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"Change is the end result of all   true learning"
I do agree with this quotation very much, as the change has already happened by reaching the end of the professional educator diploma.
For me it is the greatest experience I have ever gained and definitely it will lead in changing and developing my future learning career. The chance I got in learning different subjects and modules was great and i enjoyed every and each subject , getting to the end with the teaching practicum is more enjoyable.

Actually I have got many opportunities in this module which are very beneficial:
APPLY  LEARNING:
it was great for me to have the chance to apply what I have learnt from different learning styles , strategies , tools and methods in one online session as if I am making a Demo and teaching to students which i consider a great opportunity to practice being a teacher because I am still a Co-teacher and this gave me the power to speak publicly and have the courage to teach online in- front of my colleagues and my instructor. And also gain experience and new ideas from my colleagues presentations are very fruitful and i could benefit from in my educational career.

SELF-ASSESSMENT:

learning how to assess our selves as teachers is very significant and make us improve as KG teachers. The idea of realizing your weakness points and try to overcome it and choose another way to develop is definitely the way to success.

FEEDBACK:
Getting constructive feedback from my instructor and my colleagues was very useful in order to develop and learn from their experiences and also padlet feedback is amazing as i wrote down everything my mates think i need to work on more in order to develop and improve.

The  biggest challenge I see it was hard at the beginning to deal with was having only online session because of the COVID-19 instead of going to the university and have face to face sessions which i feel it is more engaging and full of energy and easy to apply all types of activities, but it was something I have to deal with and I think I did easily and to get benefit from having Online sessions and getting to know all the tools and applications that my instructor use to also have it in mind in my teaching plan to use with my students.

Finally I would like to thank you Dr. For giving us these opportunities and for being flexible all the time.

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This course was an amazing wrap up to what we have took in the PED and I have to say that this course was the most beneficial for me. Off course we have all faced some challenges but a lot of opportunities as well.

One of the major opportunities in this course was the consulting group. The amount of help and support was unbelievable. My group was absolutely amazing, at first I had A LOT of mistakes in my lesson plan and they really helped me by suggesting some new ideas and recommended a lot of websites to help me and thank God I was satisfied with my presentation although I made some mistakes but I’ve learned from them a lot.

Not only that but also, the use of technology. In my school I’ve never used these websites before; we used to get some videos from YouTube and work on the jolly phonics application and that was it, we focused more on the hands-on activities. Now I know a lot of websites that will make the sessions much more fun and more interactive since we will be doing zoom meetings next year as well.

Last but not least was the peer observation. Seeing others work really helped me come up with new and more creative ideas. It also taught me how to give a proper feedback and I liked the fact that others gave me feedback as well, it helped me learn from my mistake and enhance my skills.

Nothing comes in life with out challenges. One of the major challenges was the technical problems that comes out of nowhere. For me I struggled with the internet connection that made me miss some of the presentation and I had to catch up by watching the record. I kept logging in and out a couple of times that may have also distracted some of the attendees.

Another challenge that the online sessions don’t build any kind of bond between us. When the sessions used to be faced to face It was much more fun and the more interactive and engaging. But it’s a worldwide crisis so there is nothing we can do.

The major challenge is, will the students be ready to be exposed to this amount of technology, also sitting for hours in front of the laptop, tablet or PC is really bad for the age I teach.  It can be hard for some students to stay motivated when they'd rather be doing something else; My students this year didn’t enjoy the eLearning at all, it was difficult for them to sit this entire time especially they are not used to it.

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Can't believe that we're almost done with our diploma. Through out these 2 years I learned a lot or theories, strategies and different tools that helped me a lot in improving my teaching skills.
In this course we learned from each other, experienced different teachers techniques and tools. This was one of the opportunities.
Peer observation and giving feedback on padlet to our colleagues after each session is an opportunity to know each others opinion about how you presented your lesson and their suggestions too.
I enjoyed alot working with my consultancy group, i learned alot from them, giving feedbacks to each other was really beneficial.
Knowing our challenges and working on a lesson plan that overcome our challenge and then  presenting our lessons was one of the opportunities as we learned new teaching tools from each other.
Challenges:
One on my challenges was the e-learning experience and engaging my young learners while I'm teaching them on screen. These preschoolers was suddenly asked to stay home communicate with their teachers online but in this course we learned how to work on a lesson plan that  overcomes our challenge.
My second challenge is presenting my lesson to my colleagues, I teach preschoolers so i feel it's very weird teaching adults as if they're my students, but i'm sure i will enjoy it.

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Passing through different modules in the professional educator diploma was really great. I was having the chance to learn how to develop my teaching techniques, how to improve my educational skills, and also to learn more ways on how to assess and motivate my students. With teaching practicum course we come to the end of our journey, the great thing in this course is that we got the chance to learn from each other, share our experiences, and also figure new ways of teaching. There are different strategies for teachers to use in their classroom but they have to choose the strategy that fits their students and classroom and know her challenges to try to overcome. Through this course I had the chance to know my challenges and to share them with my colleagues who really helped me a lot with their observations.

The most important thing I have to talk about is dealing with e-learning experience after the appearance of Covid-19. One day I found that I have to teach my students from home, it was a great shock for me as I didn’t know what to do or from where I should start. Through this course I got the opportunity to learn a lot on how to teach online using different online tools and with my friends presentations I got the chance to know how it works and if it is really engaging or not.

Also making peer observations was very difficult for me at the beginning as I was confused and I didn’t know how to give my colleagues an effective feedback, but by time I found that it is really helpful and beneficial not only for our colleagues but also for me as well. Writing feedback and comments is a skill that all teacher must learn.

