Choose your Own Philosophy

Education is the act of both teaching people and receiving knowledge from students through questioning and discussion that leads to critical thinking. As Socrates described himself as a midwife and people are pregnant with knowledge. So as teachers our role is to draw out this knowledge by bringing it into view. But this goal of transforming knowledge can’t be accomplished unless specifying our teaching methods, curriculum, plan and what is our role as teachers with respect to the student's role. So our choices must be on point because what we believe in usually reflects our students.

Education aims to bring out the best of a student's inner personality without neglecting outer and material aspects. Education plays an essential role in achieving our goals, in improving ourselves and also in developing skills and abilities to be able to manage any challenges we might face in the future. In addition, to develop good human beings by taking into account the ethics and the values of the society we live in.

Due to the constant change in education, different teaching techniques emerged. Recently usage of technology has become dominant in the classroom especially during COVID-19  by applying online courses. One of the known techniques is “Flipped Classroom”. This technique is based on encouraging students to prepare for the lesson before class, this allows students to go beyond boundaries and explore their natural curiosity. Another effective teaching method is “Gamification”, learning through the use of games in which students can be kept in a dynamic, motivated environment. As in the Akelius program, students can compete with each other to get the highest score while having fun and learning. So in my opinion these are the most effective preferable methods on which I demand them to stimulate the creativity of my students. Yet, there are many other methods that teachers can go through like Design Thinking, Self Learning, Teacher Centered, Student Centered, etc…

Curriculum depends on the combination of four essential items: objectives, contents, instructions and evaluation which enable the learner to acquire specific knowledge and skills. It is a plan and focus of what teachers want to teach to their students in order to build up a higher level of understanding. Hence the syllabus must be well designed and organised in a way, to be good enough and to be the best reference in which students can demand it.

As JOYCE MEYER said “Teachers can change life with just the right mix of chalks an challenge’s”. And this means that a teachers must have his or her own tips for promoting the love of learning by having a clear communication with their students. Teachers are the main contributors in our society because they guide students' lives as well as they are responsible for shaping a child’s future. On the other hand, students must do their best like preparing well for classes by completing all homework assignments, paying attention, following instructions, being responsible, respectful and punctual by being on time and in that way they ensure that they will get an excellent education access.

In conclusion, education is the most important ingredient to change the world, hence by enhancing her or his abilities, intellect and decisions to be a powerful, creative successful person in terms this will influence society development.

What I am able to do now ?

Thanks to the  COVID -19 pandemic that make the world better in acquiring skills with respect to technology for students, parents and educators, that lead us to different and hopefully world. This pandemic seek us to change the way we make decisions and to be more knowledgeable about our future. Now I have the ability to register online courses in the university, looking forward for having a certificate in teaching dipolma and at the same time I am an educator for grade four, five, six and nine which is challenging being an educator and a learner simultaneously.Thus being active in managing my time. Also we became a lot experienced in how to integrate technology in education, this exceptional case had lead us be more beneficial in acquiring more technology skills 

Challenges faced when teaching/learning online

The main challenges of distance teaching and the strategies used to navigate student with confidence:

• Isolation: Students can feel a strong sense of isolation because learning from home can be lonely due to the lack of face-to-face with teachers and their peers, thankfully we can avoid that by:

1. coordinate virtual group activities for collaboration
2.  show your face and let your students hear your voice instead of communicating via text

• Lack of motivation in online learners: The habitat of a student is a classroom but in the distance learning this process is taken in bedrooms and kitchen which causes a lot of distractions and makes the teaching process boring but we as teachers can increase their level of stimulus of the learning task and keep them prioritizing study by:

1. plan a specific task with clear instructions which has a due date
2. use of gamified apps to remove a lot of hassle
3. implement elements of video games in the online class

• Technical issues: Weak internet connection add a layer of difficulty which results in student frustration, disruption of the learning experience, the only solution for this:

1. look for courses that run smoothly on different operating systems
2. choose an online course that don't require a high speed connectivity

• No practical knowledge: Some subjects can't be focused only on theoretical content. For the desired outcome of the learning process to be achieved, subjects like Biology must be mastered by practicing it through:

1. use of simulators to recreate real life situations

• Having the confidence to speak up if you are struggling with any aspect of your course

• Students interact with each other and work together to strengthen the team work ability but how that normal is going to be when students are learning from a different place.

What students should be taught when working online to avoid problems?

 "Helping students to find a path to purpose is one of the noblest aspects of teaching"

When students encounter a problem, have them use the four-step problem solving method to overcome it. The four steps can be repeated until a solution is found. 

 Problem Solving Teaching Method:

1. Define a problem (to understand what the goal is and what is keeping you from reaching that goal)
2. Make a plan for solving the problem (include information and ideas that will be helpful)
3. Put the plan into action
4. Check the result

DO                                           DON'T

✔be on time everyday, attend the session        ✖be the first person to leave

   before the teacher open the link

How to be a Digital Citizen?

