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WORKSHOP: TRAINING TEACHERSIN SAUDI ARABIA

November 29, 2011

The Challenge

As part of its vision for becoming a regional and international leader in education,the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has committed itself to educating and training worldclass teachers and other education professionals. Crucial to this effort is thatinstructors at all levels be familiar with cutting edge teaching techniques andeducational theory.

The Opportunity

The Kingdoms efforts at creating a globally-competitive teaching corps wouldbenefit strongly a clear need for improved access to a state-of-the-art andglobally-competitive training program for its teachers. The Alhambra-U.S.Chamber of Commerce is well position to provide teacher training Seminars onmultiple topics for teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Proposal

Anjum Malik will work in collaboration with educational institutions or otherappropriate organizations within Saudi Arabia to provide teacher trainingseminars for the Kingdoms educators.

Anjum recommends beginning with seminars on active learning and classroomdesign, one of the most exciting and important aspects of modern teachertraining and educational theory. This interactive seminar offers innovative teachertraining opportunities that empower educators and provide practical takeawaysto instructors of all grade levels to establish a culture of active learning inclassrooms through the understanding and implementation of teaching practicesthat have been proven effective.

A summary of the Active Learning Workshop

Educators draw from professional lessons when reflecting on favorite studentsand, from when they themselves were students, on favorite teachers.Identifies the traits of an engaged learner and illustrates ways to transform allstudents into engaged learners.Identifies the traits of an engaged educator and illustrates how teachers cancultivate those traits in themselves.Discusses the importance of the physical classroom and the value of establishingpeer-tutoring partnership.

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Illustrates teachers can take advantage of student diversity, including intellectualdiversity, to facilitate effective, cooperative learning with pairs or small groups.Discusses how educators can remove the cultural, socioeconomic and linguistbarriers among students by embracing diversity as an educational asset.

The benefits of an active learning classroom include:Students work together to access and share their prior knowledge to form mentalconnections to new material.Students develop personally meaningful problem solutions or interpretations.Students receive more frequent and immediate feedback.Need to produce results forces learners to retrieve information from memoryrather than simply recognizing a correct statement.

Active participation and involvement increases students confidence and self-reliance.Practice with a partner before performance encourages students to becomeactive contributors in class.

A task or problem that a student has done himself or herself, or as part of group,is more highly valued, than a problem solved by a teacher during a lecture, withthe student as note-taker.Students conceptions of knowledge change, which has implications for cognitivedevelopment.Students learn the value to working together to solve problems.Students acquire new strategies for learning by observing others.

Because the physical facility directly impacts teacher and student performance,educators entering an unfamiliar, non-traditional environment may lack thetraining and perspective that would enable success in a cooperative, communityclassroom. A well-designed classroom offers multiple benefits, including:

Establishes a sense of shared community in the school and classroomFacilitates interactive and hands-on learning.Cultivates collaborative student work to strengthen mastery and comprehensionof material.Offers learning centers or stations in the classroom.Creates a staging area for students to develop presentation skills.

Avoids placing student in a dead space such as a dark corner in the last row.Enables teachers to draw physically near a student when necessary.

Additional Teacher Training Programs

Beyond the active learning/active classroom design workshop detailed above,the Alhambra-U.S. Chamber can offer multiple other teacher training programsresponsive to developing the skills of educations with whom you work:

Essentials in LearningVariations in learning stylesCognitive and meta-cognitive development

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DiversityDifferentiated instruction

Classroom DesignThe community school designThe student-teacher connectionThe cooperative learning classroomPeer teachers Peer learners

Classroom ManagementCreating a Teacher PresenceEstablishing an environment of respectRedirecting inappropriate behavior

Lesson PlanningStandards support successful lessonsWriting clear and meaningful objectivesDesigning a learner-centered lesson planImmediately engaging studentsMaintaining active learning throughout a lessonEffectively closing a lesson

AssessmentTraditional vs Proficiency-basedFormative AssessmentSummative Assessment

TechnologyOptimizing use of the internet as an instructional toolIncorporating teacher technology into lessonsIncorporating student technology into lessons

Goals and Experience

About the Alhambra-US Chamber of Commerce: The Alhambra-US Chamberof Commerce is a US-based non-profit organization dedicated to promotingcommercial, educational, and cultural interaction between the US and othernations. The Chamber supports its vision with a variety of consulting activities,event hosting and professional services. Its leadership team possesses

extensive experience in business, international event planning, education andmedia/public relations.

Success Stories

Conducted teacher training on active learning and contemporary classroomdesign for more than 500 teachers in Saudi Arabia.

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Presented a seminar on how students can best prepare for studying abroad andhave a successful international education experience at 2011 InternationalExhibition and Conference on Higher Education in Riyadh. Originally slatedfor just one session, the seminar was so popular that conference organizersasked us to repeat it several more times to accommodate all those whowished to attend the first session due to space limitations.

Conducted accreditation training in the UAE for more than 150 universityadministrators in June 2010.

Designed the GMAT program for the Institute of Technology in Mexico City inpartnership with the University of Texas at Austin.

2011 Embassy-University Showcase: Developed, organized and executed

international event for approximately 150 US and international universitiesand 25 Washington-based embassies. Speakers recruited for the eventincluded international ambassadors, cabinet ministers, a representative fromthe office of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and educational expertsaffiliated with institutions like Oxford, Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

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