I hope through this project to obtain modern teaching methods that improve my teaching style and help me solve the problems my students face in mathematics.

This is beneficial to my students on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will benefit me in the future, as it is self-development as well. This project affected me, as it helped me choose a case study from my students and identify the academic problems that he suffers from and that leads to his low achievement.

At first, I was afraid that my participation in this project would not benefit me, especially since all the meetings were held Online, but with the beginning of the work, the benefits became clear as I began to look at my students from different sides, what their needs are and not just give information to them.

I have increased my ability to lead a class and use a variety of technology-based methods in education, and I will continue on this project until the end of the current semester. It is expected that I will be able to provide an initial proposal for CRP.

 Finally each of us told her about his/her opinion and provided that with worksheets.
For this semester as I mentioned before in the google form you sent that I'm working with 4 groups, each group contains 4 students as an after school teacher at Ras Al Amoud Al Shamelah Secondary Girls School for 36 hours, each week 4 classes. In this after school project, I desired to improve my students’ higher order thinking and help them express ideas that are organized, precise and sophisticated in their reading and speaking because today the world needs students whose ideas are focused and who are capable of explaining their ideas distinctly and passing them on efficiently. Therefore, developing my students’ abilities to express their ideas in a clear way that in the future will help them to become proficient individuals.

I aimed through implementing debates by using reading and speaking activities, and to develop student’s ability to remember, argumentative skills and their abilities in remembering to help my students develop their imagination and their higher order thinking including reading and speaking efficiency.

I expected this project to provide English language teachers and educators with a theoretical background that proves the effectiveness of the strategies in enhancing higher order thinking. Also, I expected it to provide a practical experience of performing such strategies so that curricula designers, English supervisors, English teachers, and decision-makers can take it into account. In addition, the results and findings of this study were anticipated to motivate English teachers and specialists and give them a perception of the importance of improving their students’ higher order thinking skills.

Also, this project can be proposed as an alternative learning  technique  for English  teachers  in implementing  debate to  promote  student's higher order thinking skills. It  could also  be  useful for  course  developers, educators, and  practitioners  in planning  English  lessons. Alongside that,  it  could be  a  springboard to  further  studies in implementing  debate  in the  EFL  context to develop  speaking ability.

The Story behind My Classroom Project

 I always remember being good in my English classes, never having to go through what other less-skilled students go through. But I particularly remember high school when I started taking my classes. I got a grasp of what to do and how to do it, but I had one problem, my teacher would show me my mistakes but she would not tell me what the mistake is or how to fix it.

At that time of my life, I believed I was doing something wrong, that my teacher knew what she was doing and that her way was the right way. I was convinced that this was the right way to enhance my progress. I would notice that each time I got many mistakes in my way of analyzing, evaluating, and creating my ideas and choices and the way of understanding the tasks, but I was never taught how to fix them. I remember that each time I got furious I would ask my teacher what was the problem and she would either tell me my ideas were not clear or the way of analyzing was not correct. I was just a teenager back then and her telling me my ideas are not clear would annoy me because I didn’t have enough experience to practice what she said, or what she gave us.

I thought that if I graduated high school the issue would be behind me, that BA teachers would help me understand these difficulties or mistakes more and that now I will be given the freedom to think creatively and have the ability to widen my thoughts in the topics I like or I am interested in. But to my surprise, this was not the case. The way my BA teachers gave me higher order thinking tasks was not so different from the one I had in high school. My professors would underline and re-correct my mistakes and then write what they think would sound better and then ask me to re- practice their notes. Back then, I promised myself that if I ever get to teach higher order thinking skills, this wouldn’t be the way I did it. And now, I find myself sometimes doing the same mistakes my teachers did, but I think that was the only way I knew. And after starting my journey in the MAT program, I got exposed to many activities that could improve my student’s higher order thinking.

Based on my own experience, I have noticed that almost all of my students find that higher order thinking reading and speaking activities as a whole to be challenging. They feel paralyzed; reading and speaking tasks are the monster that has been chasing them. At the school level, they get to take three classes to prepare them to read correctly, speak fluently and think critically in the class or events, however, when they reach the actual higher order thinking’s level in reading and speaking activities, their knowledge most of the time is nonexistent, I believe this is because of the way of their practicing that they had been given for the past three classes didn’t help them improve. They are stuck in the place where they began. The kind of activities we give was not sufficient enough to help them improve their higher order thinking level. They knew they made mistakes, but they did not know how to fix them. 

