KORCOS24

An opportunity to explore and reflect on your individual character strengths, as well as recognize the collective strengths within the group. This is purely a strengths-based activity aimed at fostering a more positive and flourishing educational environment for everyone.

To kick start our session, I invite you to complete the character strengths survey available at https://www.viacharacter.org/account/register. This survey will help you gain insights into your unique strengths and set the stage for meaningful discussions during our PD Day
Outcomes:

In this engaging and practical workshop, participants will learn how to create and/or revive a culture of service within their school, drawing from a real-life success story. The session begins with storytelling, where participants will hear how one school successfully revitalized its service culture by aligning it with the school’s mission and existing practices.

Participants will explore the process of involving teachers in identifying current practices, redesigning a service guide to clarify expectations for both teachers and students, and creating a unified language and vision that resonates with the entire school community.

The interactive portion of the workshop includes an activity where participants will receive an envelope containing key questions to consider when building or reviving a service culture in their own school. Before opening the envelope, participants will write down their questions on post-it notes and share them within their group. The group will then compare their questions to those in the envelope, fostering discussion about common themes and differing perspectives.

Following this, groups will conduct a SWOT analysis to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to service learning in their schools. Together, participants will brainstorm three actionable steps to take back to their school to enhance or create a culture of service.

The workshop concludes with a group discussion, providing an opportunity to share insights and refine action plans. Participants will leave with practical strategies and a clear vision for fostering a service-oriented culture that is deeply rooted in their school’s mission, culture, and practices.

Outcomes:

1. Participants will learn how effective leaders assess and understand the current state of service learning within their school context.
2. Participants will discover how leaders draw on their observations and reflections to create a vision for service learning that inspire and motivates their team
3. Participants will build reflective practice skills, allowing them to continuously evaluate and enhance their approach to service learning within the school context.
4. Participants will leave the workshop with ideas on how to create and sustain a service learning culture that aligns with their school's mission and existing practices.
   

This interactive workshop focuses on the ecological approach to teacher agency, emphasizing how teachers in international schools can shape and adapt their teaching practices within diverse and dynamic contexts. Participants will explore how factors such as relationships, professional autonomy, and school environment can either constrain or enhance teacher agency. The session will provide insights and tools for teachers to take small, intentional steps that lead to meaningful, long-term impacts in their classrooms and school communities

Outcomes:

1. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to understand the ecological approach to teacher agency and its relevance in international school settings.
2. Identify key factors that influence teacher agency within their unique school environments (context, relationships, and resources).
3. Develop strategies to nurture and enhance teacher agency through collaboration, professional growth, and contextual awareness.
   

Understanding and creating personal success at an international school recruiting fair.

Outcomes:

1. Understand different Agencies that sponsor fairs. 
2. Comprehend the strategies for working with the people in those agencies, The Fair formats and structure of events.
3. How to land an interview.
4. How to interview and what questions to ask.
5. How to respond to questions.
6. How to get a second interview.
7. How to negotiate an offer and work with different and competing schools at the Fair.
8. How to get the most out of what a Fair offers international teachers.

This workshop will help audiences understand their students and parents through the perspectives and cognition of different cultures (Western and Asian Comparison). It will provide an opportunity to introduce and reflect on the cultural difference using various experimental examples to the audiences.

Outcomes:
This workshop will provide an opportunity to think and reflect on the differences in cultures that the audience felt and sometimes could not understand using various experimental examples. This will allow them to have a deeper understanding of their students and parents, help them to see their students and parents more open-mindedly, and help students to grow into global citizens.

This workshop hopes to provide a quick overview of the key elements of Korea’s educational system, including its history, structure, curriculum, and guiding principles. A greater part of the workshop will address current issues within Korean Education, such as the intense academic culture, the role of private education (hagwons), and the challenges related to high competition, student well-being, educational inequality, etc. Additionally, the presentation hopes to cover some other challenges for Korean educators and policymakers, such as how technology and globalization are shaping modern education in Korea, offering insights into both the system’s strengths and the critical areas for reform.

Outcomes:
Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the foundational structure of the Korean education system, including its history, curriculum, key stages, and administrative frameworks. The audience will be informed about the current issues facing Korean education, such as high-pressure academic environments, inequality in educational access, and the impact of technology in classrooms.

In recent years, the concept of an asset-based approach has gained momentum, especially in education. But how does this approach intersect with equity with regard to English language learners, particularly in international school settings in Korea, and what does that really look like in practice?

In this session, specialists of the EAL Team at KIS Pangyo, will share how they collaborate with different stakeholders when embracing multilingualism as an asset. Contrary to a deficit mindset, an asset-based approach shifts the focus to student strengths and potential (“what they can do”), recognizing that every learning community and every student is valuable. The presenters will share insights on their collaborative process and invite participants to reflect on how they can apply these practices within their own schools.

Outcomes:
Participants will leave with strategies and ideas that will empower them to enhance their collaboration practices with teachers, parents, and leadership by reflecting on their understanding of multilingualism as an asset. 

In 2014 one of Time Magazine’s front page captions was, 'The Mindful Revolution is a science that enables us to find focus in a stressed-out, multitasking culture.' This bold claim has continued to provoke much global debate. After briefly considering this ongoing debate, participants will be invited to engage in, and then discuss, two mindfulness practices.

Following this, and based on Carl Buechner’s principle that 'students may forget what you said but they will not forget how you made them feel,' participants will be shown how to lead a student class in a short mindfulness practice before being given the opportunity to practice doing this in a small group of fellow participants.

They will then, if they wish, be in a position to return to their schools and take small steps towards making a big impact by sharing the underlying principle and practice of the workshop. Namely, that a regular mindfulness practice can bring about health and well being benefits to both individuals and school communities alike.

Outcomes:

1. Understood a working definition of 'mindfulness', and of how a regular mindfulness practice can be a foundational component towards befriending our minds in a way that enables us to wake up, pay attention and create ‘a life well lived'
2. Acquired the knowledge and skills needed to lead student groups in a one-minute mindfulness practice to help them ‘land and arrive safely’ at the beginning of a class, or at other appropriate times during the school day
3. Gain the knowledge and skills required to start their own mindfulness practice if they wish
4. Receive a comprehensive takeaway list of mindfulness resources
5. Be invited to join MINDKORCS (Mindful Korean Schools), a group dedicated to the promotion and practice of mindfulness in KORCOS and other schools.

This workshop is the product of several years of cultural orientation program for new staff at SIS that developed into a series on cultural sensitivity. It aims to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion by facilitating cross-cultural communication. Participants will learn about local culture and history to adjust to life in Korea and interact effectively with Korean colleagues, students, and parents. The session will equip participants with guidelines to increase cultural awareness and competence while fostering positive cross-cultural relations. Attendees will leave with a clear definition, philosophy, and techniques for effective cross-cultural communication.

Outcomes:
Learn about things that can make your life in Korea make some sense and how to improve your engagement with Korean colleagues, students and parents.