Reflective Journal #11: What a Journey!

Going back to read every single blog since the beginning of the course has brought back so many memories. It reminded me of the diary i used to keep when i was young. I've come to realize that i learned a lot from this course, going through the difficulties  really makes the best learning outcomes. I've had a lot of challenges; setting up a blog, reflections and summaries, APA styles and of course the project. May be the biggest disappointment was repeating the first reading assignment, as i never needed to repeat any assignment before. But there's a first time for everything, it's when i  took the time to think about what went wrong wrong and what needed to be done, that's when i learned how to write a proper summary and how to cite my work properly. It was a practical application to "hands on the wall" activity!

Also taking the time to describe my school community made me think a lot about how i can contribute to my community and be a proactive teacher, sometimes you need to take the initiative so that you get the outcome you want, which also applies to the use of technology inside classrooms as a tool for learning. Although you may have a lot of obstacles and setbacks when it comes to applying new ideas but it's worth the effort at the end of the day. One of the recent setbacks i had recently was when students in my class were doing a peer learning activity and the school superintendent passed by the class window and thought that the class was chaotic which compromised my classroom management!!!! It could have discouraged and made me go back to traditional teaching ways but actually me and my students were enjoying the class time and students were motivated to learn and very relaxed! After of course meeting with her to clarify things, i decided i'm going to continue doing what i do, i finally got out of the box, how come i get back in?? :) :)

The project was actually one of the huge positive points of this course, although we were very reluctant to pursue it at the beginning but as the presentation time became near we were very nervous as each one of us pictured something in his/her mind and wanted it to be perfect, but things didn't go according to schedule and all of us were so scared that it would affect the project grade. But it wasn't really about the grades, it was about the steps we took and the effort made to plan such a good community-based learning project that can be used in the future. So the presentations class was one of the best classes i attended. I watched diverse presentation with lots of great ideas that i'd definitely use them in the future, i came to learn about my strengths and weaknesses and what action should be done to prevent such mistakes and weaknesses in the future.

Skype was probably the greatest application of technology, of course it cannot replace our face-to-face time as human interaction in my point of view is the most important learning tool, but it was a way to keep going when things were unsettled around Cairo. Actually my family and friends were amazed of how we could pull that off, they kept asking what we do on skype and what we talk about and how we could interact. My husband told me "You couldn't have dreamed of doing skype class not in a million years if it weren't for the country's current circumstances". And he's right, technology is amazing! :) :)

Above all i got to meet wonderful people and a such inspiring and relaxed doctor, which i'm sure made a difference in the lives of everyone of us.

Reflective Journal #10: Filling the Presentation!

Suddenly i remembered that there's a presentation to fill and send back before Friday!! And it's Friday night! So i literally jumped out of bed and went straight to my laptop to finish the presentation! Usually in cases like this i just chill out since the deadline has already passed but i was eager to give this course all the energy i have and go through it till the end. Because the truth is, this is the only course in the diploma till now that i worked really hard to earn its grades. What motivated me to work hard in this course is my uncertainty about the final outcome - grade - that i would get, this is not an easy A, or B!!!

Going through week ten presentation, i remembered all the discussions that we had in class about the types of students, i felt it was easy for me to write the motivational techniques for each type of student, i felt knowledgeable and confident. That's when i realized that i learnt a lot during the past three months, that this course really made a difference.

Reflective Journal #9: Skype!

I was actually looking forward to last Tuesday's class as i was really curious to hear the reflection on the CBL project presentation. So i was disappointed to know that the class was cancelled due to the unrest in the area, but on a positive note it was fun to hear that we get to have the class on skype and skip all the traffic, as it is the only negative thing about the tahrir campus. Sitting on the couch while discussing the presentation with Dr Joyanne and Reham was fun and relaxing :) It's a real life experience that shows one of the important applications of technology in daily life.

About my reflection, i was actually reflecting and thinking about my presentation since the moment we finished the class, what went right? what went wrong? did the outcome appear as i imagined? what could have been done better? Of course and as usual i was harsh on myself because i believe that it could have been done way much better. But to be honest, i'm not really mad at myself because it was a great opportunity to learn, to grasp new ideas, to work on my weaknesses and mistakes in order to avoid them in the future. It was one of the learning experiences that will sure be embedded in my mind as long as i'm alive. I came to believe that there's is really no boundary to what the person can learn through out his/her life.

Reflective Journal #8: Presentation Anxiety!

