Bringing “Context” to Entrepreneurship Education
In 2012, Gallup-Silatech’s joint publication used an exciting title: ‘Qatar’s rising entrepreneurial spirit’. Indeed, the past few years have witnessed a fast paced rise and thickening of Qatar’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Qatar’s dynamic entrepreneurial spirit has involved frequent events, training programs, and the participation of multiple actors collaborating in the goal of raising new Qatari entrepreneurs […]
School Conditions Can Support More Effective Teacher Professional Learning
School leaders everywhere want to improve the quality of teaching and learning in their schools. Professional development for teachers is often seen as the best way to achieve these improvements. Yet much of the research on teacher professional development fails to demonstrate that it has an impact on teachers’ classroom practices or their students’ […]
Teaching Together in Changing Times
In a complex and rapidly changing world, our educational goals are becoming more sophisticated and demanding. Raising achievement scores in literacy and numeracy is not enough anymore. Economic prosperity and opportunity call for innovation and creativity. An international epidemic of mental health problems, violence and uncontained anger is making nation after nation, and more and […]
More wisdom, less knowledge? The changing role of the 21C teacher
In the past weeks I bet you have heard the following response to a question, “I dunno, wait let me Google it!”. In our permanently connected society, information is only a few characters and a click away. Our lives have been forever changed by this persistent information flow. Fast changing technological advances have also impacted […]
Five Reasons Why We Should Always Celebrate World Teacher’s Day
UNESCO proclaimed October 5th to be World Teacher’s Day. It is an annual occasion for us to celebrate the teaching profession and to acknowledge those who have been making tireless efforts to help generations of learners realize their hopes and dreams through learning. Indeed October 5th is a special day as it is also the […]
Why Teachers Matter in Humanitarian Emergencies
When I first arrived in Katsikas refugee camp in April as a volunteer teacher, I was yet to learn the weighty elements of this experience that no amount of information could have prepared me for. There was the immediate visual depression of the camp’s conditions; endless rows of floorless tents on a barren bed of […]
Teaching Arabic Language for Arabs: Challenges, Tensions, and the Way Forward
The challenge of teaching Arabic is significant, and is further intensified by a range of political and cultural debates in various Arab countries. Traditional practices in teaching, learning, and assessment are well-established, making change difficult to implement. Efforts to reform language teaching, particularly in conservative cultures such as the Arab world, have always faced opposition […]
Freedom to Play, Freedom to Learn
In a globalized, fast-changing world, education as we know it is being redefined. The 21st Century requires young people to master a set of technical skills that are highly valuable in the workplace. Companies like Google are sponsoring kids to learn coding. Mobile devices and social media have opened new opportunities for innovative learning. And […]
Gender Gaps: a Paradox from Learners to Teachers
The question of women empowerment and gender equality is at the heart of the education debate worldwide: girls should be educated and empowered to have the same opportunities as boys. However, gender gaps are not limited to classrooms. In fact, they are surprisingly accentuated in the education job market. Two fields are representative of this […]
Today’s World Needs a New Kind of Literacy: Emotional Literacy
As parents in a hyper-competitive world, we are on a constant quest to give our children an edge. We want to equip our kids with EVERY possible skillset mentioned in the titanic guide on achieving success in the 21st century. But this mission is doing more harm than we realize. Our children are reeling under […]