Aisha Al Ghufli’s Neighborhood

Overview

The first part of the work placement done in Dubai ministry of education in curriculum development department, from Nov 8, 2009, for three weeks.  This work placement was a collection of information and need analyses for the action research project. Different data collection tools were used like; interviews, questionnaires, meetings and observations.

The curriculum development department is divided into three main sections, curriculum development, it and learning resources, and Designing section.

Different valuable information was noticed about the employees during the work placement. First, they are well organized and each person knows what his job is. Each person completes his duties and work patiently. Second, the employees work collaboratively and help each other when needed. The most important thing is that they can work efficiently with stress and problems that they face. It is not easy to be such employee.    

Curriculum development process:

 The primary thing that I learnt is the process of the curriculum development. The writers should go specific stages in the development. First of all, they have to go through a document and criteria given by Abu Dhabi ministry of education. Then, a team with chosen members is established for each subject. The members are chosen according to their knowledge and qualification. After that curriculum start to be written as a draft after that the team reviews the book. Then after the correction it sends to the designing section where the book will be designed and printed. Again the team gathered to review. Finally, after made finale changes it send to print and published. 

The next stage is the training, where different sessions planed to be given to the teachers to train them how to teach the new curriculum. Following that the implementation stage, where the curriculum implemented in school and taught to students. The writers go to schools and observe class. See how effective is the curriculum. What changes could be made to make it better and what needs to be solved. This step also includes doing surveys and questionnaires for teachers and students where they have to answer some questions related the effectiveness about the book and suggestion they can make to improve it.

Learning resources:

Creating learning resources is not that easy as what I discovered from the observations and interview that I made with the head section of learning resources. To be able to create successful resources a well planed process should be followed. 

At the beginning the learning resources section work collaboratively with curriculum writers to choose the suitable learning materials and subject to create the resources.  Also, members are choosing well related to their experiences and qualification.  The activities and the materials are decided with consideration of the students' level, knowledge and skills.

After planning the materials are created locally like audios, some videos and flashes. But also the ministry deal with outside companies to create more advanced materials such as cartoon animation which cost lots of money comparing with the other.

Following that, the team review, check and test the learning materials. To see if they have mistakes or do some improvement work.

This section also works collaboratively with the designing section. Where the designers create some characters, draw stories or even design the label of the CDs.   

Problems noticed:

During the work placement several series problems were noticed. One of the biggest problems is lacking of using communication tools. The employees are depending only on using emails to communicate, send and share files.

Moreover, absent of using a storage system where the employees can store their files and resources.

Another problem that discovered is the difficulty in communicating with all schools in the UAE because no system is uses to gather and deal with schools. In addition to, the department can't get all the surveys that given to the schools and find it difficult to let the students complete the questionnaires. I think another tools could be used instead of sending papers to complete like online surveys where an email could be enough to send.

Suggestions:

In my opinion it would be better the department used one of the CMS tools like moodle to be able to sore and manage all the content they have. Moreover, it will be easy to share and send file between the employees. Also moodle could be use as a collaborating tool where they can discuss and share ideas. Furthermore, it also could be used as a system to communicate and deal with teachers in the schools.

Another thing that I suggest is that using online surveys tools it will make it easy to send and complete. Also these tools provide the result automatically.

One more thing is, I think it will be more effective if they create a website where all the learning resources will be uploaded and share them with teachers and students in schools.

Plans to do:

After this work placement, I have some plans to do to complete the Action research project. First, I'm planning to do some surveys and interviews with schools teachers about the learning resources and which materials do they suggest to be developed and improved.

Also, I have to do a mind mapping of my ideas and do some literature review.

Positive work atmosphere

During my work placement at Ministry of Education I learnt positive affairs which helped me personally to improve my skills in different aspects. After observing employees at the Curriculum Department who were totally engaged to their tasks I was so impressed to see how the director Kulood Al Qasimi achieved in creating a positive work atmosphere. This reminded me of Coan (2009) who stated four keys of designing an effective work environment which are telling employees what they have to do, showing interest in team, creating an effective environment and rewarding.

These four keys are implemented effectively at the Curriculum Department and reflect on the employees performance. Moreover, I paid attention to the department layout which was positive too and divided in to two rows opposite each other. This layout will increase the relationship between employees  which will build more trust and co operation to work as a productive team. As a result it is very important to climb the scaffold safely after building it in different stages with strong base. In other words, to achieve any work the leader has to generate an effective environment to create a co operative team.

Awareness of technology

Furthermore, offing employees their requirements and basic work needs is significant to accomplish the achievement. The department has provide various tools and materials to assist employees while working. This showed me how employees are so versed on using technology specially the internet to work and contact others via email. I my view, adopting ICDL as a main demand to apply for jobs at MOE was helpful because being a computer literate will improve the work. Thus, the work will be done in short time and good standard with less effort and full quality. Generally, providing computers, printers, faxes, photocopiers and other tools will take out barriers among employees.  

Communication

In addition, I learnt from my observations more about communication skills and dealing with others. I believe that employees are different in manners, actions and thinking, so being diplomatic when dealing with them face to face or online will show how professional am I.  Thus, for instant, writing professional letter for such porous has to be clear, specific, short and formal.

