Zainab HakimuddinUAE
Every application, in vain. Then a first classroom.
Landing a first UAE classroom while still studying.
- Now
- Teacher in the UAE, her first post there
- Before
- A bachelor’s degree and a run of unsuccessful applications
- Programme
- PgCTL, hired while still enrolled
- Next
- Senior school biology teaching and a master’s in microbiology
Zainab moved to the UAE with a bachelor's degree and applied to every school she could reach, and none of it came to anything. A school suggested the course; she was hired part way through it, and now groups her youngest learners by readiness and interest.
The contract she waited for.
Zainab Hakimuddin was still enrolled in PgCTL when she recorded her video. In it she presents what she calls “what I awaited the most, my first employment contract.” Of the ways she says the programme has affected her career, she puts this one first.
She credits two parts of the course for the interview that led to it. The timing mattered to her as well. She was hired, she points out, when others were losing their jobs.
Mock interviews and pedagogy skills that I picked during the course were very helpful for a quick and a successful interview.
Videos, reading and activities.
One example she gives is the VARK model. She now uses videos for her audio-visual learners, reading material for her read-and-write learners and activities for her kinaesthetic learners. It has, she says, “helped me keep all my little learners engaged even with this online learning.” She adds: “This might sound something normal for a teacher, but for me it has been a great transition from traditional teaching to an absolute independent learning model.”
With every module I learnt, I have been groomed with different skills, but mainly I have adapted effective pedagogy and technology skills.
Records kept, lessons observed.
Technology did more for her than make online teaching possible. She uses it to keep a record of her students’ progress, achievement and attainment “in an easy and organised way”, and finds it much easier to communicate with stakeholders. She says it has let her stand out among her colleagues and collaborate with the people she calls “the 21st century tech pioneers, my students.”
A colleague who worked with Zainab in her first year also appears in the video. Having observed her lessons, the colleague describes a teacher who is well versed in the online platforms the school uses, who starts each lesson with mental maths practice, and who moves from simple to complex with games, activities and songs.
Biology, in the coming years.
Zainab says the programme has boosted her confidence and made her more productive in a short span of time. Despite the workload at school, she says, she can keep a balance between work and family. It has also helped her identify her own interests. She sees herself as a senior school biology teacher in the coming years.