Consultancy groups was great idea, I got the chance to learn a lot from my colleagues, they were very helpful and revising your lesson plan increase your self-confidence while presenting.

Presenting my lesson plan for my colleagues live on zoom was a great opportunity, it gave me the chance to learn how to teach online using zoom which was something that I didn’t do before but I think I will be obliged to use it next year due to the current circumstances.

As for my challenges I present one of them which was engaging all my students with their different abilities and learning styles, especially during online sessions. But I had the chance to present this challenge and learn ideas on how to overcome it.

Presenting my lesson plan for my colleagues live on zoom was also a challenge, which was something that I didn’t do before but I think I will be obliged to use it next year due to the current circumstances. Passing through this experience gave me the chance to learn how to teach online using zoom.

Finally, Thank you Doctor Mohamed for your great effort, I really enjoyed this course, and I learned a lot from you. It was a great experience.

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In our last weeks of our enjoying and successful learning journey searching for perfectionism. I’ve learnt a lot of engaging skills and rich ideas to help me all through my teaching journey. At a sudden we found ourselves committed to an online sessions that’s new as an idea and very challenging for engaging the kids.Learned from the best doctors I was lucky that most of my instructors were there for help, tips and easy to reach them whenever you need them and giving you the feedback that is constructive criticismOne major thing of my opportunities that I met colleagues those are ready to help and give you support and ideas as much as they can to help you cover your gap in teaching or teach you a new thing, exchanging new ideas.The assessment tools that be constructive for both kids and teachers, how to evaluate myself and my students and work on my progress. I have experienced the challenge of learning new technology skills, applications and interactive games to keep up with the e-learning sessions, and also the challenge of engaging the students all through the session by being ready with using every minute of the session with a good lesson plan and ready with B and C plans and enjoying interactive games to make it more interesting.

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In our last weeks of our enjoying and successful learning journey searching for perfectionism. I’ve learnt a lot of engaging skills and rich ideas to help me all through my teaching journey. At a sudden we found ourselves committed to an online sessions that’s new as an idea and very challenging for engaging the kids.Learned from the best doctors I was lucky that most of my instructors were there for help, tips and easy to reach them whenever you need them and giving you the feedback that is constructive criticismOne major thing of my opportunities that I met colleagues those are ready to help and give you support and ideas as much as they can to help you cover your gap in teaching or teach you a new thing, exchanging new ideas.The assessment tools that be constructive for both kids and teachers, how to evaluate myself and my students and work on my progress. I have experienced the challenge of learning new technology skills, applications and interactive games to keep up with the e-learning sessions, and also the challenge of engaging the students all through the session by being ready with using every minute of the session with a good lesson plan and ready with B and C plans and enjoying interactive games to make it more interesting.

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I cannot believe that my diploma will come to an end soon , it wasn't easy to do all assignments, readings, presentations and attending classes and i am a working mom too, but it was such an amazing journey that i enjoyed each and every part of it.
What makes this PED so special is the way it ended , the whole pandemic thing made me experience the e-learning way of education and believe me it was so useful and i gained a lot of  information.
Challenges:
The idea of taking the whole course online was a challenge to me , I used to enjoy coming to the university and attending my classes . My students age was another challenge that i faced to be honest, the idea that you can make preschoolers understand that they cannot go to school , they cannot see their friends and teachers , and that all they have is a screen as an only method of communication was extremely hard , so when i was asked to develop and present my lesson plan i was really worried because i wanted to try something genuine , something that can grasp the attention of my students. My colleagues presentations was very useful , i knew some teaching tools like screen castomatic , quizalize and random name picker , padlet too that i used to work on but my friends let me discover a new way to use it.
Padlet feedbacks is still a challenge to me as it is not always easy to say my opinion about somebody's work, it is getting better for sure.

Opportunities:
Consultancy group was something that i enjoyed a lot , being able to share our lesson plans and listening to each other's ideas was really beneficial , team spirit was in the air , i felt nervous when any member in my consultancy group has her presentation i simply LOVED it.
Watching each and every Demo was a lifetime experience, it is not about just watching but seeing each teacher with her unique teaching character and different teaching methods was sure so useful.
I learned that we as humans always have our comfort zone , listing our challenges at the beginning of the course and trying to design a lesson plan to tackle such a challenge was very useful. I rarely strive to try out new things either in my personal life or in my professional life , i was really encouraged to try out new technological tools . " A comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows inside"

Thanks for such an amazing experience

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'' Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next''. I totally agree with this quote as for me I have only a couple of weeks to go & finish my PED but I can say that by the end of this journey I will be able to start a new challenging journey in my career, I can say that I gained a lot of knowledge from each course but during this course I really learned on of the most important thing that we all have to use nowadays which is the online learning. for me I can see that the  major opportunities are:

Planning for an online class:
For me I am anti technology person so when the doctor asked us to think & plan for an online lesson to be totally presented online, it was a challenge for me & I thought that I will never be able to do this especially that we are going to teach teachers not children like what we usually do, but it found that it was such an amazing idea to overcome my fears from the presentations as I was super afraid at the beginning of the class but when I started to talk I figured out that it is really interesting to talk & present your work. also I found my colleagues really supportive & I want to thank them all.

Self-assessment:
it was a great part that helped me to go deep inside my mind in order to think & know what I actually need to improve as a kindergarten teacher as I totally agree that knowing your weak points will help you to overcome it & improve yourself more.

consultancy group:
I can't thank the doctor enough for this amazing idea as my friends really helped me a lot to plan, think & create my lesson plan as they were really helpful & supportive.

