Teachers

Symposiums & SIGs

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  Ras Al Khaimah Teacher Exchange Program

  The Ras Al Khaimah Teacher Exchange Program provides opportunities for educators in Ras Al Khaimah government schools to further develop their knowledge and skills of pedagogy and learning environments through exchange visits with schools in other countries. The exchange allows participants to experience different cultures and educational systems, as well as a variety of viewpoints from teachers, students, parents, and others within the education sector.

  Through conversations with educational professionals in the host country, participants are encouraged to explore the differences and similarities between schools in the United Arab Emirates and those overseas. Effective teaching practices, community relations, diversity, integration and participation, inclusion, and parental communication are examples of issues that might be addressed through the exchange program and its associated activities. Upon completion of the exchange visit, participants will present research and recommendations related to relevant educational issues to their colleagues or other educational stakeholders.

  Due to its reciprocal nature, the Ras Al Khaimah Teacher Exchange Program runs every two years. During the first year, Ras Al Khaimah teachers go overseas to visit schools in the host country and learn about their educational system. During the second year, teachers from the host country come to Ras Al Khaimah to learn about the educational system and practices in the United Arab Emirates.

  Objectives

  • Provide opportunities for distinguished teachers to deepen their knowledge and skills related to effective pedagogy and different learning environments
  • Create an international network of teachers and school administrators that fosters collaboration between overseas educational institutions and government schools in Ras Al Khaimah
  • Promote cross-cultural exchange that sparks curiosity and new ideas and facilitates understanding

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  Ras Al Khaimah Teachers Network

  The Ras Al Khaimah Teachers Network (RAKTN) is a social and professional networking site launched by the Al Qasimi Foundation in 2010. The grassroots forum allows teachers and educators from Ras Al Khaimah, across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and around the world to come together to share resources, ideas, and best practices for improving student learning and their own professional effectiveness. The network includes discussion forums, blogs, and free educational resources available for download. In addition, the RAKTN also plays an integral part in the Al Qasimi Foundation’s teacher professional development workshops, where it acts as a virtual learning platform to access course resources.

  Vision & Goals

  The RAKTN seeks to establish a professional community of education practitioners who collaborate, share knowledge, and ask questions. It is grounded in evidence that teachers themselves, rather than outside consultants, often have the solutions to the problems they face because of their experience in the classroom and rich local knowledge of students’ strengths and weaknesses. The online format allows education practitioners to connect and collaborate across the boundaries imposed by geography, gender segregation, school type, and subject matter. It also provides a space in which teachers can share their experiences, feel valued, and actively help one another make Ras Al Khaimah an inspiring and transformative teaching and learning environment—thereby contributing to the larger campaign of improving education in the Arab world.

  Impact

  The RAKTN includes more than 1,200 members, who access the site from more than 10 different countries. As the community has grown, so has its ability to expand its reach and impact:

  • Training materials for creating education blogs have proven particularly popular with members. Their classroom blogs have opened alternative lines of communication with their students and generated original Arabic content online. This, in turn, has been picked up by practitioners in other Arabic-speaking countries in which teachers struggle to find digital Arabic learning materials.
  • Forum discussions have been instrumental in breaking down the cultural and communication barriers among teachers. With the aid of translation tools, English and Arabic speakers are equally able to reply to discussion threads, which results in a woven exchange of the two languages. The discussion forums also bring teachers from government and private schools together. These teachers would otherwise rarely encounter each other in the normal course of school life, and yet they often discover there is much to learn from the respective school systems. In addition, as the RAKTN attracts more members from other countries, blog entries and forum comments candidly share the challenges and joys of working in schools in a diverse range of cultures.
  • When asked about RAKTN and its impact on their professional practice, members frequently express their need to be up-to-date with technology as they seek to relate to their students. By connecting with the network, teachers are accessing the information, training, and resources they need to improve their teaching and make their classrooms more interactive to better serve their students.

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  Teacher Professional Development Workshops

  The Al Qasimi Foundation’s program of professional development courses has grown rapidly from just one course in 2010 to roughly a dozen different courses available this year. All workshops are bilingual (Arabic/English) and are free for teachers and education professionals working in Ras Al Khaimah. The overall professional development program is driven by teachers’ needs, and new courses are piloted before they become part of the Al Qasimi Foundation’s standard offerings. While experienced consultants develop the initial course materials, local educators rapidly become involved in the delivery of workshop content. The goal is to transition the delivery of each course entirely to local educators for peer-to-peer learning.

  Participants are accepted into each course based on their commitment to attend all workshops, complete all in-class and homework assignments, and play an active role on the Ras Al Khaimah Teachers Network, a virtual learning platform through which course materials are hosted and collaborative exchanges take place.

  Call for Teacher Professional Development Course Proposals:

  For more information about the proposals, please visit  Ras Al Khaimah Teachers Network website.