What makes a difference in our Society

 

          Education is one of the most important elements in developing successful citizens that are an important role in our society. Everyone accounts to a certain role and are all effective citizens no matter what they do as their job. The degrees and certificates are nothing really but a piece of paper that doesn't really determine who that person is and people are not evaluated based on their jobs because even the cleaners are needed to maintain a hygiene regimen. Work is about what you bring up to the society and how you really help other people. Unfortunately most people seem to lack this sense of what a person really is. We are all born equal, and there is no person that is better than the other; rather, it is the different roles that every citizen works for. 

       For sure, education is extremely important and the more knowledge we know the more we can be effective as citizens. Mostly, parents consider their children as failures or they are worried about their future or what career they will choose due to the pressure from the society around about occupation, grades, how many certificates have they obtained. They are really missing the point of a real education...First of all parents should be taught that their children are not evaluated by looking at their grades to see if they are smart or not. There are many factors that affect their performance and such factors include;

• Self Esteem

    Can you just imagine for a second, how much of thoughts and feelings a student carries on their back due to pressure around them from their parents, their peers, the definition of success, the fact that due to the constant negative thoughts planted into their brains have wiped away their self confidence and their self belief in achieving anything. Did you know that being supportive for students and saying positive words to them as well as showing them that you actually believe that they can do anything they put their mind into it, their performance starts to improve on its own!! Yes! this is the power of words and self belief. 

• Fear and anxiety

       Fear is what causes brain freeze and a decrease in student performance. It is the paralysis to the road of success; however, fear is a normal feeling but only when it is in reasonable amounts. In fact, fear can actually sometimes increases our focus due to the high adrenaline rush to our brains. Fear of what? 

1- Fear of Judgement of their grades: this can be fear from their parents due to a punishment or being hit for their poor performance and actually feeling threatened that they have to pass or else something bad is going to happen to them. Another thing is that students fear to be shamed for their grades infront of other classmates as well and that is due to the fact that they feel pressured and more of a competition. Building a safe classroom environment for students should help ease this situation. 

 2- Fear of being evaluated:  Students should be taught that when they are doing an exam, it is to see how much they understood from the lesson to see where to focus on and help them understand it better and that it has nothing to do with them or their capabilities and their self worth. Additionally, a teacher should provide unconditional love to the students and not only when they are getting good grades. Teachers should explain to the students that it is okay if we don't do good on an exam because this will show us how to get better at it instead, and they should know that it doesn't mean that if they didn't do good on that exam that we keep trying! and don't give up. Maybe change the approach of studying or teach them time management skills or how to set their priorities. This is the real education !! not just information from books. " Everyone deserves a second chance, and everyone is unique with their own personality" . 

• Depression 

   Students do not really have the emotional intelligence, and they don't know how to control their emotions or separate these emotions from what they are doing. Symptoms of depression include lack of concentration, overthinking, losing interest and motivation. In fact this is very common especially if parents are passing through problems and divorce for example or it could simply be hormonal changes that the student is passing through. When a teacher sees a certain change in the performance of the student, they should be good listeners and should offer support, care, and love to the student, because you can simply save a life. A positive word, unconditional love, support, care. This can really make a difference. Being a teacher doesn't mean to only teach the subject that you teach, but you are an influencer, a motivator, a leader, a supporter, and you can change lives.  

Traditional curriculum vs creative curriculum 

   

     Why do we need education? the more we know the better, because ignorance is the person's worst enemy. However, we really need to have that inner motivation to be able to gain a good education and that is because people's interests differ from each other. I believe that a more student approach curriculum to be used for a better education, and the freedom of choice for picking what subjects they are interested in or what builds on to their future career and builds the framework of the career to be chosen ahead. For example, why should a student forcefully study things that are non-beneficial to them when they have no interest at all in those subjects? this will actually decrease the academic performance and students will lose interest in learning since they have no internal motivation. Choose your subject of interests and the subjects that move you closer to your career goals. 

     

     I personally support a curriculum that is more vocational and to do more practical skills and work than actually focus only on theory. The learning process is by applying what we learned in real life, and I believe education doesn't meet someone's needs if it was learned only by theory for 12 years at school, going from one grade to another and learning all types of courses with loss of interest, no gained knowledge, and no future dreams just due to the fact that students and parents consider school as something essential for exams and grades. 

       When a student learns to apply the theoretical knowledge in an applied based environment, this brings up a lot of difference in their future careers. For example, if you consider someone wants to continue in phlebotomy, why don't we start with the basics of phlebotomy in school? Training on an artificial arm, improving students communication skills by pretending their friends as patients and how they should talk to them, to really stimulate that workplace and applied based learning. Additionally, I believe courses such as emotional intelligence, social skills, leadership courses, digital safety, organizational skills, first aid training and any course that actually comes in our real life where they actually apply it in their lives and grow through this information, instead of really wasting time on things that are not helpful neither in the daily life nor career wise. Moreover, students can be trained on how to work with companies by simulating a business like environment. This will boost their self confidence, improve their inner motivation, and lead a successful career. When a student is exposed to different work place simulations, this actually helps them figure out the career path they wish to work with. 