Padlet feedback: At the beginning I was wondering what is the idea behind this padlet feedback but when we started to write our feedback after each presentation I found that it is amazing idea to write our feedback using "I like", "I wonder"& "I suggest" in order to help our colleagues to improve themselves more & suggest more ideas for them.

peer observation:i can say that it is a great idea to fill this peer observation as it helps you to think & know what you need exactly from your lesson plan in order to cover all the points that needed to be covered.

Exchanging experiences: in each class I found a new teaching technique, different ways to present the lesson from different teachers as we are all different so you can learn from each teacher a unique way to use in your class with your learners, also I knew about new tools that I can use with my learners like: (kahoot, quizalize & Lawton) & more that will definitely help me in my class.

And finally I would like to thank you Dr.Mohamed for this course I really enjoyed each single class ,presentation & I learned a lot from you. thank your for such an opportunity.

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Teaching practicum is the final puzzle reflecting on everything we have learned in PED. As we have almost reached to the end of our PED journey, During the course of practicum I have observed a lot of presentations given by my colleagues I had the chance to listen and share their experiences learning from each other, helping and correct our mistakes together to improve our teaching skills.

Opportunities:

Engagement is one of the main pieces of puzzle to complete the perfect shape of a classroom engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher-level critical thinking skills, and promotes meaningful learning experiences.

Self-assessment was a great part to overcome my challenges, to know what I need to improve as a teacher to have my dream successful classroom, knowing your weakness helps us to recognize more new techniques to overcome it and improve ourselves.

Peer observation improves teaching and learning giving our self the opportunity to learn from each other, give feedback and gain new ideas. The peer observation protocol is an effective way on giving feedback in a constructive way. I really liked the way we used Padlet to give another feedback on what we liked the most from our peers presentation and to wonder as a question for us that will help and to suggest new ideas to help them achieve more of a new ideas. It helps us to share different ideas together and help each other, I believe that each eye sees in a different way imagine sharing together different visual eyes it will lead to success. Always make sure your voice is heard, every teacher’s voice must be heard and encourage other teacher to develop their own learning.

Challenges:

I had some challenges that been discovered when I took this course, Especially when it came to teaching online.  “Online session” was a new experience for me, I didn’t face any problem with it until now but I prefer to have all my sessions face to face either with my students or my colleagues. Facing each other creates the sense of being close and easy to talk or share, give us the capability to communicate and have a bond as a friendship bond. Online session creates a big gap to have a friendship between any two it’s like the long distance relationship. In this course having online session was great what helped us to have a bond together is by sharing, talking and giving feedback.

Another challenge is how to engage with my students while teaching online, by observing my colleagues I gained more ideas to apply different technology tools by using online games, rubric, checklist, Kahoot and powtoon.I know it is hard to engage with my students in online session but by using various tools that I have known from my peers it will help me.

We managed to keep it smoothly together by creating a positive environment as a one big family.

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Midterm Reflection
Only a couple of weeks to go and the journey of my Professional Educator Diploma shall come to an end. And what a journey it has been! Through out those past 2 years, not only have I learnt and gained knowledge in different aspects of improving my teaching skills to further develop and improve the learning process, but also I have been able to meet versatile tastes and styles of amazing teachers and colleagues whom themselves were able to teach me hundreds of things that will definitely be a plus to my teaching skills.
Definitely every milestone has been beneficial, yet the final round for the "teaching Practicum" was like the glue that stuck all the pieces together! it has come at a crucial time of us teaching through e-learning, hence; being able to be exposed to that much of teachers' planning and presentations has suited me into the student's shoe where I got to see the real image as a recipient for all the planning we thoroughly do, and how the outcome is implemented by the end.
Adding to that, being a no guru in technology myself, we have had the pleasure and opportunity to see how to implement our plans through various activities and ideas that has definitely raised the bar for better student engagement - which will pour back into better learning outcome.
And finally, another cherry on top was learning how to self assess, evaluate, and then later develop myself for improving the above. To be able to set one's weaknesses and challenges is extremely hard to diagnose, yet once done; this is when one knows that true learning and true benefit shall be produced.

Among my most recognizable challenges that I have been able to work any during the term was:
1. How to better engage my students through the online sessions and present material in a way that allows them the space  question themselves, challenge them, assess them, and then finally evaluate their learning. Using various e-tools that I had the pleasure of knowing from my fellow colleagues such as; Padlet, Powtown, Kahoot, QUizziz, Flipgrid and many more - will definitely have their impact on changing the mood of the Literacy sessions being online.
2. Providing a positive feedback with constructive criticism that allows the opponent to further flourish has also been a little grey area throughout my career, yet; through the help of our Doctors and fellow colleagues, this has somehow become a way clearer point where we can start to improve each other's work in a very constructive way.
And from here, I would like to thank you  - Dr.  Mohamed - for the amazing Padlet discussions following every session where it has definitely helped much in learning how to better assess, evaluate and suggest for improvement.

