We are getting ready to welcome our schools back to campus next week! The logistics and planning for reopening have been challenging. Our senior leadership team and administrative staff have worked very hard the whole summer to ensure the safety and health measures are in place. I am thankful for their dedication and our teachers are very excited to meet their students. Finally! It's so clear that as human beings, we yearn for interaction and social connectedness. 

Transitioning to the hybrid teaching and learning model for remote learning, we know it will be very important for us to (re)build relationships with our students and create opportunities for social connectedness. Lots of data have suggested that teenangers have suffered from the period of lockdown.  

15-year-old Liv McNeil's short film, Numb, illustrated her complex and complicated emotions resulting from the self-isolation and being bombarded with online learning and communication from her teachers so vividly. It made me misty as my own daughter also went through similar experience.    

It has not been easy to plan the MYP Student Orientation this year. Lots of constraints. All school community members need to wear masks and keep physical distancing. However, as I always say, every challenge is an opportunity. Everyone needs to wear a mask on campus, but we don't want to forget what everyone looks like! It is also very important to welcome our MYP year 1 students! We want to see their faces and make connections with them. It got me thinking of the Humans of New York idea. What if we can find out everyone's stories and find the connections between us? Wouldn't it be cool that we collect these stories and post them around campus? Wouldn't it be nice, if we feel down, there are always positive messages posted on campus to uplift our spirit? I felt this idea aligns with our school vision, inspiring individuals, so well. Voila! This is what I will propose to do with our students next week. We create some questions for students to choose and interview their friends.

Important rule! Students cannot take off their mask to take a photo. They will select a photo to share with the interviewer and the interviewer will use the template provided to report the interviewee's story together with the photo.    

Wouldn't it be a good opportunity for students to work in a group and involve them to re-create norms and think about how we can move forward together when returning to campus? An idea I have in mind is to encourage students to work collaboratively and create a campaign in responding to an issue. To emphasize the message and increase their awareness of the COVID-19 related safety and health measures the school has put in place, it seems like a no-brainer to engage students in advocating and promoting these topics. Our students are familiar with the design thinking process and also successfully worked together to complete inquiry projects during the online learning period. In the process of creating a campaign, students can reconnect with their friends, collaborate and take action to make an impact.    

Many teachers naturally worry about the learning gaps and want to help students to bridge their knowledge and skill gaps right out of the gate. We need to refrain ourselves from doing this and be mindful of our assumptions. We have not seen our students face to face for a very long time, and we don't have all the stories of our students. To go fast, we must go slow. Helping students develop confidence and build relationships with others in an incremental manner will pay dividends in the long run.  

As there has been no local COVID-19 transmission for at least 50 consecutive days in Thailand, we are currently planning on opening the school and welcoming our students physically back to campus in August with precautions. We need to comply with the government laws, regulations, policies and as a school, it is important to ensure that everyone feels safe to return on campus. The logistics and planning details are definitely daunting.  

When searching information and ideas regarding reopening schools, key words, such as "uncertainty", "ambiguity", "complexity", keep showing up in the literature. This makes me think of the term "VUCA". VUCA is an acronym used to describe volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Put simply, we live in a fast-changing world and in such unfamiliar environment, we face unpredictable changes, that often require us to make decisions in complex systems, and to take uncertain actions that are outside of our expertise. This reflects the current situation we are in now so accurately. We do our best to anticipate the possible scenarios for reopening schools, but no binary decisions can be made easily. My head of school shared this article "What will schools do when a teacher gets Covid-19?" with the senior management team and invited us to share our thoughts. There are always concerns about whether schools are opening too fast or too soon. It is agreed that frequent shutting down and re-opening is not a sustainable approach and also causes disruptions to learning. To ease anxiety and keep everyone calm, we will need to make information transparent and keep the school community members informed of what will happen if there is a Covide-19 case in accordance with the local government's guidelines. 

While preparing for the details and logistics to reopen the school, in Education Reimagined: The Future of Learning document, schools are reminded that

This is such a powerful statement that resonates with me. It is absolutely essential to keep everyone healthy and safe on campus. While we are focusing on the nitty-gritty details, let's also not forget to take this opportunity to make an educational shift, transitioning from being a deliverer of instruction to becoming an adaptive learning facilitator. Students have had freedom in learning anytime anywhere they prefer during the online learning period. Why will we take away that freedom away from them? How can we engage our students in dialogue and explore ways to maximize the learning anytime anywhere concept? If the school has to shut down again, how can students be better equipped with tools and strategies for independent learning and self-care?   