I never really worry about my presentations. But this time i suffered from presentation anxiety, i was really intimidated by my colleagues. I'm surrounded by expert teachers who are very determined, strong and also creative. The truth is that i enjoyed this class the most, i learnt from every single person, I've come to realize that these people did an amazing job amid all their other responsibilities, Presentations were informative, creative, honest and also had sense of humor. Also,  to be honest i was worried about following the rubric and the grading, but gradually i felt at ease and i came to realize that everything would be fine as long as i'm enjoying and believing in what i do. Tuesday has become such a special day for me.

Reflective Journal #7: Learning Communities

I just opened my blog to reflect on the presentation day only to realize that I haven't written anything about the learning communities heated discussion! It was the day when we decided to continue exploring the nature of our schools, and the communities that surrounded them and whether any interaction takes place between the school and other communities or not. It made me think a lot about my workplace and what it was missing as an institution that would help its students to become good citizens who can contribute to their communities. I talked about the teacher who volunteered to do the charity work in our school, so the administration appointed him as the events' coordinator. I kept thinking if this teacher didn't volunteer to do this, would the school care to do charity work? Would the school care to appoint events' coordinator? Why would i - as a teacher - care to be proactive when the workplace doesn't care? What gives me the push to go out of my way and do more? A lot of questions popped into my mind which i can't find their answers because it seems like a vicious circle. 

I also kept thinking about the equality between children from different communities and social standards. I remember Hoda saying she'll never allow her kid to play with the doorman's kid, and probably i would have the same concerns if i was in her place, but the thing is, as i grew up and joined pharmacy school in a governmental university, my class contained people coming from different communities and different social standards and i didn't seem to mind, on the contrary i think they fitted so well. I don't know! It's so complcated!

Reflective Journal #6: APA!!

Last Tuesday's class was a little bit different. It was time for the APA style themed class. the activity at the beginning of the class was fun, yet i had no idea it had to do with APA style referencing. Honestly, although i was wondering why we would spend almost half of the class time on the learning how to write references correctly, when we can learn that later on; i found it very helpful and it answered a lot of questions i had about the referencing and corrected many many mistakes that i used to do while writing any paper. the effect of the APA activity was obvious when i was writing the second summary and reflection, i felt so proud of myself that i could write the paper in the APA style with minimal mistakes - hopefully. One of the moments that made me think a lot during the days after the class was when the Dr. told me and Marwa that we need to learn the APA for future research in our Masters thesis. it got me thinking: "Am I going to pursue this much further? Am I qualified enough?".

The second activity about describing the learning community that we work in was eye opener. it made me think about the ugly truth of the huge gap between different educational institutions in Egypt. But i really have no idea how can we decrease that gap? what is our role as educators in providing a successful learning community for our students amid all these huge differences between educational institutions?
May be we can discuss that in the next class.

Reflective Journal #5: Drawing and Cellphones

I have such a lousy drawing skills, so when we were asked to express what we think about learning communities only through drawing, I thought to myself "wow I'm done with this activity I can't do it". It took me less than a minute while I saw my friends getting started with their drawings to realize that if they can do it, then so can I. I started drawing stupid things and then it turned out to go just fine, I was able to express a couple of things I had in mind; the group work, the peer tutoring, use of technology, teacher being the support system for the students and the safe environment - which i expressed by the trees and my colleagues thought it was about field trips. rotating the drawings among the rest of the class helped me to gain insight about what each one of the class thinks. moving on to talk about what form of technology we use inside our classroom; I thought about what i really use inside my classroom - which is basically the projector and occasionally the smart board - and i felt "is it really enough?" and hearing friends discuss their frustration about the lack of support from school administrations toward providing technology in classroom made me feel that i'm not alone in this, there are people out their with the same frustration. and then the idea of students using their cellphones as a means of learning seemed unappealing to me, as the first thing that they will do is go straight to their bbms, because i put myself in their shoes, i'm a technology addict, the first thing that i'll do inside the classroom if i'm allowed to use my phone is to go through all the messages that i received while i was away from the phone. But making students use their phones as a part of the learning process is out of the box, and makes teacher get out of his comfort zone, risking the chaos that occur with this approach, but again, chaos can come out of any idea that is tried for the first time, and eventually when it's tried more than once, experience is gained towards handling all the problems that were first faced, and the outcome would be meaningful, fun learning experience for the students ans success for the teacher. So i guess i may try that approach soon :) :)