Week 14

1^st day

First day of this week started with dr. Asaad and dr. Omar presenting their presentation about competence based curriculum and how to design different module for our university especially university modules because the university is going to implement bologna process. Then they talked about teacher’s workload in case of implementing bologna process.

Firstly, they focused on competence based curriculum as a structure and process, competence based curriculum is focused on designing curriculums according to our area of specialization, and they taught us how to calculate teacher’s workload, then they clarified the term vision and mission and it’s important that any departments must have their vision and mission.

In the same day, they divided us to four groups and each of us have been asked a questions, each group must answer it on a flip chart and present it in the class for next day. The questions were as follows:

1-      What are the most important aspects in your renewing process?

2-      What are the main threats you could imagine in a renewing process?

3-      The process needs shared leadership. What do you think about it in your own culture and context?

4-      What are the most important stakeholders in your culture.

In second day of this week, different groups presented their presentations in the class. the benefits of these presentations were to expanding decision and identify problems. 

In the third day we just recorded a video about the course to present it in the ministry of higher education’s meetings.

Week 13

In first day of this week, we have been asked to design 4 different modules for our university which are national and university requirement modules in the first semester for first year students. The modules were “computer, Academic debate, English language and lab. safety.” Oure group as scientific specialization we have been asked to design lab. Safety module.

In second and third days, the students continue working on the same modules, and we trying continuously to develop it by considering the advices from Dr. Asaad and Dr. Omar, and finally each group presented and discussed their work in the class.

Also in this week lesson while preparing the modules we learned to use google document which is I think is very nice tool that allow the group working easier and faster. It is a very useful and fast program for continuous communication with your group members and editing any files together at the same time.

1^st day

This week we started to a new module which is competence based education (CBE). At the beginning we had a friendly discussion with dr. Omar about some general things of the course and that we are under pressure because of too much assignments and reflection and scientific title.  After that dr. Omar started talking about the new module and its importance and he explained that in competence based education is not deal with what you learned but how to use what you learned previously.

2^nd day

dr. Twana visited us and presented his lecture about competence based education. At first he cleared what we mean by competency, he also mentioned what is mean by (EQF), He also cleared the key competencies that any citizenship in European countries must have. And he mentioned different competencies that is need for applying a job, then he came to teacher competencies and cleared the competencies that any teacher must have in order to teach. He then presented a lecture about the properties of competence based curriculum and how to design a good competence based curriculum that must answer the needs of local area and also disclose what the students can do.

3^rd day

Dr. Twana continued speaking about competencies as an education system or as knowledge and he explained different definitions of competency. Then he presented another presentation about strategies of universities in the digital age. The second part of the day dr. Twana presented a brief introduction about bologna process and why we should apply it at our universities and how we can apply it. 

the lectures this week were about leaning environment and how should the learning environment be in order to achieve learning outcome, and what are the meaning of the learning environment at the first day of this week they showed us a pic from one of the villages in Finland and how their classes are look like…and they told us that there are same facilities in schools located in villages and big cities. they offer the same facilities on order to prevent migration of peoples from the villages to the big cities just for education purposes. Then they asked us to prepare a poster using SWOT analysis about learning environment.

in the second day the lecturers continue talking about learning environment starting with mr.muhamed presenting his lecture about learning environment and maslow’s hierarchy and explained in detail the safety of the learning environment. Then he explained the importance of relationship building inside the class.

They asked to prepare a module individually according to our specialization and focusing on learning outcome of the module, teaching method, assessment tools used to achieve the learning outcomes and rubric assessment tools must be included and the number of ECTS of the module and some other criteria and we prepared it and presented for further discussion about it in the class.

In the first day of this week the students presented their presentation about different topics according to their specialization based on PBL. we prepared a presented a topic titled   “Effect of metal migration from canning material to canned foods on the human health”. After that each group presented their poster and discussed it in the class

In next day Dr. Ahmed Omar Balli came again and he gave us some general information about the advantages of assessment tools.  Then Dr. Assad gave us some information about “Rubrics for assessment”, and how it can be used to assess both teachers and as students as well. He also explained different types of rubrics with the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. In the same day they asked us to design a rubric for assessing a module according to our specialization and presented. Our group as a chemistry group chose module of “Practical analysis chemistry”, and we prepared a rubrics and we presented it in the class.

