Session outline

Total Time: 1 1/2 hours

Overview: As the first session of the training program, the activities are meant to ‘set the stage’ for the rest of the week’s training. The session has three main purposes. The first is both to introduce the trainees to each other and to begin to build a working relationship among them. This is done through working in very small groups so that each participant has the opportunity to discover some basic biographical data about three or four of the others with whom he/she will be training.

The second purpose is to begin to involve participants in the training process itself. This is done by brainstorming and discussing the trainees’ expectations and hopes for the training. The final activity is designed to enable trainees to begin to evaluate and analyze their role as teacher trainers in a country other than their own. Through small group discussions led by the trainers, the participants begin to compare and contrast the educational system they grew up in with the one in which they now (or will soon) work.

Objectives: By the end of the session the participants will be able to:

- identify each other by name.
- list their expectations for the training program.
- contrast and compare the American educational system with that of the host country.
- explain the role of a Peace Corps teacher trainer.

Session materials: wall chart of comparative education systems, training, design and objectives handouts, newsprint, markers, tape