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“eLearning doesn't just "happen"! It requires careful planning and implementation.”          This course was such a wrapping up course, it came on time while we are all experiencing the challenging time of quarantine & online learning.“Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” - Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann    One of the opportunities that we had in this course was having the chance to experience a variety of lesson plans for different teachers in subjects , techniques & age groups. Experiencing the different techniques for all the teachers indeed added a lot to each of us. Another opportunity, was learning how criticize each other in a positive way, learning what to look for and how to express it. Thirdly, digging deep in evaluating & reflecting on our own teaching was indeed useful and was an eyeopener on the skills that we need to work on or the ones that we now and chose to neglect or postpone for later. Lastly, since all of us are new to online learning and it was the most common challenge among the lesson plans, there was a lot of technology tools that were introduced that we can make use of later on; like kahoot, quizalize & padlet... etc         When it comes to challenges, presenting a lesson to grown ups on a screen wasn't easy, the physical interaction makes a great difference in the interaction and engagement and overcoming this and working around it was challenging to all of us. Secondly,the peer observation was a challenge to balance between being far and subjective and noticing the small things in 5 of the lessons plus the padlet for each and every lesson. Thirdly, the amount of work load that we had at least 1 thing that we need to to do every session twice a week was so challenging to cope with the huge amount of work that we have to do in parallel in our schools with finals & zoom sessions going on grading & next year's preparations.                Last but not least,“People expect to be bored by eLearning—let’s show them it doesn’t have to be like that!” - Cammy Bean        So a shout out to all the teachers out there who are spending a lot of time & putting a lot of effort into leveling up the learning process for this generation during these current circumstances. 

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“eLearning doesn't just "happen"! It requires careful planning and implementation.”          This course was such a wrapping up course, it came on time while we are all experiencing the challenging time of quarantine & online learning.“Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” - Arthur W. Chickering and Stephen C. Ehrmann    One of the opportunities that we had in this course was having the chance to experience a variety of lesson plans for different teachers in subjects , techniques & age groups. Experiencing the different techniques for all the teachers indeed added a lot to each of us. Another opportunity, was learning how criticize each other in a positive way, learning what to look for and how to express it. Thirdly, digging deep in evaluating & reflecting on our own teaching was indeed useful and was an eyeopener on the skills that we need to work on or the ones that we now and chose to neglect or postpone for later. Lastly, since all of us are new to online learning and it was the most common challenge among the lesson plans, there was a lot of technology tools that were introduced that we can make use of later on; like kahoot, quizalize & padlet... etc         When it comes to challenges, presenting a lesson to grown ups on a screen wasn't easy, the physical interaction makes a great difference in the interaction and engagement and overcoming this and working around it was challenging to all of us. Secondly,the peer observation was a challenge to balance between being far and subjective and noticing the small things in 5 of the lessons plus the padlet for each and every lesson. Thirdly, the amount of work load that we had at least 1 thing that we need to to do every session twice a week was so challenging to cope with the huge amount of work that we have to do in parallel in our schools with finals & zoom sessions going on grading & next year's preparations.                Last but not least,“People expect to be bored by eLearning—let’s show them it doesn’t have to be like that!” - Cammy Bean        So a shout out to all the teachers out there who are spending a lot of time & putting a lot of effort into leveling up the learning process for this generation during these current circumstances. 

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2 more weeks and our journey with the PED diploma will reach the end, as a practical visual learner this course is for me it’s called practicum for young learners and it is all practical. In this course we are practically learning from each other, we are learning throughout the presentation we’ve been attending taking ideas and learning new strategies and techniques in teaching especially that most of us are teaching the same age group.
This course has added great value to the challenges and opportunities that I’ve faced, let’s start with the great opportunities that have been provided by this course.
First, the presentations that I’ve attended so far was truly beneficial, to learn from my peer's new ideas and techniques and how to improve my teaching skills, how to present and interactive engaging online session, how important every detail is to make a successful lesson plan, even how important my tone of voice, my smile, and even mode might affect my students during the session.
Second, was the critical friend’s protocol, this is a great technique to give your feedback in a netiquette constructive way, applying this on my students it gave me ideas on how to knit the feedback in a positive, considerate way.
Third, was learning how to assess myself to know my weaknesses and work on developing them and that was applied at the beginning of this course through the self-assessment tool which was very helpful in designing my lesson plan focusing on my challenge.
Fourth, is our interactive engaging instructor, who is always there to answer all our questions and concerns, keeping up with all of us and our lesson plans progress.
As for the challenges, one major element that I consider a challenge and an opportunity at the same time is technology. as an anti-technology person that was a challenge for me but 515 courses had helped me a lot in addition to learning from my peers in this course about gamification and technological tools that might help me with my teaching skills like Kahoot and how to design my games to suit with my topic or Pawtoon or Screen casto-Matic and the Padlet using the padlet every time after our session is very effective and engaging.
Another challenge was the online sessions, for me, I am a visual learner so I like to see and interact with everything face to face but honestly, our instructor and peers are interacting along the classes making it no challenge to attend and learn effectively.
Moreover, I didn’t present my lesson plan but this was a huge challenge to design an interactive engaging online class but hopefully, after attending my peer’s presentation I will do my best to keep up with the great ideas that I saw from them.

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Teaching is a passion not just a profession, I think only teachers know that. When you have the passion, you will have the will to develop and improve yourself. I have decided to enroll myself in the PED to make myself a better teacher and therefore deliver to my students the best quality of teaching. I have learned different theories throughout my journey and at the same time I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher and the things I need to work on more.

The chance to listen to other teachers’ experiences and see how each and everyone has a different way of handling things is very fruitful. During our different sessions, teachers would share their stories and how they ended and other teachers would help by giving their constructive feedback and can give extra help as well. The Critical Friends Protocol is one of the new things that I have learned about and it was amazing honestly, it gave me a chance to know to see every tiny detail in the presentations and reflect on it, which was something I lacked a little bit. Knowing how to give constructive feedback is a something that everyone needs to acquire, CFP has enabled me to start to learn how to do that and this definitely helps me as a teacher in giving feedback to my students as well.

