Leading in Your Role: Teaching Assistants

Leading in Your Role: Teaching Assistants
Holistic Student Development in International Schools
(Online Conference)

July 4-7, 2022

NEW! Professional Development for Teaching Assistants, in Mandarin and English, on how they can holistically develop international school students.

简体中文版本请按此

Schedule

Presenter details

Designed for TAs.

This live facilitated online conference is specifically designed for teaching and non-teaching assistants, and co-teachers. It is also relevant for teachers who work with teaching assistants or parents who are interested in developing their children holistically. The purpose of this conference is to help participants develop practices and skills in partnering with their teachers and parents to assist students in achieving their full learning potential.

Target Audience

Teaching assistants, learning support and library assistants, arts/music/PE assistants, lab assistants, child-care assistants, co-teachers, and teachers of international/bilingual schools.

Interested parents are welcome to participate.

Duration

4 Days

Monday, July 4 to Thursday, July 7
8:00 am to 12:30 pm (China Time)

6 Mandatory Sessions

Monday, July 4 – Wednesday, July 6
8:00 am – 11:15 am China Time (including a 15-minute break in between)

Each workshop will be available in English and Mandarin Chinese.

Multiple Elective Sessions

Monday, July 4 – Wednesday, July 6
11:30 am – 12:30 pm China Time

Thursday, July 7
8:00 am – 10:00 am China Time

These sessions are in either English or Mandarin Chinese depending on the presenter.

Job-Alike Session

Thursday, July 7
10:15 am – 12:15 pm China Time

This session provides an excellent opportunity to share resources/information and engage in discussions among education professionals with similar job responsibilities, broaden their perspectives, share knowledge, and network regionally.

Certificate Course

A certificate of participation will be awarded.

Registration Fee

ACAMIS Member Schools

USD150 per individually registered participant.
USD1000 per bulk school registration for a group of up to 20.

Non-Member Schools

USD200 per individually registered participant.
USD1500 per bulk school registration for a group of up to 20.

Presenters - USD75

REGISTER HERE

"I came, I grow."

- Annie Lv, Suzhou Singapore International School

"Learning, improved, and inspired"

- Vicky Gao, Hangzhou International School

"Learning from awesome people from different backgrounds."

- Jane Zhang, Nanjing International School

“[If you] want to be better [at your job], please join us at the next conference.”

- Carrie Chu, Dulwich College Beijing

“The whole training is very informative and really inspired me in many ways.”

- Sonia Zhang, Tsinghua International School

“Everyone here understands you.”

- Effie Sun, TEDA Global Academy

What will I learn?

Many schools are realizing that students need more than just academic rigor. Holistic education is a comprehensive approach to teaching where educators seek to address the students’ emotional, social, ethical, cultural, and intellectual needs in an integrated learning environment. It emphasizes the whole growth of a learner instead of emphasizing only specific aspects of the human experience. These include but are not limited to listening skills, resolving conflicts, manners, learning from failures, mental health, reflection and self-assessment, balance, and achieving one’s dreams.

While school leaders set the tone of whether learning environments will focus on academic-centric or holistic learning approaches, classroom professionals, including teaching and non-teaching assistants, play a vital role in implementing the learning philosophies. As a result, they have the most incredible opportunity to help students discover their identities and find meaning in community and world connections through holistic teaching methods.

By the end of the conference, participants will be able to:

Fully understand the meaning of holistic education.
Identify the benefits of holistic education.
Discover the various areas of child development.
Learn the role of assistants, co-teachers, and teachers in holistic education.
Determine the optimal conditions or environments for holistic learning and development.
Acquire knowledge, insights, and skills for developing the students holistically.
Network with assistants, co-teachers, and teachers from other international/bilingual schools.

How will I learn?

Based on extensive research, we have developed a model for virtual professional development that will:

Enable participants to enjoy a mix of content delivery methods to meet the needs of various learning styles and preferences, including but limited to lecturers, case studies, role-plays, discussions, and video productions.
Challenge participants to apply knowledge and tools introduced throughout the conference to their own working context.
Connect participants to process content collectively and share unique experiences and perspectives in small and large groups.
Allow participants to review the presentations at their own convenience for 12 months after the conference to reinforce their learning.

