Educators to deliver orientation workshop in Lao

One of Charles Darwin University’s top educators will travel to Lao this week to deliver an orientation program to a group of teachers who later this year will spend time in the Northern Territory, courtesy of the Australia Awards Fellowship program.

College of Education’s Professor Sue Shore, and Batchelor Institute’s Dr Michele Willsher who has extensive research and teaching experience in Lao, will present a “pre-departure workshop” to 15 Lao educators in Ventiane, as CDU continues to strengthen ties with its South-east Asian neighbours.

“This is an exciting new partnership that promotes quality primary schooling for Lao children through professional learning,” Professor Shore said.

“It will be a practical workshop designed to develop a common language and understanding of the Fellowship Program, which CDU will host in Darwin this May.

“We will provide participants with cultural awareness information, academic orientation and technical support details and travel and accommodation logistics.”

Professor Shore said participants would include curriculum writers, resource staff and senior education leaders.

“We will help them tap into Australian education system expertise in multi-grade and multi-ability teaching, supporting language learning across the curriculum, multimedia and digital strategies to support primary schooling, and explore flexible approaches to remote delivery.”

Professor Shore said that primary schools in Lao operated in diverse language and cultural settings, as did schools in the Northern Territory.

“This and other similarities are at the heart of the collaborative learning necessary to strengthen national education systems,” she said.

This is the third consecutive year that CDU’s College of Education has partnered with the Australian Government’s Australia Awards initiative to provide an enrichment program for teaching and learning in South-east Asia.