GIIS believes ‘learning outcomes’ to be the key phrase for the entire process of schooling. The spirit of inquiry, the power of analyses and edge to innovate comes from the incessant search for knowledge. This culture of learning comes from the teachers, who are the facilitators in the process of learning. As lead learners, they are constantly open to adopting new methodologies and innovative lesson plans for making learning effective.
Teachers are our assets and the students are influenced by their teachers. At GIIS, teachers are constantly improvising on learning techniques. To recognize and evaluate their efforts GIIS Abu Dhabi organized the Teachers Excellence Week to celebrate excellence among teachers.
Setting the trend at a global level, GIIS Abu Dhabi held a weeklong event from 6th to 10th March 2016. This will eventually become an annual event. The event created a buzz not only within the teaching community of GIIS Abu Dhabi but also in other schools of the city. The objectives of Teacher Excellence Week was to- identify, nurture and promote excellence among teachers, reward them for excellence and to enhance the value addition quotient in teachers.
All the teachers had been informed of the Teachers Excellence Week 4 months in advance. This helped them stay focused on all aspects of teaching and learning. Informal observations of the classroom had begun in the month of February and formal observations were scheduled from 6th to 10th March. A panel of judges consisting of individuals from academic and non-academic backgrounds was formed to ensure an objective judgment of the teachers’ work. The academic team comprised Mr. Rajendran Padmanabhan, Business Development Manager who has been an academician of over 25 years and Mrs. Geetha Menon, Pre-primary Head. Mr. Lokesh Parwani, Assistant Operations Manager and Mrs. Jyothi Nambiar, HR Executive represented the non-academic team to provide a fresh and different perspective.
The excitement was building up since the last week of February and it reached a crescendo during the Teachers Excellence Week. Each judge observed all the 22 participating classrooms following well-designed judgment criteria that included creativity of the teacher, classroom ambience, student achievement, student deportment and innovation in classroom teaching. Every day between 8 AM and 12 noon, the judges would visit the classrooms, spend some time observing the class and interact with the students, thus eliciting required data.
Besides classroom observation, the teachers prepared a Power Point Presentation and presented it before the judges on given parameters. Their presentation focused on student learning outcomes, challenges faced and measures adopted by them and finally, the focus areas for the new academic year. These presentations provided an opportunity to the teachers to showcase their achievements and contributions and the judges were able to ask questions and clarify and verify facts related to classroom learning.
The judgment sheets were compiled into a final scoring sheet and the top 3 sets of teachers scoring the highest points were declared winners. Ms. Dhanya Jaikrishnan and Ms. Aiswarya Sudeeshkumar of KG 1 D won the First position, followed by Ms. Asma Ayesha and Ms. Sheena Najim in the Second position. Ms. Naina Claudius and Ms. Teena Chhabra were close contenders who won the Third position.
The Teachers Excellence Week has contributed in creating a thirst for knowledge among teachers. Every single teacher was part of the presentations and thus creating a global community of teachers. The excellence platform reinforced the fact that GIIS believes in teacher empowerment. The healthy competitive environment created by the event, made each teacher strive to do well in his or her classroom. The points achieved by the teachers are in line with the appraisal rating thereby validating the results. The entire preparatory process was focused towards teacher enhancement and motivation.
The Teachers Excellence Week was a great platform to collaborate, ideate and think out-of-the-box and explore newer avenues for enhancing learning outcomes for their students.
|
Comments ({{totalComments}})
Login to post a comment...
{{comments.CommentText}}