) and The New Principal’s Fieldbook (ASCD), both books co-authored by the presenter.

Kevin Baker / Catriona Moran / Elsa Donohue / Edward Greene Leadership Transition TPS - Hibiscus Garden Getting Through the Wilderness : Lessons of Leadership Transitions - Each leadership transition is a significant, unique, and complex experience for a school, its community, and the incoming leader. This presentation panel of four leaders will center around lessons learned from their recent transition journey. The dialogical format will include stories, reflections, lessons, and advice for current and aspiring leaders and Board members to empower others to successfully navigate this unique challenge. The session will conclude with a collaborative discussion by all workshop participants.

Mark Baker Curriculum TPS - Function Room 2 5 Pillars for Successful Curriculum Implementation and More Focused, Humane, and “Saner” Professional Lives - By creating and empowering subject-based mission statements, schools can more logically achieve greater synergy between professional development, instructional best practices, teacher growth and renewal, accreditation requirements, and hiring practices to achieve more specific student achievement than strictly relying on their overarching school mission. Everyone’s job will become clearer and easier.

Graham Brown -Martin Making TPS - Ballroom 1 Learning by Making (Follow up from Session 1) Research shows that people learn better when they’re inspired and making something original for themselves or their community. This is learning by making and it is rooted in the learning theories of Vygotsky and Papert, social constructivism and constructionism respectively. During this highly interactive, hands-on workshop, Brown-Martin will explore with participants how, through the lens of making and project-based learning, we can de-silo traditional subject boundaries and nurture critical, creative and computational thinking skills to collaboratively solve real-world challenges.

Sim Cook (AD Institute) Coaching TMS - Meeting Room 5 Positive Sports Coaching - Positive Sports Coaching is an evidenced based way of coaching teams and individuals based on the science of positive psychology. This presentation looks at how we can effectively coach using the science of optimism, positive feedback and process praise. There are 2 main focuses: 1. Improving performance and 2. Promoting wellbeing.

Matt Corbett Recruitment TPS - Function Room 1 Reinvent Your Recruitment Process with a Performance-Based Approach - Tired of delivering the same old interview process during your yearly recruitment? Find out how one team tore up the list of standard questions and developed a performance based approach bespoke to their school - and how you can do the same to ensure you attract the right people.

Marc Frankel Crisis Management TPS - Function Room 8 The Perfect Storm and How to Avoid It: Lessons from the Front Lines - Schools are delicate systems, easily fractured and driven into crisis. The time and energy required to defuse a crisis are costly, diverting the focus of leadership away from the strategic work that supports the achievement of a school’s mission. Using case studies based on real-world situations and large and small group work, participants will conduct in-depth analyses on ‘Perfect Storm’ situations. Attendees will be guided through the anatomy of a crisis, learning to recognize the conflation of factors that led to a negative outcome. Emphasis will be placed on the decisions and actions of stakeholders and how, at points of inflection, alternate approaches may have led to better outcomes. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to avoid the ‘Perfect Storm’ through intentional leadership, best practice in governance, and strategic communication.

Joshua Fritts Inclusion TMS - Meeting Room 10 Diversity, Equity, & Inclusivity: Building Capacity Through an Inclusivity Walk Protocol - Unless we purposely take a critical look at our schools through the lenses of others, we risk overlooking critical opportunities for our students and families to see themselves as part of our school community. The Inclusivity Walk Protocol is a tool to help school administrators, faculty, and staff to experience school through the lenses of their students and families, and in turn develop a list of steps that can be taken to make the school more welcoming and inclusive for all. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the concept of cultural lenses, learn how to use the Inclusivity Walk Protocol, and begin to brainstorm ways to build more diverse, equitable, and inclusive school communities.”

Brian Garner Mastery Learning TMS - Rose Garden Implementing Mastery Learning - Do you like Guskey’s articles on Mastery Learning? A re you inspired by Kahn’s TED talk on Mastery Learning. Are you interested in trying to implement Mastery Learning within a classroom or a campus? Come to this session to talk with a seasoned administrator who has facilitated Mastery Learning for the past 15 years. The first part will be a review of Mastery Learning components. The second part will be whole group discussion/brainstorm session. Any logistical or philosophical questions regarding Mastery Learning are welcome.