• Digital citizenship is about having positive and confident engagement with digital technologies to communicate with others effectively in an appropriate manner through having full knowledge and skills to promote healthy online communities.

• Why Teach Digital Citizenship with technology in the classroom?

Inappropriate behaviors at school, cell phones disrupting class and cyberbullying can be prevented by teaching digital citizenship how to use technology with a greater sense of self awareness for better understanding in education. Not all students have the same level of access to technology, some of them have fewer digital experience than others so schools can help these students to catch up the correct use of technology to develop healthy practices on the internet.

• Three Principles of Digital Citizenship:

1. Respect: The elements of etiquette(demand more appropriate behavior), access(available in many schools by offering computers through kiosks, community center and open labs), and law(enforcing illegal downloads, hacking and creating viruses) are used to respect other digital users.
2. Educate: To learn about the appropriate use of the digital world through elements of literacy(how to use various digital devices), communication(understanding the variety of online communication medium such as email, Facebook Messenger) and commerce(ability of recognizing that much of economy is regulated online also deal with the positive and negative impacts on buying online and using credit card).
3. Protect: To remain safe in both digital and non- digital world through the elements of right, responsibilities(having privacy and free speech), security(being safe by using secure passwords and backing up data), health(aware of physical stress like headache, eye strain due to internet usage) and wellness. 

• Five tips for good digital citizenship:

1. Remember the Golden Rule: "Treat people the way you want to be treated or have a member of your family treated!" children must be taught that online conservation must be done politely not just only the face to face conservation, avoid heartful speech while conversing online with others
2. Keep Private Information Private: You have to be sure and careful to whom you are giving your information because this has an effect on your surroundings (family, friends) not just on yourself.
3. Think about the Future: The internet makes a little tattoo of everything you searched about so if you deleted something it doesn't mean that it had been erased forever.
4.  Be Mindful of your "Brand": You as a person is considered as a brand by having a clear well-delivered message, be mindful of what you say that it doesn't hurt your reputation.
5. Be Yourself: Keep on mind that you will have a high number of audiences than you thought to be if you are what you are and not the fake version.  

    

Tools that can be used in online assessment

Assessment tools helps the teacher to evaluate the knowledge of the student and provide valuable information about student learning by informing us what students learned, how well they learned it, and where they struggled.

 It's quick and simple to create an assessment and automatically grade quizzes which leads to view the results fast. Also statistics can be viewed as graphs concerning who submit of the class as a whole. Students answer through typing short paragraphs or by clicking on the the correct choice, etc...

It is free and an easy to use, powerful, interactive presentation. Teachers create a question, audience submit the answer, then all responses are visualized by the instructor. It can be used to engage students to enable every voice in classroom or as a fun way to break up learning.

A great to give students a voice in steering the direction of live lesson plans, it is a simple evaluation tool used to check student understanding also can be used as a warm up activity that engage children with minimal setup.

One of the most widely tools used by teachers to check streamline summative and formative assessments to manage classes, to keep class materials and share them with students to communicate about their classwork and their assignment which results in a feedback.

Game based approach to create an interactive experience through quiz games within minutes where teacher can add multiple choice or true/false questions that are timed and scored.

Used to gauge student performance to assess their understanding of a subject, pushes learners to become more critical in their thinking thus it provide them with skills while developing their language use.

Yet there are other many tools used by the teacher to enhance student engagement and brainstorming activity.

Integrating technology into teaching

• Technology is a central part in our everyday lives now. Todays students love technology, they use it all the time, they will be interested and engaged in learning if they use the tool they love.
• Technology has advanced rapidly in education, nowadays technology incorporates on the content as well as on how we teach it. The knowledge domain, the knowledge of your content must intersects with technology for an innovative teaching and learning to occur. Technology integration to classroom can done by allowing students to conduct research online for various projects to increase student motivation also to let them be more engaged within the learning activity, also by  through gamifying the learning process to grasp student's attention to follow on while having fun and learning at the same time.

• Impact of introducing education technology in classroom is remarkable, it's benefits are recognized as follows:

1. Improves effective collaboration and building team spirit among students when working on group projects that boost their productivity, capacity and performance. For example when our Doctor Amal Farhat had grouped us to conduct an activity on google forms representing ISTE standards for students, more ideas are shared between us also combining variety of skills to tackle more complex problems.
2. Introduce a fun way of learning which ensures that students interact in class while also completing learning objectives. For example the usage of Akelius app, which is designed to practice and master English tasks while having the highest score that leads to better knowledge retention not just gaining knowledge.
3. Encourages interactive learning between student and the teacher, which make students more interested in learning the subject and also encouraged them to actively participate in the classroom. Also helps teachers to monitor the progress of their students and to identify where students require additional help.