Vision And Goals of 2023-2024

   

On August 23, 2023, the Write For Delight Club interviewed Dr. Brown and asked about the vision and goals for AST. During the conversation, we learned a lot about new goals for the AST community and that professional growth among teachers was one of them. We also learned how to utilize the Kagan Structure, a highly efficient teaching strategy, as well as Dr. Brown’s perspective on building AST’s learning community step by step. 

 In order to make AST a better learning environment, we need to make sure we have a good partnership with AST parents. For example, involving parents in Family Fun Night, Carnival, Parent Association Meetings, and many other school activities helps build a positive community. Dr. Brown believes that these activities can really make the learning environment in AST stronger, through the ideas and contributions of parents. 

Secondly is the new concept that has been brought to AST this year, The Kagan Structure. Kagan encourages teachers to educate students through activities that require student communication and cooperation rather than just teachers lecturing. The Kagan Structure is beneficial to both teachers and students since it helps other students work together even though they are unfamiliar with each other. Dr. Brown acknowledges that it might be challenging at first to talk to new peers, but through Kagan, it will be a pattern that students slowly get used to, while also benefiting their social skills. 

 Furthermore, Dr. Brown hopes that teachers can also grow and develop as a community, so he is sending many teachers to the EARCOS conference 2024 in Bangkok, helping them learn good teaching practices from different teachers all over the world. Besides that, AST is going to host a one-day Teachers’ Conference for all CATES schools and other bilingual schools in the country!

The vision Dr. Brown has for AST is creating a positive environment for students, nurturing a safe place for people to express their ideas, installing new practices for students, renovating the campus, and encouraging the best teaching and learning environment. These are all goals that set the mindset of AST. Over the last three years, Dr. Brown has seen that everyone has taken a big step toward the school’s vision, such as AST’s robotics team, MUN, our sports program, community outreach, Student Government, and the growth of each student independently. All the growth that has happened throughout these years has helped build a prideful community that everyone is proud of and he cannot wait to keep moving forward with AST! 

                                      Written by  Nero Ho, Grace Hung, Irene Liao, Mandy Liao, Sophia Yu (‘29)

2023年8月23日,  Write For Delight 寫作社訪問了總校長Dr.Brown，關於今年學校的目標、願景，以及建立AST學習環境的看法。在討論時，我們也學到了許多學校對教師發展進修的計畫和有效幫助學習的Kagan合作教學法。

為了讓 AST 成為一個更好的學習環境，我們會確保與家長建立良好的合作夥伴關係。例如，鼓勵家長參與家庭之夜、嘉年華會、家長會和許多其他活動，有助於建立一個良善的社群。校長堅信透過家長的支持和付出，能使AST 的社群變得更加正向而強大! 

今年AST開始採用一個新的教學法--Kagan Structure。Kagan鼓勵教師藉由與學生溝通和合作的活動來教課，而不僅僅只是教師講課。Kagan能幫助學生彼此更認識，也能一起合作，因此對教師和學生都能帶來好處。一開始與新同學溝通時具有許多的挑戰性，但透過Kagan，這將是學生和老師們慢慢習慣的一種模式，同時也會使彼此的社交技能更進步。

校長也希望每位老師都能與群體一同成長和發展，因此他將帶領許多位老師參加2024年三月在曼谷舉行的EARCOS會議，幫助老師從世界各地的不同教師身上精進教學實踐。此外，AST還將在2024年二月，為全國所有CATES學校和其他雙語學校舉辦為期一天的教師會議！  

Dr.Brown希望能創造一個安全的環境，幫助學生表達想法，注入新的活力，翻新學校設備，並堅持最好的教學品質。這三年來，校長看到每個人的努力，例如:AST的Vex團隊、模擬聯合國、體育代表隊，學生會等，都有長足的進步! 我們的努力讓每個成員都以AST為榮，校長迫不及待的要與AST繼續向前邁進!                                   何柏翰、洪苡汝、廖子嫻、廖苡媗、余亮妍 (‘29) 撰稿