Divya ShekharDubai, UAE
Corporate behind her. A first class ahead.
Leaving corporate work for a Dubai classroom.
- Now
- Studying PgCTL in Dubai, three months in
- Before
- Postgraduate in management studies, over four years in the corporate world
- Programme
- PgCTL, chosen after speaking to teacher friends in Dubai
- Next
- A first job as a teacher
Divya had four years in the corporate world and no experience of teaching or of how schools in Dubai work. Three months in, she can read the learning preferences of the children in her son's class, and a mentor has told her what Dubai schools expect.
Visual or kinaesthetic.
The first change Divya Shekhar describes is not in a school. She is mother to a four-year-old. When she engages him in activities at home, or volunteers to run activities with the children in his class, a question now comes up: whether the activity should be visual or kinaesthetic.
“I often find myself struggling with understanding social and emotional needs of my son,” she says. The theories of child development and psychology she has studied help her here. She feels confident and handles the situation better, she says, because she knows “there is a certain explained basis or reason to why a child behaves or reacts in a certain way.”
A lesson she can picture.
Divya is a postgraduate in management studies. Earlier in the year she researched courses and spoke to a few teacher friends in Dubai before choosing this one. “The main goal for me was to equip myself with the right skills,” she says. With no experience of teaching, she needed depth and structure in the modules.
She describes the weekly live sessions with a professor and the modules on the app as “highly practical oriented”. Concepts are applied straight away in case studies, presentations or discussions, and the assignments are detailed. That, she says, helps her structure her thoughts and think independently. When she visualises herself in a classroom and thinks about how she would plan a lesson, she can now consider learning preferences, readiness, interests, scaffolding and differentiation techniques, the classroom layout and its dynamics.
Can an inexperienced teacher teach.
She knew nothing, she says, about “the school scenario and the teaching profession here in Dubai.” In her first month on the course she had a discussion with a mentor about what a school expects and “whether an inexperienced teacher can actually teach.” She was given very positive feedback, and guidance on how to structure her résumé.
Support of this kind matters to her, she says, “as I have no other contact or reference.” She is looking forward to getting a job as a teacher “very, very soon”, so that she can apply what she has learnt.
The team helps out with… preparation for the pedagogy exam and creating a teacher’s portfolio.
