EDUCA 2019
The 12th Annual Congress for Teacher Professional Development
The Power of Learning Community
EDUCA is the biggest teacher professional development conference in Thailand. After 12 years of emphasizing the importance of Thai teacher professional development, EDUCA 2019 views ‘teacher’ as a giver, a leader, and a change agent of the nation.
The theme of “The Power of Learning Community” aims to shape an understanding that the power of learning community which can enhance the quality education is not a responsibility of a certain party, but it is a duty of every single person in our society. We must play our role in improving Thailand’s education!
EDUCA encourages every party to develop and improve Thai education together through teacher professional development to create quality teachers for students in every classroom and every school throughout Thailand. In order to promote self-development for teachers across the nation, EDUCA brings in international experts and skillful teachers to share their knowledge and experience with their Thai colleagues.
Several teacher education research studies show that teachers do not only learn during their time as student teachers, but rather throughout their teaching profession. They learn constantly from their teaching experiences and working with colleagues. Additionally, there are various ways of learning; attending workshops, joining in a learning community, self-reflection and collective reflection from teaching experience, and systematic learning management (Tan & Chong, 2018).
The Power of Learning Community in EDUCA 2019 can be divided into 3 topics:
1. Co-learning: Professional Learning Community enables teachers to learn together and enhances them to become leaders in learnin management and wisdom of their society.
2. Strengthening the foundation: It is crucial to strengthen the work foundation of teachers and educators by encouraging them to work strategically and to update their knowledge on the trend of education in the fast-changing world of technology.
3. Reinforcing schools of quality for a sustainable society: Every party is to be encouraged to participate in school reform based on their capacity and competency. The power within local community can be the starting point for creating quality teachers and school, and eventually a sustainable society.
The power of teachers learning together will be passed along to the students as a model they can follow. It could, then, create a learning community where people are eager to learn and improve themselves to drive the country forward.