The challenges that my students face are multi. The most obvious one is that they understand the ideas individually, but once they have to implement them all together they mess it all up. And just underlining their mistakes is not a solution; they don’t know what they did wrong. Another issue my students face is the limited resources to take ideas from, they lack the imagination that makes them able to describe details interestingly, and also they aren’t confident enough. 

Asking them to read a passage and think about it freely. I have noticed that most of my students felt numb and paralyzed once they started talking of what they think about. In those moments they lost the connection between their minds and the tongue. Once they are asked to speak freely, for example, their questions would be all over the place; “What should we think specifically about? How can we start? Can you give us options?  Can you show us an example?

Even when students are asked to read paragraphs about such topic and talk about it, they would say what they see on the surface not in depth; there wouldn’t be much explanation or going deep into the details. They could not draw an image with the right words or maybe they could not think of the right ideas. When asked to talk about what is a debate, for example, almost all of the students would talk about a conversation between two persons only. While they should be describing how a person should have a strong language and the strength to debate, someone who agrees and someone who disagree, how does he have the ability to prove his opinion? Most of my students are incapable of doing that.

Another challenge my students face with higher order thinking is the lack of organization, the flow of ideas. This problem is quite obvious with all students of almost all levels. I came to notice this issue on my first day teaching at Ras Al-Amoud Al Shamela Secondary School for girls. I asked students to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of Internet. Most of the students start asking what the topic means, and then they can’t make the connections between their ideas, they do not know how to order their ideas correctly. Add to that, they do not know how to express their ideas; I was shocked to find that most students misunderstanding the topic and others can’t analyze the advantages and disadvantages. It is like their minds stopped working and thus they stopped speaking. I tried to find an explanation for this and it wasn’t until we started with debating activities. Students can think creatively in such activities, add to that they can speak and some even have great accents. Using such debates activities means constructing ideas, analyzing them and try to make decisions about the given topics my students cannot do this. They are incapable of drawing and interpreting meanings and changing it into solid information. They have the insufficient vocabulary, problems understanding linguistic complexity including lexical and syntactic knowledge, language inaccessibility, and poor reading skills. Thus, they fail to understand the topics they are assigned to debate in.

 

 

Our journey started with me asking her questions related to the grading system, and about her experience in the Palestinian schools when it comes to the standards with which we should evaluate our students. She introduced me to the summative and formative assessment tools. She explained to me the use of each one of them in enhancing the students’ work and providing them with crucial work feedback, differentiating between feedback and praise, and when to use each one of them.

We moved on to talk about a student who suffered from mental issues, and what are the best strategies to use with him in the classroom, so he calms down and pays more attention. I kept practicing the techniques Ms. Maram provided until I got the desired results. 

Moreover, I asked her about good resources and websites that I could use for preparing the 1^st graders’ phonics book. She provided me with websites that contain some educational phonics games, along with phonic rules and their sounds. She advised me to teach them something that suits their level, without making it too simple nor difficult, as the level of my students is already advanced.

I referred to Ms. Maram and took her advice on how to create the overall structure for one of my college assignments. She advised me to start by mentioning a specific theme, providing an explanation for it, and concluding with a piece of evidence from the main text. I followed her advice and ended up with a marvelous piece of literature.  

Ms. Maram observed one of my videotaped lessons and provided me with feedback using Shulman’s Model of Teacher Development. She informed me about what went well, and about the things I should consider improving in the future. She is very tactful in delivering feedback, which is a skill I can proudly say that I learned from her. Her feedback was extremely helpful and helped me learn more about myself as a teacher. I am currently waiting impatiently for her second feedback on another lesson. This gave me a new opportunity in my school, I started mentoring some teachers, and they are happily taking my feedback into consideration. 