Another thing that I have benefited greatly from was student engagement; I have realized that learning and engaged are connected. When students are engaged in what they are doing and interest, learning is at its best. I also came to a realization that when students know why they learn a certain topic and how is this beneficial, they tend to try their best more and are interest to listen. Moreover, when students participate in their own learning, they take ownership and they retain the information better and are more responsible human beings, even at early years. Student engagement also helps a lot in class management, as engaged students are less boring and thus less disruptive of the class. Using the student engagement techniques has made my class more interactive and quieter and thus the learning process improved so much.

Another great opportunity I have stumbled upon was feedback which is somehow related to the CFP, I have learned to give constructive feedback to my students that would help them improve their work. I learned to try to make them self asses their work and thus reflect on it and they say what needs improvement and what is great. This was actually a challenge for me at the beginning of the diploma, but I have managed to overcome it by hook or by crook.

This is a challenging period and each and every one of us, the challenge of designing an interactive and engaging online class especially for early years, is quiet a difficult one. Especially with the children’s exposure to technology and screens, they have related them to fun things, so it was hard to shift what they think and make a lesson plan that makes want to sit, listen and thus learn. However, we all managed to do and at the same time learn new and different ways of integrating technology in a positive way. I feel that all challenges lead us to opportunities and make you learn something new.

Another challenge I have come across my teaching years and this diploma is to differentiate in the lesson plan (activities, process and product) and make sure that all students in the class have a fair chance of learning. I personally think that differentiation is always a challenge for me because each year the students are different and what works with a class might not work with another one, so it is always trial and error and you can change and alter the lesson plans to cater for your own class but it is something I always need to work on.

Last but not least, the world we are living in is super dynamic and the kids are now more aware and advanced. So as teachers we always need to cope with their development and make use of their knowledge and develop ourselves to ensure the best quality of teaching.

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Midterm reflection
Ingy arafa

Along the past few sessions, we have observed a considerable number of presentations which is characterized by its diversities in presenting and delivering the ideas clearly without misconceptions. However on the other hand , we have also observed few presenters who did not manage to deliver the proper idea.

Undouablty , i have benified a lot from the presentations given by my classmates. Thus, from my prespective as a recipient, i have put myself in the shoe if the students so as to feel and and experience how would they react and perceive the delivered presentations and from other perspective as an observer and for the sake of avoiding repeated mistakes.

We truly should pay too much attention to the surrounding challenges and oppourtiunties from my own point of view my challenges could be demonstrated as the following

A- Nowadays the use of technology in teaching has become an essential part of education system. Worth-mentioning that i have been more than 3 years out of the direct scope of interactions with students and as i have perviously refereed to the necessity of technology in educational system. I am very delighted and so happy to see my classmates using different applications and designing different activities in one session  that suits each student age; knowing that our course of study we have passed by technology subject however, when we get to applying different applications in real world things become more vivid.

B- A good preparation on lessons is considered to be one of the crucial issues. Nevertheless the technique of raising essential open ended  questions as it is important for the student’s to practice critical thinking. It is really important to teach the students by raising essential questions rather than the huge information poured in students mind. As by this technique students will be able to reach the answers by them selves..

For the opportunities

A- Despite the difficulties  i am facing in criticizing our peers and i am trying to be positively observe ,criticize and evaluate their presentations as it is not easy at all. Its really good opportunity to expose to such experience.

B-The added value that we have gained from different techniques that were applied by the presenters in showing the approach when dealing with different aged of students .

C-Teaching practicum looks like the last piece that completes the whole puzzle “diploma” And despite that the course is considered to be intensive but we have enjoyed the harmony between us and the instructor however I would have wished If the course had been face to face :)

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With the Teaching Practicum course, our PED’s journey has come to the end. Along the course, we are having the chance to expose various challenges that are facing us as teachers and how we can overcome those challenges and transfer them to learning opportunities and a space to exchange teaching methods, reflections, and feedback on our teaching. In the following paragraphs, I will mention three major opportunities from my point of view, along with two challenges that I have identified during the first half of the course duration.
The most highlighted opportunities for me during the previous sessions were the following:
1) Exchanging Experiences and Best Practices
having the chance to present our challenges and what teaching practices we can use to overcome those challenges was a valuable experience for me. It also drives our attention to the best methods we can use to overcome a certain challenge. For example, if a certain teacher has a challenge with incorporating technology while teaching, this does not mean that the teacher needs to use multiple and complex e-learning tools. But it is better to use the minimal effective technological tools (less is more).
2) Observation, Assessment, and Feedback
Those key concepts together create a small cycle to a professional development journey. Having the chance to observe more than 20 lesson plans where teachers are drafting their challenges and how they are planning to overcome their challenges was a very informative activity for both the teacher and other colleagues.  After observation, the assessment part takes place, I have found this part very interesting and useful form me, as I had the chance to assess not only myself but also my colleagues against the various criterion. This activity has increased the critical thinking skills while observing other colleagues putting the mentioned criteria into consideration. With repeating the assessment to nearly 5 colleagues, you become more attentive to them and give them more consideration afterward.
3) Shifting to Technology
The shift to the e-learning synchronous mode gives us a great opportunity to discover and learn about different e-learning tools and useful websites to use with our students. Besides, it gives us a clear view of the best options and best practices when it comes to using technology, as I have mentioned in the first point. When it comes to technology, I have learned that less is more. Additionally, I have learned that using technology accompanies other steps that we shall follow, for instance sending previous e-mails with certain needed instructions to the parents, prior to the online class, and testing some features and steps before using it with the students.
Turning to the challenges, I have identified two challenges that were highlighted during the previous period as follows:
1) Social Isolation
As an ambivert person, I did not imagine that I will miss the face- to face interactions with other participants in the course due to my introvert traits. On the contrary, I have experienced a different feeling during our online sessions that lead me to understand how important the face to face interactions even to the introverts. I believe that lack of social interactions can be decreased with some tips like turning our cameras on and maybe having an online break or a time in which we can share our news, feelings, and talks that relate to our personal lives. However, social isolation may heighten our stress, anxiety, and negative thoughts.
2) ICT/ Computer literacy
Although shifting to online learning is a great opportunity to improve our knowledge about technology, however, it can represent a great obstacle to those who do not have enough ICT skills or computer literacy. I believe that once a teacher decides to teach online, he/she needs to brainstorm about possible technology risks/challenges which may encounter him/her while teaching. For example, we need as teachers to read carefully and educate ourselves about how can we consider the safety of the online conferencing tools and how can we decrease any possible child abuses that our students may experience while using different online platforms and applications. Furthermore, we have witnessed that while teaching online you need to have some computer skills and technological awareness to be able to conduct some e-learning activities such as presenting a video with audio to your students, using breakout rooms options effectively, managing FB/what’s app groups, dealing with LMS or creating some e-learning content by ourselves.
Finally, I believe that we will uncover more potentials during our journey withing the second half of the course acquiring more solid knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards a lot of teaching practices and methodologies.

