Professional+Development+for+the+New+Academic+Year+2011-2012

=[|Professional Development for the New Academic Year 2011/2012]=

Posted on [|30/09/2011] by [|abomody]

It has been long since I last wrote as I was on holiday and all professional development sessions stopped for a while. Now since we are back at school, and our PD sessions have already started, I will do my best to provide a brief summary about each session and give some feedback about it. I will also make it possible for anyone to download a copy of the presentations used.

On Wednesday 7th September, 2011 ** Mr. Jameel Al-Shammari **, the **Principal** of **Ahmed Bin Hanbal Independent Secondary school for Boys**, presented the **vision and mission of the school** and discussed with all employees how to deploy the vision and mission of the school in the community. This was of course useful as it introduced the new teachers to the vision and mission of the school.

On Tuesday 13th September 2011 ** Mr. Reda Saad Elmahdy **, the **Academic Vice Principal** of the school discussed the ** school’s policy in the evaluation of student’s performance ** and how to apply it. The participation of the colleagues was effective and it helped in giving a good image to the new teachers about the nature of work at the school in the light of the vision, mission and philosophy of the school.



On Tuesday 20th September 2011 the **Academic Vice Principal** also handled the topic entitled: **“Practical Applications on Cooperative Learning”**. The workshop included a number of activities designed mainly for cooperative learning and the trainees were active participants and discussed the meaning of cooperative learning, the basic requirements for cooperative learning, reasons for using cooperative learning and finally the advantages of using cooperative learning in the classroom. The workshop also tackled strategies like: Brainstorming – Think, Pair and Share and Group discussions. The workshop has been divided into two separate sessions. Session 2 of the workshop will focus on the practical side of designing cooperative learning activities.





The workshop of Tuesday 27th September 2011 (Session 2 of the “Practical Applications on Cooperative Learning workshop) was successful and effective as it focused on the conditions necessary for applying cooperative learning, problems that might face teachers during cooperative learning as well as teacher’s role. To consolidate the concept of cooperative learning, this was followed up with a task getting trainees to design cooperative learning activities for a starter or a plenary. Trainees came up with interesting and creative ideas.



If you are interested, you can download a copy of each of the above mentioned topics presentations ** [|here] **.