Teaching and Learning

 Day 4  Comparing My schools learning plan to the UDL template Both have a section for learning objectives. UDL template has a section for standards where as my schools lesson plan does not have that, my school includes a section for Qatar values on the other hand, with which the lesson should align with - for e.g., The lesson is on celebration, then the lesson should include some Qatari celebration styles. There seems to be no cultural context consideration in the UDL planning. The UDL template includes the teacher role column, which specifies teacher roles and what the teacher will be saying to the students and similarly, has a student actions section which identifies the teachers expectations of the students and what they should be doing in the lesson. These areas are not in my schools lesson plan, in fact, my school has very vague teacher and student instructions, it just states the teachers introduction, warm activities, activities on the whole and other instructions that...

 Day 1  One point that really stuck with me was the idea that a school should have a shared definition of learning. This never occurred to me before and I really do think this is something so important but many schools fail to form one. I believe this shared definition will help educators in a school strive for the same goal and standard of learning. I would like to pitch this idea to my current school. I can see it being somewhat like a motto to live by, something specific to and reflects the ideologies of the school.  I also learnt the definition of learning and some of the key aspects of it. We spoke about, discussed many different ideas and peoples own definition of learning; however, the definition of learning begins with the phrase “a process that leads to change”, this is something that I did not think of. Although I knew learning helps us grow, I did not think of that growth in terms of ‘changing’ us. We spoke about how learning can change the way we think, feel a...

Day 1  My daily action will be to do more collaborative learning with my students. I enjoyed the clock partner's activity and I will definitely be using it in my class from now on. It encourages students to work with other students, not friends or table mates, and can ignite fresh and new ideas when they work with new peers.  Day 2 My daily action will be to give more feedback to my fellow teachers. It was highlighted to me in the session that we as teachers hardly give feedback to each other and this could be due to not having enough time or perhaps we are too scared to share our thoughts and opinions of others teaching. Although, I think it could be beneficial to know how you're doing as a teacher from another teacher's perspective. From today onward, where I can, I will try to give my honest feedback, constructive criticism or praise to teachers in my school.  Day 3 I will start prioritising student feedback in the class, ask them what they enjoyed, what they didn't ...

  Day 1 We have to come up with our own definition of learning and share it with our table mates.  Definition of learning: Learning is the way we gain knowledge and skills by doing, thinking and experiencing. Lubna: learning is a lifelong process which nurtures people and increases their performance. Ioana: the process of acquiring new information and skills. Group: learning is a lifelong process of gaining new information by doing, thinking and experiencing.  Day 3  Effective teaching case studies  Mrs Friendly  Mrs Friendly is welcoming, it shows her relationships with her students as she greets them every morning. She  seems to be organised, however there is no indication of the goals of the lesson and how those goals will be achieved. " Kids like the science program because it provides a change of pace from frequent seat work", this i ndicates that she usually sticks to one lesson style i.e. lecture style. Does not deviate from this often, whi...