let's get acquainted!

Hi all,

Thought I'd do re-introduce myself since it is hard to remember everyone just by our quick intros in our morning session. My name is Kellie Moore and I'm from San Diego. I work at a small charter school in San Marcos (North San Diego county), where I teach all social sciences grades 9-12 (World Geography, World & U.S. History, Gov't, Econ). Our program is unique in that it is independent study in which students focus on one or two core subjects at a time, completing one semester of each core class in approximately five weeks (sort of like how National University works, for those familiar), and therefore attend (at minimum) 1 one-on-one meeting with me (or the teacher in the subject they are working on at that time) and 1 class session per core class, per week. Because of this approach, one of my main jobs is to teach students HOW to learn and provide them with the resources to seek out information on their own. My goal with this seminar is to find and develop resources and activities for my students to do on their own and in our classes, as well as fill in the gaps in my education regarding East Asia. I'm really looking forward to the next two weeks!

Kellie

Hi my name is Dan Lau, and I am part of a mentor group with Escondito Charter School. ESC is undertaking an ambitions program to develop an international program, to attract students from other parts of the globe. I have spent over 35 years working with K-12 and Higher Education in developing innovative educational programs. I traveled Internationally reviewing school systems for 8 years as a consultant to the Arthur Andersen School of the Future project. I have worked with the Dongguan Science and Technology Director to develop a learning center in their four story Science and Technology facility in Dongguan China. I am a board member of the Global Schoolnet Organization http://www.globalschoolnet.org/ which is an organization that develops and delivers project based programs for an international K-12 school audience. I also work as a consultant to a number of County Offices of education, and serve on the California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) advisory board. I have traveled to both China and Taiwan to work with their school systems. My passion is to expose the American students to what is happening in asia and to try and stimulate their interest the emerging international theater of opportunity.
edited by dlau on 8/7/2011

Hello, everyone!
It's a pleasure to be able to participate in this exciting program with you all. My name is Arana Greenberg and I am currently a teacher/mentor in Joe Darrough's International Leadership program at Escondido Charter School (http://www.echs.org). My formal educational background is in psychology and neurophysiology as an undergraduate; and I have a M.S. in Architecture and Urban Planning from UCLA with a specialization in international social policy development. I have worked all over the world, and have developed technology plans for K-postsecondary education in the US (at the district, state and national levels) and abroad. I was a policy advisor for three years to William C. Norris and his Institute, where I received funding to develop a seven grade mathematics software program in English and Russian with the former Soviet Academy of Sciences Schola1 project; the project was designed to provide technology to the Academy in exchange for the teaching methodologies employed by the Soviets. I have worked in Central Asia through Interlegal Research Institute, China, Japan, and Korea on education projects. My career has been motivated by a passion for designing and developing educational programs and opportunities for students in an increasingly global world.

I am extremely happy to be part of this amazing USCI 2011 summer program. I work for William S. Hart UHSD, currently teaching Chinese, ELD, and algebra at Saugus High School. I am the ELD coordinator at my school. Saugus has an exchange program with Xi'an Gao Xin No.1 High School since 2005. I am actively involved with this exchange program.

I grew up in China, where I obtained my BA degree majoring Business English in 2000. Right after college, I went to Kyoto, Japan to study for my Master's Degree. Kyoto is an awesome place to experience Japanese history and culture. I enjoyed my three years in Kyoto very much. Because of my experience, I have the strong desire to have more American students interested in learning about Asia, especially China and Japan. I believe it will enormously enrich both their personal and professional life.
edited by yfisher on 8/2/2011
edited by yfisher on 8/2/2011

Hi, I am Vivian Ding. I teach at Agoura High. My subject area is Mandarin Chinese. I am really happy to see that my students started from scratch as a Mandarin learner and by the end of last school year, they are able to use the language and express themselves. My goal for the coming school year is continue to teach Chinese to my students through fun activities, songs, games, as well as many other practices. In addition, I work with my students and they write their own story books using the target language. Last year, we had our first book - Ben and Aly in China. Students worked in small groups. They designed the story plots, illustration, and the sentences. And there was a coordinator in each group who made sure what happened in the previous/next of their counter group. As they finally finished with their product, each of them was happy and they eager to make more books. The reason for making the Chinese book is because it's hard to find the books that are appropriate and suitable for beginning Chinese learners for high school students. For the coming school year and the near future I will focus working with my students in creating 2-3 books per school year.

I am fortunate to be part of the seminar. Everyday I feel I am more equipped with the knowledge which I can immediately use for my instructions. Thanks for the coordinators, Clay, Jennifer, and the instructors for the upcoming presentations.

Hi Everyone,

My name is Catherine Cable and this will be the start of my seventh year teaching Special Education at Chaparral Middle School in Moorpark Unified. I typically teach 6th, 7th, and 8th History along with a Language Arts and Reading class. I didn't realize that there was an area for this post about ourselves, so my post is little late... So far, I am really enjoying the China Summer Institute and am thankful to have this opportunity.

I suggest we have a the USCI Residential 2011 group contact sheet for us to keep in touch, Group, what do you think?

We had a great meeting with Deborah Granger and the History and Social Studies Coordinator from the Orange County Department of Education and Clay, and it rekindled my interest in starting up asian studies with the Orange County Department of Education, the Orange County business community, and USC.