Online World Education Conference - Tony Wagner's Keynote

Yesterday, I attended Tony Wagner's keynote for the Online World Education Conference.

He's the founder of the Change Leadership Group at Harvard University.

He stressed on the need to prepare learners for PROFESSIONAL life rather than testing them on concepts.

As he says,

"The world doesn't care about how much you know, what the world cares about is what you can do with what you know" 

I totally agree. I've seen my classmates who were gold medalists/above 3.5 GPAs having no VISION in their lives. They probably knew more than I did, however, they never used it to anyone's advantage. 

He also talked about 7 survival skills that children need to learn to be successful in any profession.


In the 21st century, the learners need to know how to make a difference in the community/world, have a vision, have empathy, realise the importance of collaboration rather than ace tests.

He repeatedly talked about how tests show little if anything about a child's capabilities.

His session had me thinking:

How can I change the standardized assessments we are taking every month?
And if i change them, how do i counsel parents to accept the change?

I think i'm going to try to get his book "Creating innovators"
might get some answers there.

3 day weekend

Teachers should get a three-day weekend.

 I feel I can plan better when I have a 3-day weekend. It allows time for thorough research, helps a teacher work on his/her chosen areas of development.

This time we got a Friday as a National Holiday. 
After lazing around all day on Friday, I automatically kept getting ideas on how to improve my classroom practice on Saturday.
I watched a professional development video on building professional learning community within school and read two articles

I plan to share them with my teachers later this month (right now they're working on differentiation)

Usually on a 2-day weekend, you end up lazing around on saturday and are too pressed for time on sunday to plan appropriately.

yea so, 3 day weekend it should be!
better planning will take lesser time in the classroom!

Testing Urdu

کیا میں اردو بلاگ بنا سکتی ہون؟

میرا نام حراہے۔ 

So next step: Running an Urdu school blog!

Diploma in Teaching with ICT as an observer

I completed my diploma in teaching with ICT in September. The whole course was a breeze and a lot of learning in terms of how to manage use of ICT in the classroom. I used to feel that the time we got for activities was a little too much and that the course was being dragged...

Recently, me along with 4 other colleagues were taken in as observers for the new batch of participants.

These people are mostly Heads in their schools and with average to no ICT skills.

Now i realise that the time allowed is absolutely okay!

it was just the batch we were, mostly trained in educational technology by beaconhouse that it took lesser time.

Being on the course as an observer is great learning! I realise that i'm highly privileged to be working in a school with most of the possible ICT facilities required.

Today at circle time, one of the participants talked about how children pretended the board marker to be a mic while recording something

and I wondered why they'd be pretending to do that...

later while discussing with a colleague I realised their school did not have a mic.

Must be a challenge planning with limited ICT resources.

Progress as a School Coordinator

Its been a year and 2 months since I became coordinator. I've been training teachers since then. It took a lot of hardwork and reading in bringing them to the level they are at.

I can proudly say my teachers are dynamic!

the best part is, they keep coming to me to ask for workshops on various topics. I love their eagerness to learn.

Recently, I noticed they need little help with teaching strategies.

So I decided to take them further
I gave them some reading material on differentiation for homework along with a planning task.

I know some of them have been applying it consciously or unconsciously in their classes.
However, it isn't always structured or with a valid purpose.

i'll be sharing their lessons and their evaluations here.

My focus is to work on differentiation and differentiation through ICT for the next year.

goodluck to me !