STEM Collaboration with Korean Teachers

STEM Collaboration with Korean Teachers

Forty mathematics and science teachers from all over South Korea visited CRDG in January 2011 to learn about the innovative approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment for which CRDG is well known. Sponsored by the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI), the two coordinators and forty teachers, each from a different province in South Korea, were chosen in a competitive process by their Ministry of Education.

UH Mānoa Vice Chancellor Ned Schultz welcomed the group, noting that Chancellor Hinshaw has made it her mission to make UH a destination of choice for people around the world, and citing as an example of these efforts UHM’s Center for Korean Studies, which has more specialists focusing on Korea than any other institution in the US.

The ten-day visit included daily professional development sessions in science or mathematics teaching and observations of classes at the University Laboratory School. Sessions focused on the inquiry-based instructional practices developed by CRDG and on challenging students of all ability levels, and they provided for an international exchange of ideas on teaching science and mathematics.

A group of seven Laboratory School students of Korean ancestry in grades six through twelve volunteered to host the teachers, showing them around campus and joining them for a “talk story and lunch” in the cafeteria. They were able to practice Korean while talking with the visitors about the Laboratory School and their science and mathematics classes.

Over the weekend the teachers got to relax with around-the-island tours, shopping excursions, an evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and a tour of the Arizona Memorial and Punchbowl Cemetery.