To shift the paradigm, teachers need support and guidance to reimagine the future of education. Just like students, teachers also need to see examples to get inspiration to create their own prototypes. I appreciate that many educators have generously provided protocols and possible solutions to support the transition. The following documents provide me with abundant ideas and practical strategies to assist our teachers to plan moving forward. 

• Education Reimagined: The Future of Learning (Michael Fullan, Joanne Quinn, 2020) 
• Transcend: Recovery to Reinvention: The playbook of guidance and tools is incredible detailed and I also appreciate their library of school design examples and resources. 
• Remote learning resources on Pinterest compiled by Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger) are so useful for planning learning at different stages. 
• Imagining September: Online Design Charrettes for Fall 2020 Planning with Students and Stakeholders (Justin Reich, Jal Mehta, 2020) 
• Imagining September: Principles and Design Elements for Ambitious Schools During COVID-19 (Justin Reich, Jal Mehta, 2020) )

I tried to synthesized what I have read and share the information with teachers. With transitioning to hybrid teaching, the top priority is to do it safely. If we are not vigilant, there is always a risk of having  COVID-19 infected cases on campus. Secondly, when returning to campus, we need to be mindful of well-being and be kind to each other. Many adults and children have experienced anxiety, stress, anger, frustration and many more emotions caused by the pandemic disruption. I value the points being mentioned by Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn in the Education Reimagined document (page 11): ​

"We know that change affects everyone differently. Consider these realities when reopening schools: 

• Each of us has been affected in unknown ways. This self-awareness will come at different times for different people and will manifest itself differently for each of us.
• Assume people are not their best selves right now. Temper your expectations with empathy and patience.
• We won’t know what people need, until we ask them. Even then, they may not understand what they need. Know that one size does not fit all.
• The situation will continue to be dynamic and so are the people we serve; their wellbeing is not in a fixed state." 

​In the hybrid teaching and learning model, teachers need to continue to be adaptive before the vaccine is developed. There is always a possibility that we will return to remote teaching and learning. Lastly, in my opinion, teachers also need to be imaginative, collaborate with others,  prototype, deploy, and reflect in order to figure out the approach that meets the needs of their students in their own context. Context matters and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Without imagination and responding to the world as it now exists, students will only learn by compliance instead of developing self-regulation and learning how to learn.  

In this poster I created, I first defined what hybrid learning is and then identified four key steps before planning for reopening schools.
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• Step 1: Develop core and extended teams and create norms to reopen school
• Step 2: Review school vision, mission and core values 
• Step 3: Examine available data (e.g. student assessment data; survey results of parents, students and teachers; student attendance/task engagement records and so on) for decision making and then identify constraints on what we can achieve and what is currently outside of our capabilities and control 
• Step 4: Align actions with strategic guiding statements (or principles) 

The diagram is a reminder that we are in a VUCA world and we need to be patient and continue to develop our capabilities to solve problems that we still don't have answers to yet. Students are always in the center of what we do at the school and in this crucial time, it highlights the importance of developing learner agility. I then include our school's core values around the learner-centered approach: nurture passion in self and others; take action ethically; strive for understanding; create a caring and inclusive community. 

Finally, the outside ring is the iterative design thinking process to experiment with what works for our students, teachers, and the school community members: empathize, synthesize & adapt; deploy; reflect. 

This poster is to provide some ideas on what we can change to move from deliverers of instruction to adaptive learning facilitators focusing on high-agency strategies; shifting from an unresponsive approach to a transformed approach. Some possible actions are also brainstormed to help the planning process. 

You can click the image below to download the PDF file. ​

An idea is that teachers can also use the poster below to write down the actions that they might take to embrace hybrid teaching. You can click the image below to download the PDF file. ​

This is a reflection after our students completed their IDEAS Project in the last week of the school year. Detailed information and rationale of the IDEAS Project can be found in my previous post, Building the community through IDEAS.  