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Through the online practicum course , I have learned one of the most important thing especially nowadays, how to prepare an effective online session and how to use the zoom during the session, how to introduce the lesson using that today we are going to learn instead of talking, sharing our teaching experience is beneficial, it is very important to learn from each other and to learn  from our mistakes and learn how to improve our teaching skills. The three major opportunities are :
1- peer evaluation
it is very beneficial to evaluate each other after each session and write what we like to encourage each other and share positive comments and write our suggestions for improving our teaching skills. The peer protocol is an effective way for practicing how to use constructive feedback which is very important because, it makes the learning more engaging and helps develop a number of skills including communication, also our discussion using the Padlet was an excellent idea for encouraging healthy discussions and help us to develop our communication skills, also the consultancy group was a great idea and it is very beneficial because it helped us to share our experience and help each other .
Using technology
This course was a real experience that helped me to know how to integrate more technology in my lesson and how to use technological tools, how to share my lesson using zoom, using technology in this course make teaching and learning  more meaningful and fun, involve in the presentations as students helped us to involve and learn from their experience, how to manage the online classroom and sharing the classroom rules before starting the session, how to encourage my students in the online session using interactive games relate it to the curriculum.
Self assessment
One of the most important thing in this course was, how to assess yourself it was my first time to do it , to find your strengths and your weaknesses and find a solution to overcome your weaknesses in the classroom, it was a great experience to identify my skill gaps, and how to overcome it to improve myself .
Two challenges
1- How to find a solution to overcome my weakness point in the online session:
My challenge was using different learning style during my session, in the normal session it is easy to find a lot of solutions to overcome this challenge such as different activity using video , outdoor activities, but to use different learning style during online session was not easy to find different activities using the technology .
Present the lesson using zoom:
It was my first time to teach an online session so it was an excellent experience to me and it was not easy to present the online session, but it gives me experience how I can manage the online classroom and how I can let the students engage and using games , ask them during the session to keep them focusing.

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Through the different courses I have passed in the professional educator diploma, there were always chances to try using the new techniques and tools I'm learning, but it was only limited to a specific technique or tool related to the subject of the course. Here is the essential difference in this course, this time in the presentation task, all techniques and tools are available, I can select whatever educational tool or program to use, and build my lesson according to the techniques I find effective, and this was the first opportunity I had in this course as I backward designed my lesson without limited access to tools and instruction techniques, I could chose from all the concepts I have been introduced to through all the previous courses.
Still, this created the first challenge too, because one specific tool could be of great benefit for a specific content but useless for another. Videos for example can be effective for presenting a new content in an attractive way, or to spark interest, but in other cases it could be a waste of time and energy if not used appropriately, mind maps too could play a very good role when presenting a history lesson where events and accidents are connected, leading to each other but for other lesson it might be not useful.
The challenge is to select the most appropriate tool to create the most effective result... the wise selection and implementation of tools in relation to curriculum.
The other great opportunity I had in this course was having the chance to see, engage, and assess colleagues with different experiences in the field of education while presenting their lessons and meeting their challenges, even read their behind scenes work including lesson plans and self-assessment. I believe I was not going to have such opportunity except here, and I'm so grateful for the kind understanding attitude that prevails in all discussions, presentations and in the feedback process too.
The challenge was to preview the presentations, the attitudes and instruction techniques of my colleagues and create my own personality as an educator as I had no experience in this field before.
The self-assessment tool is a very important tool too, and I believe I shall be using it time after time for assessing my level, my achieved goals, the new challenges I'm facing, and the progress I'm making.
I really appreciate the chance I have been given in this course, starting with the design process to my lesson, passing through the working group assist, the cooperation through the presentation, and the feedback after it, then the unique experience of watching other teachers facing their challenges in their presentation and discuss openly with them their performance through the "I like, I wonder, I suggest" technique. The Critical Friends Protocol as a whole was very essential and of great use through this course, and every time I was giving a feedback to a colleague, I was reflecting on myself too.
As I continue to go further through my practicum experience I have come to know that reflection on our lessson plans, tools we used, and the way each of us present will have a great impact on my pursuit of being a teacher capable to deliver her message in most effective ways.

