Teacher Programs

About Teacher Programs

NCTA provides content rich professional development programs for K-12 educators and pre-service teachers in all fields. This includes face-to-face college level seminars, online courses, workshops, book groups, webinars, and among other opportunities. Below are current offerings both locally and nationwide:

Event/Opportunity Type: 

Art and Society in Contemporary Korea

Art and Society in Contemporary Korea

October 21 & October 28, 2023
9:00am - 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)
In Person at the University of Pennsylvania & Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Kim Center for Korean Studies are co-sponsoring upcoming NCTA mini-course focused on Contemporary Korean Art and Society. Our program will be held over two Saturdays, October 21st and October 28th, 2023, 9am-4pm.

  • Day 1: October 21 - University of Pennsylvania (3600 Market St. 3rd Floor)
  • Day 2: October 28 - Philadelphia Museum of Art

The first day of the program will be hosted by faculty and staff of the Kim Center for Korean Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (3rd floor of 3600 Market St), and the second day will be held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, coinciding with the opening of the special new exhibit on contemporary Korean Art The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 (a guided tour will also be part of the program). 

Participating teachers will receive materials for their classrooms.

Pennsylvania teachers who complete the workshop will receive Act 48 hours.

For teachers in other states, we can provide you with a Certificate of Completion. 
 


 

 

Event/Opportunity Type: 

Chinese Sci-fi and the Imagination of Sustainable Futures : An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators

 

Chinese Sci-fi and the Imagination of Sustainable Futures:

An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators

 

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

6:00 - 8:00 pm (Eastern Time)   

Online, Synchronous

 

This online workshop explores how Chinese sci-fi engages with the challenges of environmental, social, and political sustainability that confront both contemporary China and humanity at large. We will explore the work of eminent sci-fi writers such as Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang, Chen Qiufan, Han Song, and Chi Hui, whose short stories collectively address threats to biodiversity, environmental resources, and the social order while also presenting alternative imaginations of sustainable futures and interspecies coexistence. Our treatment of these texts will demonstrate as well how a global humanities approach might incorporate United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to further analysis and reflection.
 
The workshop will feature a lecture by Dr. Lu Liu (Georgia Tech) as well as a session led by Michele Beauchamp (Mannheim School District) on adapting Chinese sci-fi in the classroom. Dr. Shawn Bender of Dickinson College, an NCTA Seminar Site, will moderate the program.
 

The first thirty K-12 educators to attend and fully participate in the workshop will receive a complimentary copy of Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, by Ken Liu. 

Pennsylvania teachers who complete the workshop will receive Act 48 hours.

For teachers in other states, we can provide you with a Certificate of Completion. 

 

Registration deadline: November 13, 2023

 
Featured Speaker
 
 
Dr. Lu Liu (Ph.D. 2019, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Assistant Professor of Chinese at the School of Modern Languages, Georgia Tech. Her research examines the interplay of science, technology, and medicine with media and visual cultures. Her book manuscript in preparation, Pestering Modern China: Animal, Socialist Subjectivity, and Biosocial Abjection, theorizes the pivotal role of the “pest” in shaping trans-species relationships, public health, and nation-building in modern Chinese history.  
 
 
 
Moderator/Organizer
 
 
Dr. Shawn Bender is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Bender teaches courses on contemporary Japan, cultures of care and the family, and the social effects of digital technology. His research examines the use of robotics in fields as diverse as eldercare and agriculture. He is the author of Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion (California, 2012). His most recent book monograph Feeling Machines: Japanese Robotics and the Global Entanglements of More-Than-Human Care is under review at Stanford University Press.
 
 
 
Master Teacher
 
Michele Beauchamp is an English teacher at Manheim Township High School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She received her MEd from the University of Pittsburgh and for the past 25 years she has taught all levels of secondary English Language Arts. She has participated in two NTCA study tours and has taken advantage of numerous opportunities to study about Asia. In 2019 she trained to lead NCTA seminars and has since conducted several presentations and book discussions on East Asian novels and nonfiction texts.
 
 
 
 
Event/Opportunity Type: 

Food in Contemporary Japanese Literature, a workshop for K–12 educators

 

Food in Contemporary Japanese Literature,

a workshop for K–12 educators

October 25, 2023

6:00-8:30 pm (Eastern Time)

Online via Zoom, synchronous

 

We can learn so much about a culture through its food, and Japan has an exceptionally rich cuisine. This workshop offers an introduction to contemporary Japanese literature through readings that celebrate food. We will begin with a video featuring award-winning author Hideo Furukawa and his translator, Kendall Heitzman, discussing a chapter from his memoir Zero F, set in Fukushima after the March 2011 disaster. Next, we will look at popular Japanese literary genres, including manga, modern tanka poetry, the I-novel tradition, and zuihitsu. Then we will play with the possibilities of translation, using a tanka by Ainu poet Hokuto Iboshi, guided by notes from poetry translator Andrew Campana. Last but not least, we will brainstorm how these five readings could be used in the classroom. This workshop will provide guidance for teachers in K-12 who want to include contemporary Japanese writing in their curriculum or to focus on food writing.

 

Before the workshop, you will receive a PDF of the five readings. After the workshop, you will receive a print copy of volume 1 of the annual anthology MONKEY New Writing from Japan.

Pennsylvania teachers who complete the workshop will receive Act 48 hours. 

For teachers in other states, we can provide you with a Certificate of Completion. 

 

Registration deadline: October 24, 2023

 
Event/Opportunity Type: 

Centering Taiwan in Global Asia: An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators

 

Centering Taiwan in Global Asia:

An NCTA Resource Workshop for K-12 Educators

October 19, 2023 

5:30-7:00 pm (Eastern Time)

Online

Join us for an engaging K-12 curriculum resource workshop in which we examine the island of Taiwan's rich and compelling historical narrative as well as the important role it plays in today's geopolitical and economic landscape. This workshop will also include strategies for incorporating the study of Taiwan into the K-12 classroom with the award-winning interactive curriculum resource website, Centering Taiwan in Global Asia. A PDF of online resources will also be provided to all participants. 

To complement the free, online resources offered to all participants, the first 20 K-12 educators who register, attend, and fully participate in the workshop will also receive a complimentary copy of Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse by Shelley Rigger.

Pennsylvania teachers who complete the workshop will receive Act 48 hours.

For teachers in other states, we can provide you with a Certificate of Completion. 

Registration deadline: October 18, 2023

Workshop Speakers

Evan Dawley is Associate Professor of History at Goucher College, where he has taught since 2013. He is the author of Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s-1950s, which was published in 2019 by the Harvard Asia Center Press. His current project, titled “Chinese, Chinese Abroad, and the International Construction of the Modern Nation-State, 1920s-1970s” explores the ongoing creation of Chinese identities in the context of relations between the ROC government and communities of Chinese and Taiwanese abroad, and interactions with foreign governments around these communities, across the twentieth century.

Catherine Fratto, a former high school Social Studies teacher with nearly 15 years of classroom experience, is the Engagement Coordinator for the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh’s University Center for International Studies (UCIS). In this position, Catherine develops Asian Studies-related curriculum resources and programs for the K-16 classroom and supports UCIS-wide programming and events for K-16 educators and students, student clubs, and the wider community.  Catherine is one of the lead developers of the Asian Studies Center’s award-winning website, Centering Taiwan in Global Asia

 

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