I paid attention to different aspects of communication that firstly (2009), running effective meetings. I learnt that the successful meeting has to achieve the objectives and it should be taken in short amount of time. The second aspect of communication which I learnt is giving and receiving feedback. Clear feedback must be given to employees to keep their performance high. Feedbacks should be provided to show employees development and to improve work by suggestions, ideas and positive reinforcement. Moreover, delivering presentations is another aspect of communication. Presenting has to have the following organized ideas and thoughts, face expression, body language and clear tone. Finally, I learnt about communication in crisis and coming up with solutions. Problems should not stop the work, as a result, resolutions has to be clear and quick to decease long term consequences.  Successful communication is the most significant skill that I learnt among observations.

Generally, I gain benefits during my work placement and I think that spending three weeks on observing, collective data and interacting with employees taught me several positive things and showed me how is the real work atmosphere, how does technology assist work and finally what are the communication important skills.

Bibliography:

·         Coan, G. How to Create a Positive Work Atmosphere (2009). Retrieved Dec 3rd, 2009 from Ezine Articles: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Create-a-Positive-Work-Atmosphere&id=10536

Unfortunately today I was sick so I stayed home but I didn't waste my time. I started designing the brochure, the CD label and the Icons.

In my designing I tried to think of the topic and the style that the ministry follows. Moreover, the target audience also considered. Also to get more ideas it is good to do some search so I look at some magazines that I have and even looking at some schools books  because I'm trying to find something related to the topic that I have and I'm going to work with. Also I did some search in the internet.

After that I moved to my daily journal and start sketching and drawing. I did lots of sketches until I found a suitable one for ARP.

In my opinion designing plays important role in the effectiveness of the materials that you are going to create. 

Reflection:

 To reflect on, sketching is a very important stage in the designing process. You may feel that you want to skip the sketching stage and jump to the computer to do your designing.  I strongly believe that hand sketching plays an important role in the digital designing. In sketching you will be considering different points like layout and colors. This step will make it much easier to develop your designing effectively.

During the studying about sketching I found this:

5      Uses for Sketching in Design

1.      Rapid Concept Development

2.       Basic Composition or Layout

3.      Client Communication and Approval

4.      Visual Exploration

5.       Refining Visual Solutions

I celebrated the national day with my classmates and every one in SWC. I was a very wonderful journey around sharjah. It is good to take rest for WP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCD3LQR3z3Y 

Here in this two day Iam Sick. I did not go to my workplace. I strated to work at home and collect all my data for need analysis report.

ALL THE BEST FOR ALL

ENJOY WITH YOUR PROJECTS ^^

On Wednesday I observed English + Computer classes and Physics class. It was the first time for me to attend to Mr. Shady class. He used an effective way to teach his students at the beginning of the lesson he showed students videos about gravity. Then he discussed with students about the theory and asked one student to act with him. I think it was an interesting method to connect between the theory and something real. Also, it showed how student were interested and focused with the teacher.

On Thursday: Today is my last day at SAIS I agreed with three teachers to give the survey to students during their lesson. Furthermore, I taught Miss Nada the basic skills to use Camtasia. First I started with the interface of the program and main tabs and menus. I was very excited to teach her because she was very interested in the program and it is interactive features. I was thinking about creating a workshop for teacher next semester about this application.

MY PROJECT +Thinking about a new survey for students (WHAT…)

Today I planned to attend to Miss Nada classes and suggested for her to use Camtasia for her classes as a new method in teaching. She was very interested when she attended to my teaching lesson with grade 7.  And we agreed to meet on Thursday to teach her the main skills to use Camtasia. I think using a new and novel ideas and strategies in teaching will enhance student’s motivation.   

Later on I set my schedule and attended to some classes as usual. Also, I arranged with Miss Maryan to visit me after 1 clock because mu monitor had a meeting. When she arrived to the school we sat with the monitor and discussed about my project for next semester.

At the end I thought about new questions for students to distribute to get more data from them.

On my final day, I gathered all of my data and I organized them in different categories such as: spread sheets, CDs, booklets and miscellaneous. This will help me on attaching my appendix when writing my Analysis report easily. I think that depending on the internet as a main source for the literature review and analysis report will not totally support the writing ideas. As a result finding other published sources from books, encyclopedias if needed when enrich the bibliography. The most important think is selecting the relevant recourse to read and refer.

On my final day I discovered one of the most important projects that will assist me on doing my action research. The project is about developing MOE website which started since 2 months by the Quality, HR, IT departments. I was surprised to know about the details of the project which supposed to finish on 2^nd of December.  Again this showed me the negative communication between the departments at MOE, so I believe that I have to plan for an alternative action research that would be related to communication in the ministry.

Dealing with technical issues is easy but solving organizing issues with others might be difficult. In this day, I noticed that organizing tasks, time and staff is important. Some of the employees might fall in mistakes and this is possible in everywhere. But solving any problem require diplomacy, patience and concentration.  

Furthermore, I found that most of the employees at MOE were so collaborative with me and they accepted to take the surveys. Some of them were very busy by doing their tasks, others were preparing for their workshops and training courses. This showed me that getting involved in different activities, training courses will expand my knowledge about various issues and topics. Moreover, it is important to be have clear instructions, tasks time table and deadlines to accomplish the work. Installing post it software on your desktop might be helpful. Post it the free software encourages the users to be organized. It has alerts to remind you of events, meetings, deadlines and it has a small digital writable posts to write your tasks on. Here is the direct link for post it software (link) download it and enjoy it.

 On the other hand, I thought deeply about the topic of my action research and I list them on a mind map which I created by a web basted platform and I think that I will decide on the suitable topic after I meet my mentors at the department to choose the suitable topic to take an action about it.