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This is indeed a useful course. I’m so happy I’m ending the PED diploma with such course. Despite we are still half way through, but I really learnt a lot. Like every development or new path we take there is always opportunities and challenges and in this course I would easily say the opportunities were much more than the challenges.

One of the best opportunities that I’ve encountered was engaging with other teachers that are teaching close age groups like me. I’ve learnt tremendously from each one of them, from teaching strategies to energetic attitudes and resources. Each teacher in this course is different and has her own way in teaching her learners, which was very enjoyable to watch and learn from.

Another opportunity was the critical friends protocol. At first, I was a bit scared of the idea and how I’ll criticize my peers, but after I read the ones they wrote me, I learnt how important it is and how it really opens your eyes to things you may not have seen. I also learnt that we can criticize in a positive professional way using “I like”, “I wonder” and “I suggest”.

Also, the peer observation forms we fill is extremely helpful for us to see the other side of the story. In my case, my presentation was in the first session so I did not have the chance to check the form beforehand, but for my peers they can use this form as a rubric to understand exactly what is expected from them in their presentation.

An extremely helpful opportunity I met was the consultancy group. I did not expect it would be that helpful. I love how we help, correct and give ideas to each other. We take a chance for correction and performing better before our presentations, which does not happen in most cases in our lives.

Adding a fourth opportunity, was the self-assessment we made to ourselves to uncover our challenges. It opens your eyes to challenges you never thought you had. I always knew I lacked in the technology part, but the self-assessment made me realize that it was time to change my way and incorporate more technology into my lesson plans.

Of course, as there are opportunities there are challenges, like planning a learning session online. This was one of the hardest lesson plans I’ve ever developed. It was really tricky to plan this lesson not only because it was online, but because we had to teach adults, who are teachers too, not young learners like we are all used to. But honestly, besides finding it a challenge, I believe it was also an opportunity, because it pushed me to look for better resources and work hard to perform the best way possible.

Another challenge I felt was, not presenting my lesson in front of my peers in real. I’m the type of person that likes to connect and bond with other people in real life better than online. I like to see others expressions, reactions and work hand in hand.

Overall, I can say that till this day in the “teaching practicum” course, I’m extremely enjoying it and impressively learning. Thank you for such an opportunityJ

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"The journey is the treasure"LIoyd Alexander.This quote is way deep and very real, we are all waiting the end result,   the reward.But if we think deeply,the treasure is in the journey itself, the journey of Teaching Practicum course was very rich,fruitful and helped me to work on myself and to improve my performance.Before digging deep,in general i enjoyed the course,the strategy used and i want to thank you doctor for the great effort and well prepared course.
Starting with opportunities,actually there were many, i believe learning from each other was one of the best techniques used that i was looking for from the beginning of the diploma.We are almost 20 different teachers with different backgrounds, techniques,institutions and personalities this culture taught me 20 different ways to prepare and apply lesson plans.

The self assessment was an amazing move as i knew my weaknesses and based on it i planed for the lesson to over come it,Also throughout my peers'presentation i got ideas to overcome my challenge and i discovered new techniques such as the online learning websites, gamifaction Like, Pawtoon, Screen Casto-matic, Padlet and kahoot these were amazing especially for my students'age group.
The Critical Friends Protocol and our feedback on padlet,wooww at the beginning i thought it will be boring and just a task to be filled but after doing it, i now understand the concept behind it, i have learned how to criticize others in a good constructed structured feedback.Moreover i knew the benchmark to criticize my presentation and the path to ameliorate it.
The greatest opportunity was discovering my own challenge and plan to overcome it.First i had to go throw all techniques, strategies and domains that must be fulfilled and start to filter it until i reach to the main challenge from this point i worked very hard on myself and i had to search deep to find the best solutions to overcome it this process showed me the right way of designing any lesson plan it is not just about the activities it has to be tackling and achieving specific objective.However i still didn't present, yet i believe i will find more criteria that i need to work on after receiving my peers'feedback.Another thing was the consulting group this group was like home to me,i felt responsible for each one of them and i took their presentations as mine.It is a mutual benefit  to them and me with our  different experiences and  point of views.
Of course,everything has the other side which is challenges.My main challenge was preparing the lesson plan to fit an online platform.I am used to prepare normal face to face lesson plans with hands on activities,this was the first time to create an interactive online  lesson plan.It took me me to search,prepare and decide.Also i am not teaching this year so it was a little bit challenging for me to visualize it and create it.On the other hand i believe  the online platform with being a mom was extremely challenging,to keep my kids busy and interact with my peers during  the class was hard especially when i had to mute the sound and video.This kept me sometime disconnected and not engaged comparing when it is a face to face class.Also the internet connection,The technical problems occurred through presentations to play a video or to share the screen i am still worried about how i will handle it.In adds, distractions when everybody had the mike on,and i think some of us had much more to show but wasn't able because it is online .
Regardless,all these challenges i enjoyed it, i met new friends,the break up rooms were very nice to work together randomly.All tasks were clear and had objectives.The spirit in this course is very encouraging and friendly.<3

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The finale ' Teaching Practicum' was the missing chain that completed my holistic understanding of ' Teaching'. Peer observations and reflections were key to my understanding.

Attending my peers’ presentations and checking their lesson plans was a huge learning opportunity. Despite our differences, in terms of the age groups we teach, the different subjects, and our teaching approach, I really learned a lot from each and every one.

