Mind Maps

 

In the course of the professional development program of the school this year 2013-2014, I conducted a workshop on “Mind Maps” for the school teachers. The main objectives of the workshop were:

• to identify and clarify the concept of mind maps, how and when to use them
• to identify the advantages of using mind maps im teaching
• to display “mind maps” designed by the school teachers
• to design “mind maps” for different school subjects

When I first thought of how to present this to teachers, I came across a very nice video on “Teaching in the 21st Century” which I decided to use as content to discuss in the form of mind maps. I designed a worksheet in the form of a “mind map” with gaps to fill. The trainees were to watch the video and complete the missing information in the mind map. The exercise was very useful as it helped the trainees (the school teachers) to acquire information about teaching in the 21st Century and how mind maps can be useful in getting all trainees involved in a learning activity.

The workshop was successful as all objectives were achieved and teachers were capable of producing mind maps of their own and that could be used later in their teaching.

You can download the presentation used here.

World Summit for Innovation in Education “WISE”

 On Sunday 27^th October 2013, Mr. Jameel Alshammari (ABHSS Principal) and I (Reda Saad Elmahdy – ABHSS AVP) began to participate in the preparations for the conference of the World Summit for Innovation in Education “Wise”, which was held in the Center of the Qatar National Convention, in order to prepare for the conference and participate in its activities and workshops to exchange experiences and ideas with various educators and men of education from around the world.

Under the title of learning and leadership in the 21^st Century, we attended some workshops with the participation of a number of leaders of international schools from Qatar, the United States and Brazil. The main purpose of these training workshops was to illustrate the possibility and importance of establishing a network of international education for school leaders, in order to design and implement projects to face the challenges of the 21^st Century.

It has been agreed to convert all the ideas, initiatives and experiences made ​​during the workshops to joint projects between the countries participating in the workshops in order to develop education and educational leadership, according to the challenges of 21^st Century.

Attending the workshops and the Conference gave us a very good chance to establish a network of communication between our school – ABHSS (Ahmed Bin Hanbal Independent Secondary Boys’ School) and the Challa School in Arizona – USA, in order to get the students in the two schools to communicate and know each other and to learn about the culture prevalent in each country. Moreover, it has been agreed that the students themselves, in both schools, and under the supervision of their teachers, would choose a common topic for research and to start implementing it before the students meet together in March or April 2014, in the upcoming visit of the Challa School students to the State of Qatar.