       In conclusion, in my opinion  a traditional curriculum sets limits to the abilities and choices of students with no freedom of choice for the subjects they have interest in. I believe that a more student centered curriculum approach should be adopted and for simulation of real workplace on how to deal with people, as well as essential life skills through courses that are not ever taught in schools and these are the most important skills for a successful life ahead. Education is warmed up by inner motivation, and creativity in the courses and learning process can ignite the curiosity of the students and end up having an effective citizen and actually ready to be in the workplace and ready to live life and know how to deal with challenges. This is what education is really all about

Written by: Dana Molla

Use of 3D in Education

 

         The innovation and the rise of revolutionary ideas in the world of technology has been increasing day by day, and the benefits of using technology in class has been proven. Bringing along a lot of Interest, and engaged activities rather than being bombarded with non- understandable information from the books and the curriculum that should be followed. Education should not be the quantity of the information learned, because half of the information being learned is useless or will not be used later on in their life. On the other hand, if taken into consideration that education is intended to build the skills necessary to be able to properly cope in life, this is what should be focused on. It is the activities done, the engagement of students in tasks, and the group work will never be forgotten, but if we follow the traditional way of teaching, education is no use or not as efficient. 

      I believe the image above is self- explanatory of the benefits that are encountered when using 3D technology in classrooms but they will be listed as well for more emphasis. 

        1- Student Interest: As we all know, students tend to be having a lack of interest in studying or performing any activity, and wonder around thinking to themselves " This is a useless subject" , " This is so boring" … etc. Well, how much the student is interested depends on the pedagogy of how you present this subject to them in an unforgettable way and imprints in their souls where they could never forget it.  How much do you think students will be enjoying a 3D movie of a certain topic, such as history, taking the students back to the war zones and feel the climate that was going on in those days? Of course they will be more interested than simply reading from a book about history ! Or how about travelling inside the human body, and see how it functions from inside? this is unforgettable and brings about the interest in the students and they can relate it in life. 

       2- Student Engagement in activities: Many students naturally tend to be off-task than on-task, and it is our responsibility as teachers to make the learning activities as engaging as possible. The most efficient way to make students engaged in a learning activity is using technology, because it is more fun to them and they can focus better when learning while playing than actually just being lectured from the teacher. One of the best ways to do that is using the constructivist approach, where you throw a bate or a small piece of information and ask the students to search about it, they construct their own learning and they share it with everyone when they work in groups. Student engagement in activities is one of the best ways to a successful life ahead and best educational journey. 

       3- Access to inaccessible sites: One of the best ways to learn is to see things in reality, and the videos watched in 3D can be from real life situations and thus the learning process is based on real life experiences and things that they can relate to their life weather currently or not. Instead of going to the factory and showing them how milk is done, you can bring the site to them in class, they can engage in the environment as if they went to the site itself. It is more feasible and safer to do so , I am not saying that it is bad to take students out on a field trip, but since it is very limited, we bring the site to them with this amazing technology. 

      In conclusion, being a teacher is to bring about a better generation, more efficient learning journey, and more students being enthusiastically on-task , but everything should occur in moderation, using too much technology in class and not focusing on readings or summarizing a certain article is not good because they would lose the skills of analytical thinking and other skills such as comprehending what is being said. Moderation is the key to success. 

                                                                                                                         - Dana Molla- 

What can I do Now that I couldn't do last year?

 

       COVID 19 have impacted our lives in all sorts of ways, but I decided to construct my future even better and take positive turns in this crises. In this post I will be talking about the things that I can do now that I couldn't do last year. 

       1- Improve my Self Confidence: When I decided I want to continue teaching diploma, I was anxious about the thoughts of " I hope this major is not too hard" or " I don't know if I can make it to be a teacher" . Those fears are slowly disappearing, as my knowledge is increasing on how to be a successful teacher; weather, constructing exams and evaluation, portfolios in the Assessment and evaluation course, learning very interesting tools, websites, and applications that I would use as a teacher later on and gave me a wide horizon on how technology affects and highly improve the educational process. With my role model Dr. Amal Farhat, as well as the philosophical approaches in education, and most importantly, how to really manage a Classroom successfully. This have changed a lot of thinks and made things clearer to making me a better teacher in the future, as well as on the personal level.

      2- Higher order skills: As all students, throughout my entire education at school and at university, I was never trained to perform critical thinking and analysis, as well as how to construct and smoothly join the ideas of several chapters to a clear essay. I now have the critical thinking skills that I didn't acquire before, because it was not practiced. It also boosted my creativity in many things. 

    3- Time management: This skill have been always mastered by Me; however, last year was tough, and I had fell of the wagon, but with the continuation of my education, I regained this important skill to be able to study and live my life in a better and more organized way. 

                                                                                                                          - Dana Molla-