Professional Development Program
for Secondary Teachers
Extending Lessons on Japan:
Kentucky Teachers Training Teachers
The Asia Center is pleased to announce that the Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership, with additional support from UK and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE,) is underwriting a program to build on the strong foundation of teachers that we have in Kentucky who have experience teaching about Asia . This program is entitled- Extending Lessons on Japan: Kentucky Teachers Training Teachers - and began this summer running through the fall of 2007. We have recruited a talented cohort of teachers from across Kentucky to participate.
The first phase of the program consisted of a four-day summer workshop from July 10- 13 on the UK campus. Participants came with the lesson plans they are currently teaching on Japan and consulted with KDE's curriculum specialist to learn about directions in standards and core content, and learned more about Japan from UK Japan Studies professors. The teachers built on the lessons they already had experience teaching and prepared them to become online lessons through the Kentucky Virtual High School . After Web Developers at KDE prepare the lessons developed this summer for an online environment, teacher participants will reconvene for a day and a half in the fall of 2006 to give the online lessons a test run.
In the second phase of the project, participants will test-pilot the online Japan lessons in their own classes. In the spring and fall of 2007, after tune-up of the online courses by KVHS, program participants will be ready to present the content and the techniques of using the online materials to other teachers at professional development conferences and education co-op workshops. By the end of this program, not only will the participants have expanded their knowledge and the resources at their fingertips for teaching about Japan , but more than 500 other teachers will have learned about these online resources and lesson plans as well.
The Asia Center icon is based on the Flying Horse of Gansu, China. On June 15, 2000, the city of Xi'an, China presented a life-size, bronze copy of this Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) antique to Lexington, the "Horse Capital of the World", and it is now a downtown landmark.