This week we started a new module it is also the last module in our pedagogical training course which was  “Research development”, which can be defined as a set of strategic, proactive, catalytic, and capacity-building activities designed to facilitate individual faculty members, teams of researchers, and central research administrations in attracting extramural research funding, creating relationships, and developing and implementing.

In general, the main purpose of research is to inform action, to prove a theory, and contribute to developing knowledge in a field or study. So, conducting research is an essential to find solution for problems of society and improve life quality. Research can find answers to things that are unknown, filling gaps in knowledge and changing the way that healthcare professionals work. Some of the common aims for conducting research studies are to: Diagnose diseases and health problems.

After that Dr. Omer presented his presentation and explained two terms related to research which is (Qualitative and quantitative) research, and the main differences between them. In general, qualitative research for build theory, and quantitative research for enhance or improve the existence theory.

In the second day of this week the lecture was about “Google Scholar”, which is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Further, we learned what is “Research Gate”, how we can open an account in “Research Gate”, which is a social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.

In the first day of this week the lectures were about the “Apprenticeship”. Apprenticeship had important role in the universities in the previous years, and it became more popular in European countries in the last years.  Apprenticeship and internship are complete each other, because both work to make students have more skills about their specialization and helping them to find more and more job apportunity.

In the same day we had a group activity about apprenticeship in Kurdistan. The questions were as follows:

1. What is degree apprenticeship and do you think is applicable in Kurdistan?
2. Do apprenticeship benefit business and students?
3. What are the challenges in case of implementing apprenticeship in Kurdistan?
4. What are your suggestions to our stakeholders and businessman?

Each group selected one question, discussed it and prepared a poster about it and presented, and discussed it with the other groups.

In the second we visited Diwan mall where Mr. Kurdo Aziz (works in Oxfam organization) was invited to present his presentation about his organization. Mr. Kurdo started talking about Oxfam organization, and then answered the questions of the students.

Mr Kurdo was not our only guest for the day Mr. Karwan Wano private school manger), present his presentation second part and talked about his experience.

As well as, he said, we advise our students to find a job, and we should describe the job for them in order they decided if the job is good for them or not. Also, the university should provide more staff, career (Guide).

this week we learned some new terms about our module university-work environment cooperation. For example, the real meaning of career guidance and counselling. As well as the differences between two term. Career guidance as a comprehensive, developmental program designed to assist individuals in making and implementing informed educational and occupational choices.

Counselling on the other hand is a process of talking about and working through your personal problems with a counsellor. The counsellor helps you to address your problems in a positive way by helping you to clarify the issues, explore options, develop strategies and increase self-awareness.

We also had an impressive activity about rolling in four groups, each group consisted of two actors, one of them who had a problem, and the other become a counsellor.

In the second day of this week Mr. Stam from Sulaimani University, visited us. He presented a topic about thinking, and refection, and why they are important. As he said, the think is very important, because it’s going to analyze the things, create a new things, and solving the problems. Therefore, in order to analyze, we should to know “The element of thought”. Finally, he gave us a card about confidence, and he asked us to read and discuss it with the other classmates.

This week we start to study a new module which was “University-work environment cooperation”. The main aim of this module is to show the role of universities in the labor market, and how they graduate a student for the need of market.

first day of this week we had a group assignment about how much our universities are close to the market, how much we have been able to link the universities with the market, what is the missing part here and how can we improve this part in our universities, On the other hand, do you think there have been intentions from the market for cooperation with our university. Each group must to discuss, answer and present their presentation about on f these questions.

In the second day of the week Mr. Halmat Faiq (Director of career development center in Garmian University) visited us and present his presentation. He talked about internship program, which is an official program offered by an employer to potential employees, one of the advantages of internship program is finding job opportunities, this program is supervised by a professional employer in the field. Mr. Halmat also showed us the main roles and responsibilities of the student participation in this program.

This week Dr. Karwan was our lecturer, his lecture was interesting for us, which was about some important points that every students and teachers should know. For example, we learned how to prepare a successful power point lectures for students. As well as, we learned the basic and main informations about the verbal and non-verbal communications with each types of them. According to verbal communications, we learned that if we are alone it will be better to write a book, story, or lecture, because, it make us have “self-awareness, self-management, and self-confidence”.

He also explained how to prepare our self before the lecture’s start. For example, we should expect how students will ask us about the lecture, we should read more and more before the class. He also explained effect of some other important parameters that must be considered by the lecturer like body language, clothes, food and water, voice (volume, tone, and pace), facial expression, posture and eye contact should be taken into consideration. So, we have to care about all of these points before the lecture.

This week’s lectures were conducted online via zoom. They asked each group to prepare a project to be sent to in order to ministry of higher education.

