Teaching & Learning

TEACHING

& LEARNING

ACTION PLAN

Following our successful accreditation with NEASC in May of 2021, we embarked on year one of our 5year action plan. All of the goals and tasks in our action plan were derived directly from our accreditation process and based on the feedback we received from all stakeholder groups. As a young school, much of the work in this first phase of our action plan focused on developing and aligning programs. To accomplish these tasks, all 165 SJA faculty members joined one of 26 committees that met once each month during Wednesday late start time. The work that has been accomplished by the committees is truly remarkable. Some examples include:

Improving and aligning 5th to 6th grade and 8th to 9th-grade transition programs Researching and developing a framework for Service Learning at SJA Jeju Designing and building a Student Portal as a one-stop-shop for SJA Jeju students to access important information and resources Researching and aligning Social-Emotional Learning curriculum for all divisions And much, much more!

We are pleased with our progress in implementing our action plan and look forward to moving into year two of the plan in 2022-23.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

During the 2021-22 academic year, SJA Jeju provided 165 faculty members with access to a wide range of professional development opportunities! These opportunities included onsite workshops and courses led by a worldrenowned expert and focused on strategies to support and include all students in order to ensure every child reaches their potential. In addition to these courses and workshops, more than 120 faculty members accessed external professional learning opportunities.

We have incredible faculty at SJA Jeju, and a major component of our professional development plan includes job-embedded learning, facilitated by our own in-house experts. This year nearly 100 faculty members provided internal PD for their colleagues. These teacher-led PD opportunities included faculty sharing their learning from external PD they had attended as well as the best practices they use in their classrooms every day.

Finally, to round off our professional learning program, our two incredible instructional coaches partnered with more than 50 teachers over the course of the year to ensure highquality learning outcomes for students.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AND ALIGNMENT

This has been an exciting year of growth and alignment at SJA Jeju! As our enrollment continues to grow, the school leadership team has been thoughtful and strategic with the expansion and development of our academic programs. Some of the highlights include:

Opening the middle school STEAM program, including Robotics, Computer Science, and general STEAM courses Aligning STEAM courses from elementary to high school, including AP opportunities Hiring an Aquatics Coordinator to help align and build our K-12 swim programs as well as athletics and after school activities Developing an instructional coaching model to ensure optimal teaching and learning in our classrooms Aligning our curriculum from K-12 in the areas of Science, Health, Math, STEAM, and Korean as a Foreign Language Redesigning our After School Activities program to include increased offerings (We have nearly doubled student participation in ASAs this year!) Expanding our athletics program by doubling the number of training opportunities for middle and high school and significantly increasing opportunities for elementary students Expanding AP course offerings to include a total of 20 different courses

COLLABORATION

Research has consistently shown that teacher collaboration is a decisive factor for the improvement of a school and its members. Our accreditation process underscored the need for collaborative time for teachers as paramount to our continued improvement as a school. In 2020-21 we partnered with our parent representatives to design a model that created consistent time and space for professional learning and collaboration for our teachers.

In 2021-22, we launched our late start Wednesdays, coupled with five full professional development days for teachers. We managed to accomplish this with little to no reduction in learning time for students. The results of this collaborative time have been truly remarkable. Some of the highlights include:

Grade-level teams have been able to develop powerful and innovative projects for their students. Teachers have been able to learn directly from other teachers who have expertise in specific areas. Instead of only one teacher being an expert at a particular strategy, now all teachers share that expertise! All faculty have participated in workshops and training from world-leading experts in education and have had the time to put that learning into practice with their colleagues.

We are already seeing improved learning outcomes for students and are confident that our continued focus on collaboration will lead to even greater outcomes for our students.