Initially, I was afraid of the type of feedback I would receive from my mentor, as my experience in the past with teachers and their ability to give constructive criticism was poor. Since I did not know my mentor personally, I feared what her reaction to my questions and work would be. Thankfully, the reality turned out to be entirely different, and I could not have asked for a better, wiser, or more encouraging mentor than Ms. Maram.

Being mentored by Ms. Maram to develop my skills will help me in teaching the new generation the skills they will need. These students are going to be the builders of the future. If taught properly, it will help reform the society and produce individuals that are able to make a positive impact on the Palestinian culture and its system of education. Moreover, this will help me to enhance my performance as an educator, and assist me when I begin teaching college students, hopefully, in the near future. And along the way, help other teachers find their way and style of teaching in their own teaching and learning process.

Ms. Lamees Khawaja

 

It couldn’t be more engaging! 

Giving back to our community is very rewarding. Life is all about opportunities and if one doesn’t take the time to seize every opportunity that faces him, he/she will never be able to live the life at its fullest. I have always been a person who likes to be involved in my community. I volunteered in many activities through different stages of my life. I have been a scout leader for young girls and have done several leadership activities for young students and other great projects. Therefore, when I had the chance once again to do a civic engagement activity where I can benefit the people around me, I had to think deeply and choose wisely. Many projects came to my mind and I plan to proceed with them later in life. However, I decided for this project to pay back my students for they are the most in need of it. 

My project offers after school activities (club) for young teenager students in the sixth and seventh class. The idea behind it is to provide the students with a space after school where they can do projects after school and improve their English language at the same time. I started by meeting these students once a month for 2 hours after school where I do different activities. For our first meeting we have done many ice-breaking activities and games. the games included outdoors competitions, sports activities and team building games. I designed these in a way to make them fun and interesting for my students. While applying them one could truly see the smiles on the students’ faces and laughter could be heard. All the instructions were given in the English language and so they were able to practice their language as well. In the second meeting we discussed fables. We spoke about what fables are and read in groups several Aesop’s fables. They then had to create their own fable, write it down and draw one scene of it. During the other meeting we have done things like biography bottles for their favorite characters from history and we have discussed several issue related to the stress they face in school and how to get rid of it. 

I chose this project specifically because I feel that my students are going into so much stress recently and they are overwhelmed with the heavy school subjects. I also chose classes that are weaker than others in the English language. This after school program will make them realize that the English language can be fun and that through projects they can still learn something new. When I first came with the idea, I had some fears that students will not accept to stay after school for such English activities. I was also worried that they won’t like the new teaching style I am offering. Nevertheless, I experienced something completely different. I saw that students were very active and engaged, they were happy to come and learn something new. They were even excited to use the English language even more. Other students were asking to join this after school club and the school was excited with the results that they saw in the students. Doing the project, I had in mind to make a difference in the students’ attitude towards the English language and encourage them to use the English language more. I also aimed at getting the students out of the boring school routine into something fun and engaging. 

This project was very personal to me as I have always had the idea of an after school English club in my school. I have been a fan of after school clubs and wanted to try the idea myself. Thanks to the scholarship and the fact that we need to do a civic engagement, I was finally able to make my idea see the light. This project was also a great help to me in my classes. I changed the students’ attitude toward the language and they were more involved with me in the English classes. They were now motivated and more active. Consequently, this civic engagement project has been a blast for me as well. I have seen my abilities to work on projects and developed related material on each lesson. To add, I saw myself as a person who is a decision maker and influencer of students’ lives. I discovered as well my skills of planning fun lessons and managing my time. I am looking forward to continuing this project throughout the next semester and I am planning to give a workshop for my English colleges at school on Project based learning and how they can use it in their lessons. 