We as group (A) we had different meting and a variety of discussion and each us suggested his/her own idea about the project, I can say that all of the ideas were very nice and beneficial project but, because we had to choose only one project our group decided to choose my project which was ‘’paper recycling factory’’ because we thought that this project is new in our city and can be beneficial in many fields like helps environment by reducing the number of trees that are used annually for paper manufacturing, and also reduce amount of water needed for the same purpose and many other advantages.

In conclusion, in my opinion it is a good idea if we gave an assignments or a project for our students and asked them to work on it without need to come to the class.

1^st day

This week Dr. Rezhin from University sulaimani visited us and he present his lecture for that day which was very interesting, and I enjoyed the way he delivered the information. I can say that I got a lot of new ideas from him about teaching styles.

He said that “Learning is at the heart of education derived from and continuously modified by experience”. Then, he asked us what a teacher is? And there were different answer and explanation from the participant for his question.

His explanation for teacher was that said that teachers have to be like a mother to provide everything as they can to students, and like Chameleons, because they can suitable themselves with any environment. After that he gave us an individual activity, when he asked us:

Which philosophy of education do we prefer for both teacher and learner? Which I believe that for both teacher and students the progressive method would be useful, which is focused on practical knowledge and skills that enhance individual effectiveness in society. After that, he explained in a very good way all the philosophy’s kind.

2^nd day

In the second day of the week we had an online lecture with Dr. Nabaz Nawzad from Sulaymaniyah University. He talked in his presentation about the work, and how the job chances in Kurdistan is? Dr. Nabaz mentioned some important points, for example, if students are upset from the lecture what we should do? And how we can bring the joyful for them?  As he said may the teacher use a routine in his /her lecture, so we should change it, because as we know the students hate the routine, and we should find our specific way to deal with students and that means we should be entrepreneurs, for instant, we should take them to cinema or cafe or anywhere. Therefore, if students learned in different environments, of course they will not forget their lecture even after they graduate.

3^rd day

In third day Mr. Saman,  MSc. International development was our lecturer. He started the lecture by giving an introduction about the organizations, and he explained the organization’s pillars, which they are:

1- Structure of organization.

2- Vision, Mission and Objectives.

3- Policies and procedures.

4- Human resources.

5- Budget / capital.

This lecture was very useful and interesting in the same time, because he was delivered his message very well.

Week 17

In the first day of this week Dr. Stam from university of Sulaymaniyah visited us. Dr. Stam started his lecture by giving each student a card which was about different topics then each of us read his/her card. As Dr. Stam said, by bring some joy tools, and using different strategies of teaching methods most of the student will enjoy the class and the subject and the disconnected students to will be connected back in the class. After that he explained work based learning which is an educational strategy that provides students with real-life work experiences where they can apply academic and technical skills and develop their employability.”

At the same day Dr. Stam gave us a group work activity, in which each group had to choose a project name as their own project business and take these elements into a consideration: Key partners, key activities, value proposition, customer relationships, customer segments, key resources, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams.

In the second day, our lecturers gave us four questions related to the authentic learning (AL), and they asked us to answer them in a flip chart and present and discuss it in the class. The questions were:

1- What is AL?

2- What are the elements and characteristics of AL?

3- Explain the importance of AL in higher education?

4- To what extent AL has been practiced in Kurdistan universities.

The second part of the same day we have been asked to design an authentic project according to our specializations. We had to take into a consideration these criteria: Introduction, state and problem, hypothesis, objective, and implementation plan. After that they asked each group had to prepare their project as a power point. Our group prepared a project about “improving the quality of the mineral water bottles”, which was about how to design white cover of the water bottles in order to minimize the sun’s effect on the water.

Week 16 (entrepreneurship)

1st day

This week we started a new module which is edupreneurship. In the first day we had an assignment about our understanding of entrepreneurship in education and how the entrepreneurship taught in Kurdistan that we have to write our understanding on a flipchart and present and discuss it in the class. After that dr. Asaad presented his presentation about entrepreneurship and the term edupreneurship. Then he explained narrow and wide definition of entrepreneurship in education.

2nd day

In second day of this week dr. Asaad continues talking about edupreneurship, he presents his presentation about theoretical aspect of edupreneurship such as role of teacher as an entrepreneur. He also talked about authentic learning, project based methodology and cooperative learning

In the same day, we listened to a video which was about some entrepreneur persons, where they talked about their stories and they gave some advices.

Week 15

In this week we had only one-day face to face lecture, in this week they taught us how prepare “program profile for our departments according to our specializations”.  And that we have consider vision and mission when we are preparing the program profile for our departments.

In the same day Mr. Abdulmutalib visited us and presented a presentation about quality assurance and its importance in higher education. He also showed the main differences between the quality control and quality assurance.