Challenges: There were some challenges that aroused and those are the ones I am willing to work on; I believe I haven’t been tackling differentiation as should be and I have spotted this during my own presentation as well as. It is the grey area that I always avoided, but I am definitely planning to invade in my coming classes. Another challenge that aroused is giving my learners more time to understand and dwell on the information I discuss with them and this needs me to work on reducing my instructional time and giving more time for my students for understanding.

Opportunities: I strongly believe engagement is key to knowledgeable learners and to leading successful classes. I have learned a lot from my peers’ observations especially tools that will allow me to upgrade my student centered classrooms. I have already started applying them with my 7 graders and especially with the online learning. Padlet; OH WOOW! Thank you Dr. Mohamed for this invention J. Quizalize for creating tailored quizzes for my students in a fun way that serves AFL and AAL.

Another important opportunity is applying the questioning technique that helped me redesign my lessons, and allowed me to arouse the critical thinking of my students which was key to deep understanding.

The Critical Friends Protocol was an eye opener on positive criticism. Even though I have always tried to achieve positive criticism, but getting to know more about it in details made the positive criticism process more meaningful and constructive for me and for others as well. It is a step forward towards my character development on a personal level and on a professional level as well.

I LOVED my experience as an online learner and I have managed to transfer most of my learning and understanding to my students, and I am passionately looking forward to transferring all my knowledge to colleagues in need and my kids at school. PED has been the hidden gem that I am so thrilled to have had the opportunity to excavate :)

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Reaching towards the end in the Educator Professional Diploma and passing halfway in the last, but not least, course “Teaching practicum” I confess, I learnt a lot more than what I expected. Listening to and watching others, whether the instructors or my peers made me know where I stand, helped me work on myself, modify my strategies and use new ones that can fit my age group in class.

Till now, I attended 11 presentations for my peers in the course. Since day one, I felt the excitement, the stress and the success of all the presenters. Still 8 to go, and I’m one of them, I didn’t do my presentation yet, but I feel as if I did. Thanks to our instructor’s idea, he made us feel as if we are one group. Consulting groups was a great idea, because whenever it was anyone’s in the group presentation, it was as if it’s our own. This made us feel as one family. Of course, I met many opportunities and challenges, but different experiences and various points of views, this is what teaches us.

One of the major opportunities that I met is learning new technological tools and strategies. When we started the e-learning at school, I had a very limited knowledge of technological tools. My students used to be very bored in the online session, and I thought of course if they’re not engaged in something, they must be bored. But now, I learnt that there are so many games, programs, forms, applications which were presented in a very simple way in the presentations. Like, Kahoot, Pawtoon, Screen Casto-matic, Padlet, google forms and slides, Quizalize, Random name picker and different websites for games, where you can personalise your own game to go with the topic, like www.ictgames.com. I believe that these tools help me as well as they help the students. They make me create my own activity to serve my lesson plan, and that will force me to work with the UbD (backward design) where I must set my goals and objectives before planning for any activities.

Another opportunity is self-assessment. I always want to self- assess myself to know where I stand and what are my points of weaknesses and strengths. I sometimes did, but they weren’t as deep as the one we did in this course. During self-assessing myself, I discovered that I didn’t have only one challenge. I discovered that I have a challenge in applying technology in my class, due to the limited knowledge of technological tools. I found out that during the inline session, I had a challenge in engaging the students and make them busy all the time. I realised that we are not applying authentic assessment as it should be, as we don’t have the enough time to tailor specific assessments to each student on his own. So, the self-assessment definitely helped me identify my weak points in order to work on them.

Third opportunity and the best to me is learning about Critical Friends Protocol. Criticising is very hard as you want to say your opinion, but in a decent way so that you don’t embarrass your peer. This protocol always starts with “I like” which motivates the one you are criticising. Then comes “I wonder” where I can ask about something that I don’t understand and the last thing is “I suggest” is where I say my suggestion but in a respectful way. Then, there is a discussion made between all the peers. We’ve been doing this for the last 8 sessions and I’m loving it. Everyone is saying their opinion but in a way to make the presenter feel satisfied and proud of himself/herself, and at the same time they learnt something new to modify their lesson plan, as we always learn from eachother and that is the main goal for this course.

No learning comes without challenges, and of course throughout the session I met some challenges. My first challenge in this course is that it’s an online course. I like to interact with my peers and instructor exactly like I like to interact with my students. I find it easier and engaging more if we met face to face, but due to the circumstances, it had to be online. I always feel that during the online session there is a gap between me and my students, and being physically with them, makes them feel comfortable and more outgoing. They could even use the manipulatives we used in the class and they are used to it. Same happened in our session in the course, I preferred to be physically there, interacting with my peers.

Another challenge which goes under “online session” too is technical problems. Sometimes I find myself logged out or I have problems in listening or watching due to connection issues. I think this happened to most of my friends too, as most of them keep sending messages that they were logged out and couldn’t log in again, so we miss a lot which we don’t want to. But still this is out of our hands.

However, the course is going very smoothly as I can feel that I know everyone, although I don’t, everyone is friendly, willing to help and respecting eachother. Our instructor is very helpful, replies to everyone no matter how many questions we ask, and is always ready to support us. He gives immediate feedback, which is one of the keys to our success. Till now, the course is a great success, hopefully it will be the best finale to our professional educator diploma :)

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In our presentation and clinical journey, we have experienced a variety of challenges, methods of teaching, reflections, and feedback.
Identify at least three major points of opportunities and two challenges. Share your in-depth  discussions weaving theory and practice.