Chris Jansen Strategic Planning TPS - Function Room 10 Collective Leadership Through Strategic Planning - They say “Culture eats strategy for lunch” and yet how often have we ourselves created the most superbly insightful and coherent strategic plan and yet wonder why this plan fails to gain traction in genuine transformation across our organization? Positive and sustainable change is notoriously hard to lead so it’s critical that we develop an approach that engages fully with the culture of our organisations and communities. In this workshop we will explore contemporary developments in strategic planning which prioritize ownership throughout the culture of our learning communities. (Read more on Whova App)

Gavin La zaro Substance Abuse TMS - Meeting Room 2 Students, Drugs & Alcohol: Toward a Coherent, Relevant and Impactful Approach - How do we support young people through the challenges of growing up in SE Asia where penalties for drug use are severe and alcohol often flows freely? This session will offer an introductory understanding of the complexities of situations that may arise, exemplars of good practice, and opportunities to connect with others on this all too prevalent topic.

Richard Nunns / Peter Garnhu M Shared Pedagogy TMS - Meeting Room 4 Engaging the School Community to Define, Implement, and Embed a Shared Pedagogy of Transformative Learning - At the start of 2018, we embarked on a journey to define a shared pedagogy that was research-based, contextualised, and aligned with our vision and values. The result has been highly positive, with students, faculty, and parents understanding and engaging with a set of learning principles that support highly effective learning, including positive relationships, clear purpose, responsive teaching, essential skills, and student agency. We will share our own learning journey.

Maeve O’Donovan / Jane Mc Gee / Hieu Nguyen Governance TPS - Ballroom 2 and 3 Board Governance and Board Administration: A Match Made in Heaven? - Board members need to concentrate their time and energy on things that add value. Time should be spent discussing the issues at the generative levels and not hours collating Board and committee packages, archiving decisions and trying to remember what was decided last week, last month and last year. And who is ensuring those valuable discussions are captured, next steps followed up and in line with defined Board regulations? UNIS Hanoi has been leading the way in Board Governance, helped by the strategic role of a Board administrator. Come and hear how this faculty position can help your school and Board achieve optimal functioning.

TK Ostrom Marketing TMS - Orchid Room Why Customer Service Matters - With international schools growing rapidly in Asia and the increase in competition for students, it is imperative that we look at the business world to provide us with good customer service processes and practices and learn how to apply them to our schools. As more and more people get connected digitally, we have become less and less connected to one another. While it is important to have information readily available for our communities, it’s also important that we find ways to personally connect with them as well. It is not only the stories we tell on our social media and websites, but we also need to show we personally care. This session will provide you with the tools and understanding about why it’s everyone’s role within the school to show that we value our internal and external customers.

Erin Robinson / Michael Gassner Experiential Education TMS - Meeting Room 3 Get into Nature! Leveraging Outdoor Education for Student Learning - A connection with nature supports wellbeing, health, and is foundational to embracing sustainability. Outdoor education helps students become attuned to their surroundings and gain an appreciation for the natural world. It’s also full of opportunity for students to learn in resilience, collaboration, self-management, critical thinking and creativity. This interactive session will share lessons learned during a seven-year longitudinal research study on the impact of outdoor education on Middle and High School learning by United World College South East Asia and Oregon State University Cascades. Participants will learn how to give their outdoor and experiential education programmes a critical review and how schools might better leverage outdoor education for student learning.

Joe Schaaf / Leah Zhao / Ben Chen Learning Centers TPS - Function Room 4 Establishing a Sustainable Student-Staffed and Managed Learning Center - This presentation introduces The Literacy Lab, a student-staffed and managed learning center that provides support for grade 5-12 students using discussion-based learning strategies. The lab is staffed by 40 student volunteers and records over 800 visits a year from students seeking academic support (four times the number of enrolled students).

Tom Schimmer Assessment TPS - Function Room 6 Instructional Agility - Critical thinking sits at the heart of the critical competencies essential for learners to develop in the 21st century. This session will highlight how educators can take advantage of their assessment fundamentals to seamlessly assess critical thinking. Specifically, participants will come to know how the specifist and generalist views of critical thinking can both contribute to schools developing a comprehensive approach to critical thinking, the variety of tools that can be developed in support of assessment, the instructional implications for creating the critical thinking opportunities, and the dispositional habits of critical thinkers.

Ann Straub Global Citizenship TPS - Function Room 9 Developing Global Citizens: What Does It Take? - The words “global citizens” often appear in our school’s guiding statements, but what this looks like and how to accomplish this is often frustratingly vague with a “hit or miss “approach prevailing. What does it look like to focus on developing global citizens as an institutional responsibility for doing so beyond the usual community service, social studies units, school garden and plastic bottle ban? By assessing where your school is by taking a 360 degree look at your whole school community, viewing examples of successful global citizenship frameworks and strategies used in other international schools, and learning about the place of intercultural competence within the development of global citizenship, you will leave this interactive workshop with an idea of where your school is and actions to take to realize your mission/vision of developing global citizens.