Would You Like to Give a Presentation?

We are accepting proposals from presenters until March 31, 2022. Presenters will receive a special discount on registration and may qualify for free registration.

Submit a Proposal Here

The Association of International School Teaching Assistants is sponsoring this conference and providing registrants with free access to their online learning platform. Go to the Content Partner tab to read more about this.

Conference Sessions

The Purpose and Goals of Holistic Education
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

The purpose of holistic education is to prepare students to meet academics and living challenges. The philosophy of educating the whole person, beyond core academics – is gaining momentum in learning circles. Many schools are realizing that students need more than just academic rigor. Holistic education is a comprehensive approach to teaching where educators seek to address the students’ emotional, social, ethical, cultural, and intellectual needs in an integrated learning environment.

Holistic education is based on a learning philosophy that benefits to students, teachers, schools, and communities. Students are empowered to improve their educational outcomes and gain the life skills necessary to take on a successful professional career and live a happy, balanced life.

The Role of a Teaching Assistant in Holistic Education
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

Education professionals, including teaching assistants, play a significant role in instructing the whole person. The responsibilities of an educator go beyond the teaching of core academics. It requires them to work closely with school administrators and parents/guardians to develop a child. An African proverb aptly puts it, “It takes a village to raise a child.” All adults, including teaching assistants and non-teaching assistants, must be involved in building children holistically.

Holistic Elements of Child Development
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

What is child development? As children get older, they develop in various ways covering physical, intellectual, social, and emotional changes. It is the process that every child goes through and includes everything from physical skills such as sitting and standing to social and emotional skills such as smiling or forming relationships with others. This session provides a broad perspective on holistic education.

Establishing a Stimulating Environment for Holistic Education
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

Lessons conducted in a safe, supportive, and stimulating environment will allow students to utilize their strengths to develop every aspect of their lives. While holistic education is guided by one overarching philosophy, teachers may employ several methods and strategies to create a holistic learning environment.

Essential Life Skills Students Don’t Learn at School
- Part 1 & 2
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

School is the place where students spend a great amount of time during the developmental stages of their lives. Yet, despite having acquired a great deal of knowledge, they often enter adult life unprepared. An education should involve learning life skills that a person will carry with them after their K-12 education to navigate relationships and careers and be a well-rounded, successful person.

That is because many critical life skills are never taught at school. And, if educators and parents do not find ways of teaching these life skills to students, they may spend their entire lives not learning the life skills.

There’s much more to life than core academic subjects. What follows is a basic curriculum in life that a child should know before reaching adulthood. These two sessions provide a list as a starting point that you can add to this list.

Job-Alike Sessions
(English and Mandarin Chinese)

This session provides an excellent opportunity to share resources/information and engage in discussions among education professionals with similar job responsibilities, broaden their perspectives, share knowledge, and network regionally.

Content Partner (with PDAcademia)

The Association of International School Teaching Assistants (AISTA), powered by Anspear's Online Learning Platform, is very pleased to be collaborating with PDAcademia to support the professional development of Teaching Assistants. With complementary approaches to this increasingly important area, the two organisations can achieve synergies to the benefit of all.

To help launch the partnership, Anspear will be making access to three of its digital courses available to all registrants on the July conference. Please refer to this link for a brief description of each digital course. These will be included within the conference fee.

Using its own online self-evaluation systems, AISTA and Anspear have profiled the professional confidences and competences of over 150,000 teaching assistants. It is now mapping the results to its full library of courses to provide individualised programs of development.

For inquiries, please contact Michael Iannini at michael@pdacademia.com.

What's Next?

REGISTER HERE

IMPORTANT NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS
Email communication before the course start date

Emails related to this Online PD Program will be sent from events@pdacademia.com. Please immediately add this email sender to your safe sender list.

Approximately 2-weeks before the start of the course, participants will be emailed a course introduction, instructions for how to participate and a pre-course survey and readings, if applicable. If you do not receive this email please let us know.