In the las day of the week each group presented their video recording film about different topics our video was about ‘’effect of technology development on human relationships”. Then dr. Asaad explained some information about “Bloom’s taxonomy”.

We started this week with a new module about Innovative Pedagogical Approach with Dr. Twana who came from university of komar in sulaymaneyah. At the beginning he gave us some topics and asked us to give him a brief definition about each of them the topics were (PBL, critical thinking, lecturing, lifelong learning, and outcome-based learning), at the same day he gave us basic information about project base learning (PBL), and project orientated problem based learning (POPBL).

After that the learner were divided into some groups according to their specialization and they gave us a group activity, in which each group must choose a topic from their own discipline and prepare a PBL and  we should include “title, main and sub- questions, methodology, timeline, result and findings, conclusion, and references” and present it for next day. We also had another assignment for that day in which we had to choose a topic from the following (Problem-based learning vs skill-based learning, simulation-based learning, flipped classroom, drama-based learning, and case-based learning), and prepare a poster about it and present it for next day.

In next day, we had a new lecturer Dr. Admed omar balli who came from university of human development – sulaymaneyah, he redivided us based on our specialties to 5 groups, and he asked each group to design a module and include specific information about it such as learning outcomes, ECTS, and assessment tolls that used to achieve that learning outcomes and presented it.

The last day in this week the different groups presented their presentations about a general topic of their specialization.  Finally, Dr. Ahmed asked each of the groups to prepare a presentation by choosing a topic, and make a scenario and record it as a film, then present it in next class.

The eighth week started by presenting their work which were about SWOT analysis. Each group had presented their project. And we as group (A) prepared a project about “Administrational reform” and we chose “Electronic Government topic for our project”, like other groups that each of them had their own project we present our project in the class.

In the same day, we also had been asked to prepare a new presentation about one type of learning theories, in which our theory was Socio-cultural theory of learning and then present it and discussed with our classmates.

In next day the lecture was about “Differentiated Instruction” the lecture were presented by Dr. Sattar. We learned reasons why do we need to differentiate in teaching. So, each individual have different intelligence. Some of the learner like to work individually, or may they prefer group working, some of them are naturalist, visual or logical and physically active. So,. Therefore, we should use different strategies to cover the need of the students in the same time.

The last day of this week which was also the last day of the (SCA) module. We wrote our reflection about this module in a general. After the teacher gave us a short introduction about “Innovative Pedagogical Approach”.  Which is the next module that would be covered throughout this course

In conclusion, I can say that this module was a little complex. Personally I prefer to apply the teaching methods and techniques we studied in this module for my students not purely but I think by mixing it with teachers center approach I will be better for now, We may face some difficulties at the beginning because this module new for them,

At the beginning of this week, we had an assignment about our preferred strategy of teaching style either as a teacher as a learner. Our preferred teaching style was mixing TCA and SCA together and we thought that would be useful if applied in a good way.

In the same week we gained and learned a brief information about Think Pair Share (TPS) method after that each two of us had to choose a question and write down his thought about the answering it individually then these two partner must share their idea to reach a better answer for that question or problem by using TPS method.

Finally, we had a brief information about SWOT analysis. Where we have been asked to prepare a project about “Electronic Government” and monitoring different sides of the project such as weakness, strengths, opportunities, and threats of this project must be prepared as a power point.

in the 6th week of our course the student centered approach module continued and we have been asked individually to design a curriculum according to our specialization and present it. after that we prepared a new curriculum this time as a group and presented again as a group. we learned something new but i think that there many other we have to learn if we decided to apply this method of learning especially in assessing and grading students, so we are waiting the next weeks to learn more and more about this technique of teaching. thanks

in the 5th week of our course we started a new module which was student centered approach, first of all the principles of this type of teaching were clarified by dr. Karmand who was from university of salahaddin erbil. after that as an assignment he asked each group to arrange an online meeting and discuss one of the parameters or componenets of student centered learning and prepare a poster presentation about that parameters for the next day. because the module was new for most of the participants we faced some difficulty at first but generally this week was full of information and we learned something new. I would like to thank all facilitators and appreciate their efforts