The plan of the previous three activities was organized and arranged step by step according to the time required, and the brochure was an integrated successive work. Every day, students listen to a fifteen-minute lecture about the Coronavirus, presented by a specialist doctor, on the Edraak platform. What about the virus, its method of transmission, the symptoms that appear on the infected person, how to prevent, treat, and others. Then add their various drawings and pictures that fit the topic of the lecture and reflections. “Every student carries with herself patterns of thinking, feeling and potential acting that were learned through their lifetime

https://www.flipsnack.com/maramfaqusa/1.html?fbclid=IwAR2sOLsZz5exTIH_mOHkGfV7AefYb4C4LBp7P2L4Mq6RdGicKGMr6eKVhA4


in the coming days. I am planning to design a school garden in which we will grow Palestinian wild medicinal plants. Within the wild plant cultivation project, in addition to deepening knowledge and awareness of the importance of these plants medically, economically and socially and their impact on our lives, knowing the timing of their cultivation and the conditions they need to remain good

This journal is a short description of the projects we participated in. I am very grateful and thankful to be a part of the education above all association. I appreciate having such a generous scholarship from the EAA.AQB. First, the ENTEC Program gave us the chance as mentees to get benefited from our special mentor Ihab Abu-Dheibeh. We attended a total of twenty hours of meetings with Mr. Ihab as he helped us in many subjects that we needed advice on. Second, I joined the conversation club during the last year, and I gave some classes to the new students at the AQB. Third, I was very pleased to attend different online sessions including different subjects that helped us in the learning process such as How to Avoid Plagiarism, the national library of Qatar, Cryptocurrencies, Qatar’s history and culture, and different useful subjects in the educational field. Finally, I am planning a project that will play an important role in doing something for the society in which is developing the speaking skills of several grades students with the help of the Applied Linguistics Center in Ramallah. These are combined sessions planned for the month of March. As well as that I got the chance through all of these activities and experiences to develop myself as a teacher and to enhance my students in many aspects. 

Last semester , My civic engagement was be about making open day . I had planned for an open day which had some activities that encouraged parents as well as the local society to join and watch these activities. I had sent invitations to all students' parents and other local people to attend the ceremony . The main aim was to convince the parents that their students have many talents and education is so interesting; not as the thought that it is boring. 

Activities I did.

1-      I planned all its activities with the help of my students and two of my colleagues, Nawaf who is the school educational counselor and the sport teacher. I planned to make Most of the students participate in These lovely activities.   

2-        I made the students conducted several activities in the form of games such as tug of war games,  Running in a bag, running with a spoon and egg, etc. it   made them happy and  joyful  . This was to break the boredom routines of my school.

3-    According to the materials and tools we need for that  day , my school afforded about half of them ; the others were ready before the day of the Open Day

4-       The time of the open day was scheduled very well. I divided each activity for a specific time from morning till afternoon.  

5-      At the final of the open day , we   made  tug of war competition. 

6-  at the end I thanked all people and students who came to the Open Day at my school

These activities made our students love our school so much and this   enhanced  in reduce the number of students who leave and drop out of school before 12^th grade. 

 

 

This was accomplished through lectures, recycling, planting, and teaching students how to use AI to solve environmental problems. Outcomes from this project were that students were able to talk about the environment and its problems and suggested solutions, they also designed brochures and videos about the environment and made some projects using scratch and AI. The lessons students learn in school and the activities they make at school can benefit the broader community if they share their environmental knowledge with their friends and family. 

I started this project two months ago. At first, I have some concerns regarding making changes in students’ behaviors toward the environment. But I believe that if we as teachers tend to make some changes in students’ behaviors, we surely can. Students were excited and interested in each activity I made with them. From these activities, they showed passion to learn how technology, especially AI, has the potential to accelerate global efforts to protect the environment

I learned from this experience that each one of us can make a change if we find suitable support. I have been always one of the environment lovers, but this project added leadership skills to me where I worked with almost 100 students from 10th Grade. Also, I gained more information about the environment, and now I believe that raising awareness of environmental issues is key to keeping sustainable living at the forefront of people’s minds, but also an opportunity to educate students and spread the word to help protect nature. Would you like to be a hero too?!

We started by watching the movie “wonder” which tells the story of August, a boy with a rare facial abnormality, entering the fifth grade in a private school where he befriends Jack. The two form a strong bond while facing the bullies in their class. After watching the movie, I did a PowerPoint presentation explaining what bullying is, the dangers of bullying, the effects it has on the bullied, the bully, and the bystanders. 

I hope that my students now can understand and learn what bullying is and crimes associated with bullying, the harm that results from bullying, what they can do if they are being bullied and what they can do if they know someone is being bullied. 