I had a meeting with our school parent representatives and successfully got their support in implementing the IDEAS Project with students. It was important for me to communicate with parents and form a partnership with them in order to help our students grow. I was also very mindful that some parents might think that this was not "learning" as students were doing independent projects and teachers were not available to their child(ren). Transparent communication was essential in this process. Frankly speaking, I was also anxious that the student sign up rate might be low as students had been exhausted from their online learning and I wondered whether they had any energy left to do any project. Some parents and students emailed me and asked if the IDEAS project was optional. I were not able to answer whether it was optional or mandatory. My response was that "It is an opportunity the school has designed to help students explore a topic of their interest and expand their creativity and empathy through helping other people. This is a collaborative project and we hope students will enjoy some social interaction with their friends through making the project collaboratively." 

Surprisingly, we had about 83% of the students who signed up for the IDEAS Project and the completion rate was about 86%. I did not think less of the students who did not participate or complete the project. Learning is especially emotional and tiring during this lockdown. Both of my two kids had meltdowns during the period of home learning. They were motivated kids and at dinner table, they suddenly started to cry and expressed how much they missed the school. The psychological impact was significant on children (and of course adults) and we should not underestimate the impact. We were also able to use this time for some students to catch up their work as no new assignment was added to the student's calendar during the last week of the school. It was a break for teachers to finish their marking and submit semester report card grades.   

Lots of data are generated at school and we don't always have time to interpret the data to inform our decision. Looking at the projects that our students have created, I truly feel that students at my school are very curious and are motivated in their learning in a more intrinsic way. All students knew their project was not graded and yet they were engaged in conducting their own inquiry, in responding to their choice of topic. They were not just consumers of the information; they took a step further and created amazing content in their own interpretation. I felt this was what John Spencer encourage schools and educators to do, "making the shift from student engagement to student empowerment".  

It took me a while to decide on the platform for the project management. I did not want to create another website to showcase the projects. Meanwhile, I'd also like to encourage students to see their project making as a "process". When you are monitoring 80 plus projects, it's important to have a platform that can provide you with a quick overview. At the end, I went with Trello and made a video recording to show students and supervisors. Students recorded their process and showcase their final work in their Trello cards. 

Reflection is an essential element of any design thinking project. For each project, students were provided with a template to reflect on their project making process. If you are interested in these reflection templates to support your students, they can be located in our KIS IDEAS 2020  Trello Board.  

All IDEAPS Projects were showcased via our KIS IDEAS 2020 Trello Board. I always share with my students not be afraid to share our ideas with others. It might not be the best idea, but it might be that one idea that will inspire someone somewhere in the world. Here are some great projects to share and hopefully it will make you want to visit more projects in our  KIS IDEAS 2020 Trello Board. You will be able to read the meaning of their artwork and projects as well as reflections on their Trello cards. 

We developed a set of criteria for the designers and had a panel of judges (including teachers, the president of student council, the school marketing manager, and the student event manager to evaluate the final T-shirt design. The winner was a grade 6 designer! How exciting!    

Students responded to one of the challenges and create a Minecraft project. Their final product was a video less than 3 minutes. The ideas were from Minecraft COVID-19 Design Challenges organized by NASEF. 

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These projects demonstrated excellent independent learning and intrinsic motivation of students. We need to continue to create opportunities to empower students and develop their agency. It's not an easy process as we need to to lots of prepping and provide scaffolding. But it's an important thing to do as it will prepare students for life and allow them to develop their intellect and creativity. 

I worked collaboratively with our MYP teachers and initiated IDEAS Project and Fair last academic school year at KIS International School (Bangkok, Thailand). IDEAS represents for Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship, Activity, Service. The concept is also a continuum extending to the Creative, Activity, Service (CAS) component in the Diploma Programme. 

• Innovation: Start by asking questions and create something new and better;   
• Design thinking: Focus on people and use an iterative process to identify problems and find creative solutions; 
• Entrepreneurship: Develop skills to start a social enterprise and expand creativity in an interdisciplinary environment; 
• Activity: Participate in leisure activities to develop lifelong habits related to physical, mental, and social well-being and increase creativity; 
• Service: Take action and drive change; be an active citizen by taking a business-like approach to improve people's lives in our communities. 

This initiative was designed to develop KIS quality learning behaviors of our students.  

• Strive for understanding; 
• Take action ethically; 
• Nurture passion in self and others. 

Students worked in teams and created their companies for fundraising. We raised 52,000 Baht (about 1696 US dollars) last year. The money was deposited into our KIS service bank to support the ones in need in our community. 

