International exchange alumni of the U.S. Department of State and Taxila Institute from Myanmar 

(Burma) will conduct “Educational Leadership and Classroom Management” project in five border states: Kachin, Sagaing, Shan, Rakhine and Kayin. Supervised by our advisory board comprised of the dean and professors across Northern Illinois University’s College of Education, College of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Center for Southeast Asian Studies and Center for Burma Studies, our project focuses on the theme of promoting inclusion and educational opportunity in order to aspire to teachers from 18 universities around Kalay, Myitkyina, Kyaing Tong, PangLong and Sittwe cities.

 

The first phase of our workshop, which will be initiated in February 2019 and continued 

throughout the year, will take place in six cities mentioned above. For every workshop, we will invite twelve participants each from three universities around our targeted regions. Therefore, a total of thirty six teachers will attend our three-day initial workshop at each host institution. Our three-day initial workshops will cover eleven topics. The topics are branched out from the two main themes: educational leadership, and multicultural classroom management. The capstone workshop (the final phase) is a two-day workshop which will take place in mid-August in Inle Lake. Based on the performance during the first workshop, we will select three teachers from each university to join our second phase of workshop. The total will be fifty four teachers attending the second phase. On the first day, workshop sessions and guest speakers will provide teachers with deeper understandings of diversity, tolerance and classroom management together with essential leadership skills so that they will become catalysts of change. The second day of our workshop will give teachers the opportunity to present and demonstrate their innovative ideas, teaching techniques, and express their beliefs on leadership and diversity. The presentations will be recorded, and then posted on social media, published on our project website and included in books, journals, and local newspapers.

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