This project is personal to me because when I was my students’ age, I have witnessed bullying and been bullied myself. Bullying is an issue that affects all teenagers and adults at times in the whole world. It is a very serious problem to the point that there must be a raise of awareness towards it. 

When I started the project, I was concerned that my students would not take the bullying problem seriously, but I was surprised with some of the stories that came up. A couple of my students shared their stories of being bullied by their classmates and other school students. One girl showed me her cut arm, which was a result of her bullying suffering.  

Bullying has often been dismissed as a normal part of growing up, and bullying and the harm that it causes are seriously underestimated. So, my goal was to make sure that my students understood the dangers of being a bully, or a bystander.  

When we think of robots in education, we often think of them as machines that do the work that teachers couldn’t or shouldn’t do. But the reality is that robots can be used to teach all kinds of subjects, from math and science to language and history. They can be used to engage students in lessons that would be too difficult or boring for humans to learn or teach, and they can be used to provide extra help when teachers aren’t around. And when used in this way, robots have the potential to increase the quality of education that students receive and to help close the achievement gap that exists between students of different backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances. 

My civic engagement project is giving robotics courses for students and teachers in other schools. I’ve started by giving the Dheisheh camp basic girls school a course about robotics (especially in the Thymio robot), and how this can be used in different subjects in schools. I’m also planning to give courses for the teachers and the students in the girl’s secondary school in Beit Sahour about robotics and how to use robots in teaching.

In the end, thank you AQB for giving me this chance to be a more creative and effective teacher  

Last semester, fall 2021, and as a member of the English language subject committee at North Hebron Directorate, I participated in leading workshops for novice English teachers. I led two workshops, the first one was about “how to teach the listening skill”, and the second one was about “how to teach the reading skill”. And each one was for 3 hours. My main goal from this participation was to share some of the Knowledge that I’ve learned throughout my journey in the MAT program. I shared the beliefs and ideas that I shaped as an ambitious learner in each course and workshop I enrolled in. 

The reflections from the teachers were greatly satisfying. Many of them appreciated the theoretical side of the workshop just as much as the practical side and the teaching strategies. Being in those workshops with other teachers gave me the opportunity to learn from their experiences. Moreover, having my English supervisor there, I took her valuable and constructive notes into consideration for improving myself as a workshop leader. For that reason, I consider that experience a personal one for me. In all of its stages I learned and benefited greatly. My skills and knowledge improved while preparing, presenting, discussing and finally getting my colleagues and supervisor’s feedback. 

Right before the workshops, I was quite nervous as I’ve never led a workshop for other teachers in the directorate before. However, I’m really grateful for this experience as it revealed that side of my personality that loves to share valuable and essential information that leads to better teaching experience. 

I did not stop there. After the workshops, I seized every chance to share with my colleagues any effective strategy or method that I came across. I believe that this is what civic engagement is all about. Being a constructive member of a group requires sharing knowledge, supporting each other, and always being thirsty for learning how to thrive together. 

As part of my scholarship, I have had to do some voluntary work to benefit as much students as I can. Actually, I have started working to help my students overcome their difficulties in reading comprehension. I have learned so far, many strategies and practices that might help my students in inferring the meaning and connecting ideas while reading. I have conducted two short meetings weekly; each one lasts for twenty minutes for my seventh-grade students, students have to read a short passage and then apply one strategy to help them in reading comprehension. One of these meetings is face to face and we usually do it in their break while the other one is done online. 

Students voluntarily enroll in this reading class. I even accepted other students from other sections. Students have told me that working in those meetings are more fun as they are not forced to take any exams and as they work freely with their friends. Honestly speaking, I didn’t expect that some students’ academic performance would improve, especially in reading comprehension. I intend to benefit from the strategies and the methods that really have helped my students and thus include them in my curriculum plan for the next year.  

My second civic engagement was to help in painting the school’s walls. My colleagues and I wanted students to feel more connected to school and to have a healthy school’s environment. Yes! We achieved this goal. The second day when we went back to school all of the students were happy and kept talking and asking about the paintings. In the recess, they sat in that area to have their lunch.