INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL EASTERN SEABOARD

ChonBURI, THailand, 2013-2015

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 At ISE, I was the Art Teacher for Middle and Secondary school, responsible for the planning and implementation of Arts curriculum (7-12) following the guidelines set out in the ISE Secondary Curriculum as well as IB DP Visual Arts Course.  Our IB DP VA class was highly engaged and during 2014 ISE completed construction of their new Arts Space with a Theatre and an Art Gallery which helped to elevate the Arts programs and allowed us to create our own IB DP Gallery as well as to host a combined IB Gallery with our neighbouring schools Regent's IS Pattaya and St. Andrews IS  showcasing excellence in IB DP VA around the Eastern Seaboard.  I was also Home Form teacher for Y11 (2013-14) and Y9 (2014-15) …which meant accompanying our students to the Elephant Nature Park for our annual Thai Studies Trip. (So awesome!!)
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Other Involvements included:
  • Committee Member, Assessment Team- responsible for the implementation of Standards based Assessment strategies school-wide
  • MRISA Committee Member representing Art,  responsible for the organization, planning and hosting of MRISA’s collaborative ARTS workshops at MRISA ISE (2014) as well as travelling to HCMC, Vietnam for planning and implementation of MRISA SSIS (2015)
  • ISE Marketing and School Design
  • WASC Chair – Portfolio Division
  • International Day Committee
  • Coach – Senior Girls Basketball
  • Assistant Coach – Junior Girls, Swim Team
  • Founder, Designer, Artist – ISE’s School Beautification Project
  • Organizer – Eastern Seaboard Joint Senior Art Show, 2015
  • Presenter – “Creating Mindfulness – Using Feng Shui in your Classroom”. EARCOS Teachers Conference 2015

CLICK here for ISE PORTFOLIO

ISE BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT

During my stay at ISE, I worked on the appearance of the Courtyard on the first floor. Inspired by Feng Shui and trips to our MRISA community schools, I worked with our leadership and maintenance teams to design new furniture, paint the walls and floor, hang pictures of our Annual Thai Studies trips and inspirational quotes.  Using the winning photos of our Photo Contests, we created ISE Reads posters to inspire Literacy.
For our Senior Art students legacy project, we painted the large ISE letters (in Thai style and ISE colours) and the circular ‘windows to the imagination’. students. And finally, I designed the inspirational mural on the back wall to highlight ISE Arts programs.  It was completed over the school year with my hardworking Art students.  Thank you to everyone that helped in the project. It was a resounding success!!

 ENCOURAGING ENGAGEMENT AT ISE

'Art does not only exist in the art class.'

‘Engaged students and teachers create more learning opportunities.'

 I find that if I encourage art throughout the school, not only does my art program become more dynamic and populated, but the school population becomes more engaged.   At ISE, I focused much time in showcasing student’s creativity and developing ways to include all students within the creative process, allowing them to realize the power of art.

​iSE READS

In collaboration with ISE English teacher Kristen Korczynski, we developed a theme 'Caught you Reading' for our ISE Photo Contests.   Selected favourites (chosen from our ISE student audience) served as the basis for our ISE Reads Poster campaign, which worked in conjunction with the ISE Beautification Project

THAILAND STUDY TRIPS CAMPAIGN

After my first Thai Studies Trip, I was sharing photos with my students – discussing our different adventures – and I was amazed at the varied and unique experiences each class had to immerse themselves in learning experiences far more vast and engaging that what was possible within the classroom.  I was sure that our parents, prospective students and even our current students and teachers weren’t aware of the amazing experiences each group got to experience.  With the help of the Moving Arts class, we challenged students to take photos of their favourite memories during the trips. Students submitted photos through our ISE VA website and selected photos from each age group were used to create a display area, showcasing the absolutely breathtaking  captured showcasing their learning experiences. One student from each trip wrote a small reflective summary to further explain their experiences.  The photos and student's writing was swapped out each year and it became a great hub of interest for all the students to experience each other's trips, look forward to trips that they would take the next year and reminisce about the trips they had taken in the past.  This also fit into my ISE Beautification Project. 

ESLR CAMPAIGN

One of the key focuses of the ISE WASC team was to improve our students knowledge and engagement with our ESLRs.  When I spoke with students, I noticed that the students did know the ELSRs in theory – but were unsure what each meant.  In order to help with their understanding, myself, along with help from my Moving Arts class, decided to discuss well known successful people that successfully encapsulated that particular ESLR.  Using my ISE VA website, I collected suggestions from each class, and then as a school we voted for the most popular ‘spokesperson’ for each ESLR.
It was a source of great conversation and heated debates, particularly among the science vs arts when the selection of Masuro Emoto was named as the popular choice over David Attenborough. 

MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Marketing is an important aspect of an international school and that one that I am always happy to explore with my VA students. While I was at ISE, I was able to enlist the help of students to create advertisements – not only posing for photos, but they suggested 'INSPIRE' (which includes our ISE) – for local magazine advertisements,  our large billboard poster at the entrance to Burapha Golf Course and our ISE Beautification Project