Zeinab KoaikUAE
Interior designer. Now running the art room.
Moving from interior design to a UAE art room.
- Now
- Visual art coordinator, UAE
- Before
- Interior designer
- Programme
- PgCTL, registered in January 2020
- Next
- Qualified teaching status in the UAE
Zeinab had come into teaching from interior design, and the basics defeated her: engagement, classroom management, adapting activities to what assessment data showed. She passed the UAE pedagogy assessment meeting expectations in every standard and now coordinates visual art.
Two lesson plans.
Zeinab Koaik registered for PgCTL in January 2020. In her video she shows the difference it made with two documents: first the lesson plan she used to prepare “when I first joined education”, then the one she writes now. The programme, she says, built up her confidence by giving her “the required knowledge”.
The first effect she noticed was in job applications. Once her CV showed she was a PgCTL learner, interviews came, and she went into them more sure of herself. “I knew that I have a competitive advantage over others,” she says. She calls the pedagogy assessment “one of the major milestones for teachers here in UAE”, and she prepared for it with materials and learning content from the programme.
Online, in a short time.
When the pandemic brought what she calls “a new and challenging teaching environment”, she says she was able to put things together and run effective online learning. She says she engaged her students, supported their well-being and pushed their creativity by implementing the best teaching practices “in a very short period of time”.
She speaks as a parent too. She says she is now able to relate to “my kids’ development milestones and understand their learning preferences”, and that this created a stronger emotional bond with her six-year-old daughter “and made teaching more fun”.
Coordinator, with a next step.
She now holds the position of visual art coordinator. She had not yet finished the programme when she recorded her video. Once she completes the qualification, she aspires to get qualified teaching status within the UAE and “secure a better job opportunity in an internationally recognised educational organisation”.
Holding the position of a visual art coordinator, this programme helped me gain better understanding on curriculum mapping, educational framework and effective teaching.
