Star teacher in a year. Team lead next.Star teacher in a year. Team lead next.

A course that made no sense.

When Wajiha Aamir started at her school in Dubai, the teachers were told there was a professional development course they needed to do. She did not see why. “In the beginning, it did not make any sense to me,” she says.

After the first module, she says, she came to know many things about herself “that I never thought are very important in the teaching profession.” Modules, assignments and assessments followed one after the other. By the sixth module, she says, “it had actually completely changed my point of view about teaching, about lesson plans, the execution.” She describes the person who began the course as a teacher who “used to think that she has all that is required to be a good teacher.”

Same objective, different paths.

Much of what the programme covered was new to her: lesson objectives, success criteria, learning outcomes, and how to identify what each student was able to do. “What is visual learner, what’s an auditory learner, what’s a kinaesthetic learner. These were the things that were very new to me,” she says.

Differentiation, as she had understood it, meant one worksheet and one concept for the class. If some students could not do it, they were given a worksheet one level down. The programme changed that. “The lesson objective is going to remain the same for everyone but the way we are going to teach them is going to be different,” she says. “They have to reach that destination but the path by which we are going to take them or lead them is going to be different.”

She also learnt the purpose of Bloom’s taxonomy, which she says starts “right from the lesson objectives” and runs until the end. The result she was after was one she says she had always dreamed about: “that my whole class is going to achieve that objective.”

Her name, again and again.

She put what she had learnt into practice inside her class, and when the academic year ended the school recognised the work. “I was overwhelmed when my name was announced again and again for different categories,” she says. She lists a best innovative teacher award and a Miss Congeniality award. Then there was the one she calls her personal favourite: best lesson plan and execution.

It was her favourite, she says, because it was for something she had learnt. “When I see my lesson plans and what I used to plan before, there is a difference that nobody can imagine.” In the end she was also given the star teacher award, by the administration, her head of department and the principal. “Coming over here in this country, and in one year this is how much I was able to achieve,” she says.

A channel for absent students.

Then the pandemic began. “We were immediately, we were all online,” she says. She was teaching online and bringing technology into her lessons, but some students needed her more. Some had moved back to their own countries, and timing issues meant they could not always take her class.

So she started a YouTube channel for her students and made videos of whatever she taught in class. A student who missed the lesson could watch it later. The inspiration came from the programme’s faculty, who she says were available “almost 24-7” for the teachers on the course. The channel is called Learning is Fun. It is still running, she still works on it, and the videos are there for revision.

After the certificate.

The contact did not end with the certificate. “They were so keen to see us reach some place,” she says. Reflection in action and reflection on action were not familiar to her before the programme. Neither was the confidence she now describes when she enters a class. “I feel motivated, I feel confident,” she says.

She is now the senior representative for primary English, covering grades 1 to 3, and still teaches grade 1 English herself. She hopes other teachers in Dubai take the course. “We update everything, the windows and the phones and everything,” she says. Upgrading yourself, she adds, is what the programme has given her.