Kwangju Metropolitan Office of Education in Korea collaborated with Intel® Education initiative and developed an innovative teacher training policy called “5 steps to systematically impact students”. Implemented for 6 month period, the new policy yielded very positive feedbacks among teachers, principals, parents and students, who engaged in the process of innovation.

Aiming to strengthen Korea’s global competitiveness, Ministry of Education & Human Resource Development signed 5-Year Memorandum of Understanding with Intel last 2005 with mutual agreement to train 100% of teachers in Korea, which was 400,000 teachers in total. According to the national level direction, every provinces officially integrated Intel’s teacher training program called “Intel® Teach Essentials” as part of their government teacher training plans and Kwangju was one of them.

Challenges
Lack of systemized teacher training: while the number of ICT training increased, most of them ended up not effectively connected to improve classroom teaching and learning.

Lack of mindshare among principals and parents: some conservative principals and parents discouraged teachers who tried interactive and student-led classroom activities.

Need for innovative training to promote 21st century skill: current traditional way of teaching and learning wasn’t enough to develop students’ global competencies.

Solution
Developing 5 steps teacher training policy: the new training policy helped to position teacher training an on-going process of innovating classroom teaching and learning.

Strengthen mindshare through Leadership Forum: as part of the 5 steps, conducted leadership forum bringing principals and parents together, which turned to be very successful by sharing mutual vision and clarifying roles.

Intel® Teach, as main resource to foster 21st century skill: Intel Teach training proved to be successfully preparing teachers and students against 21st century challenges.

Not enough mindshare and support of school administrators
While the training received very positive feedbacks from participants, one of the consistent challenges was the lack of school administrators’ support which often became key barriers for classroom implementations; for example, some principals complained classrooms of teachers trained sounded noisy, not understanding it was due to positive classroom activities such as group works, sharing and active showcases. Also some principals didn’t allow teachers trained to use the computer labs more often than scheduled. The lack of mindshare was also observed among parents; some of whom were very concerned about their kids spending increased time on computers rather than textbooks.

5 Steps to systematically impact students
To address the barriers, Kwangju Metropolitan Office of Education worked together with Intel and initiated a holistic teacher training policy called “5 steps to systematically impact students”; it was implemented for 6 month by successfully engaging school principals and parents with new roles of encouragers; recognized by them, teachers trained didn’t hesitate to implement new ways of teaching and learning with students and, as the result, it fostered joyful and active learning environment generating lots of students-led quality works and outcomes.

5 Steps to systematically impact students
One of the key values lies in encouraging government to plan teacher training not as quarterly event, but as core process to innovate education system. The holistic teacher training plan requires at least 6 month to get fully implemented as it includes not only conducting teacher trainings but also pre and post efforts to continue the impact back to classrooms.

“Well defined policy and enriched resources empower teachers and students; the 5 step policy and Intel® Teach program turned to be a great combination that have upgraded school systems in Kwangju city.”

Baek, Ki Sang, Sr. Officer
Kwangju Metropolitan Office of Education

Another important value is about shared responsibilities; especially the 5 step policy helped to engage school principals and parents with new roles of encouragers (rather than supervisors or observers) so as to motivate teachers trained and to accelerate the process of innovation in the classroom together.

“Intel® Teach course is excellent teacher training program that helps teachers’ planning and thinking skills. We are encouraging teachers trained to actively share good unit plans with each others so as to upgrade the quality of classroom teaching and learning.”

Lee, Ki Woo,
Principal
Yongju Primary School
Kwangju City

The holistic teacher training policy, “5 steps to systematically impact students” aims to the ultimate goal of higher student learning through key stakeholder collaboration.

Step1~5 Key strategy Implementations By Step 1 Position Teacher Training as on-going process. Plan teacher training not as events but as on-going process (e.g. 6 month cycle) to innovate education system. Government officers in charge of teacher training planning. Step 2 Grow leader teachers. Develop Sr. Trainers and Master Teacher through not only official trainings but also informal teacher community collaborations. Sr. Teachers and Master Teachers. Step 3 Promote mindshare of principals and parents. Conduct leadership forum engaging school administrators, master teachers and parents together to share vision and mindshare. Principals, Master Teacher and parents. Step 4 Expand training and classroom implementation together. Expand trainings to School-level participant teachers with support from leader teachers, school administrators and parents. At the same time, encourage active implementations with students. Participant teachers and students. Step 5 Recognize and further motivate stakeholders Conduct recognition ceremony so as to showcase student outcomes, good unit plans as well as to recognize all stakeholders engaged. All.

Contract your Intel representative or visit the Korea Intel® Education Web site at: www.intel.com/education/kr.

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