Ghazala Bilquise

Each teacher has various beliefs about how students learn effectively and these beliefs and values they hold, lead them to adopt certain actions. These become a teacher’s practical theory about teaching and learning. A teacher’s belief originates from their cultural background and experiences - experiences they had while they were students and experiences they have with their students while they are teaching. So it’s safe to say that a teacher’s practical theory keeps getting refined and enhanced as they progress. My practical theory has evolved a lot since I first started teaching. I have come from a background where learning is nothing more than just memorizing. As students we were required to memorize everything from scientific formulas to historical events with no sense of deep understanding. Teachers adopted a style of teaching where they talked and we listened. There was no concept of projects or activities in class. I was just an average student. In college I had a different e...

My most memorable learning experience was 5 years ago in a workshop called the instructional skills workshop . This was the first workshop I attended as a faculty at Dubai Men's College. This workshop was organized for faculty to improve our teaching and learning methods. It was an intensive four day workshop where we were required to organize 3 mini-lessons of 10 minutes each on any subject of our choice and deliver it to the other participants(They say teachers make the worst students!!). It sounded simple enough, until I found out that each lesson should contain 5 elements called the bridge, learning objective, pre-test, participatory learning and post-test. This seemed quite challenging in such a short period of time. And to make matters worse, each lesson was going to be recorded!!! A feedback session with the facilitator followed after each lesson with open and honest feedback comments.. ouch.. honesty hurts! This was my first impression of the workshop. However, when I got i...