Teachers have started to share ideas about how to end the school year on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Lots of interesting and creative ideas have been shared to help students celebrate their learning virtually. I have contemplated and felt unsure if we can or should continue with our IDEAS project. Then I think of our school mission and the quality learning behaviors we want our students to develop. As always, what we do with students should reflect our mission statement and philosophy. If we want to develop self-regulation and autonomy of students, we need to give them a choice and voice. How can we shift student engagement to student empowerment as John Spencer has challenged us to think in order to develop student agency?  

There are many communities in Thailand who are impacted either financially and/or psychologically because of COVID-19. Will we miss our opportunity if we don't guide our students to take action ethically and strive for understanding? How can we support them to advocate a social issue and nurture passion in self and others? I reviewed the IDEAS project and wanted to find out if there is a work-around for us to launch the IDEAS project virtually. After brainstorming and exchanging ideas with my colleagues, we came up with five choices for our students to be involved with social learning. One of the key element is that they need to work with either a partner or a team. In the real world, we always need to work with someone else and this is also an opportunity to build sustainable connection through their project making. 

Wonder Day Project 
Sometimes students might not have a clear idea of what they want to do to help people yet. Therefore, they can work with a partner or a team to identify any topic or interest of their choice for research. They also get to decide the format of their final product to share their learning. The requirements are outlined below: 

• They must collaborate with a partner or team. 
• They need to share your final product with the KIS community.   

Our students have participated in Wonder Day project previously. 

Students will work collaboratively virtually in the morning on the last few days of school and showcase/auction their work two days before the school year ends. In the afternoon, our student council will lead synchronous activities to build our school spirit and reconnect participating members. Some possible activities we are currently exploring include: 

• Teacher baby photo quiz; 
• Quarantine song playlist competition;
• Kahoot competition; 
• Lip syncing battles by our House captains and vice captains;  
• Scavenger hunt; 
• Virtual field trips (Since so many museums are open for virtual visit, why not take this advantage to visit them!) 
• Instagram photo challenge (#VirtualLearning Portraits)
• TikTok before and after trend challenge (I do have some reservation about the TikTok video regarding internet child safety.) 

The most important element is to get students involved in planning. I got in touch with our student council. We have been discussing the logistics and refining ideas together. When you view them as a think tank, they act like one. Members of our student council divided responsibilities and worked to meet deadlines. This is where student leadership is fostered and developed. 

Putting an event like this is challenging in a real school setting. When planning virtually, more difficulties are added, for example, how to host the lip syncing battle; how to organize the online art auction, and so on. I don't have all the clear workflows mapped out yet and I also don't know how many students will have energy left to take on one more project. IDEAS project is optional for students to sing up. I do, however, believe this is the right thing to do and a way to show we respect students' intellect and creativity. Celebration is not limited to singing and dancing. Celebration of learning is also to provide an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and skills to solve a real world problem or to make a difference. Whether it will be successful or not, I think it's important to do the right thing. Although it's ambitious, we should not be intimidated and give up our IDEAS! 

Have you been in the situation that you would like to show a film to enhance students' understanding of specific content or a topic, but there is not enough time to do that at school? Are you sometimes looking for a film to show students in the last few days before the school semester ends? Do you feel that your children might have watched too much TV at home and those TV shows are not always of good quality? 

During the school closure due to COVID-19, what if we can recommend some good films to students and their families? When watching a film together, we often build emotions together and share ideas and opinions afterwards. It is also through films that we can get inspired, feel motivated, and expand our worldview. If we think ahead, teachers can select specific films that link to the curriculum for students to watch during the time of the school closure and then build upon their knowledge after we return to school. 

Instead of suggesting a bunch of activities for students to do, I think I am going to think inside the box a bit and make some movie recommendations to our students. The purpose is for students and their families to get inspired, expand their worldview and have a conversation through film watching together. I have been enjoying doing this with my own children and it had been wonderful to share laughters and emotions together. So far, we have watched The Gods Must Be Crazy, Hugo, The Call of the Wild, and The Boy Harnessed the Wind. My favorite movie is The Gods Must Be Crazy so far and it was amazing to see how my children were discovering another part of the world with a complete different culture. What's been illustrated in the film is still so true in our modern society. There is lots of food for thought in this film.      

I am grateful for we have access to these movies via good internet and it was also a blessing that we can enjoy the time together as a family. In case these movie recommendations can benefit you, here is the movie list. Lastly, thank you for the wonderful educators who shared the movies that they used in classrooms with me.     

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