General Description of the Workshop

In observation of the Islamic work in general and the Islamic schools in particular, it is noticed that there are many good things that are done. However, these good things lack coherence and in many instances they are not effective. Take for example students in the weekend school (and in several full-time Islamic schools), a good number of students are not able to read the Quran correctly after spending several years in the school. You may be doing a lot of good things but you are still missing doing the right things. In order for the deed to be effective in additio good, it has to be the right thing. One of the right things that increase the effectiveness of the school is the use of data in designing instructional and curricular plans. This workshop is designed to give the attendees a good starter on the use of data in both the full-time and weekend schools to increase the effectiveness of their work.

1.       Are you on the Right Track?

With the pressure of meeting the challenge of running the daily affairs of the Islamic school, many administrators and teachers seem to lose focus and lose the right track. They seem to be doing a lot of good things but effectiveness is low. They seem not to have a coherent system of checking if they are on the right track or not. This issue doesn’t even come to the minds of some! They keep doing the good things they are doing thinking that their school is good while it is not! How do we know if we are on the right track or not? How do we set the school and the teachers’ work on the right track? This workshop will answer these questions and will give teachers evaluation questions that enable them to check if they are on the right track or not. 

2.       Creating a Data-Driven Culture in the School 

Using data to plan for the school is an essential step necessary for increasing the effectiveness of the school. A teacher who collects data before starting teaching the curriculum will be much more effective in reaching the goals and in achieving the highest scores. Data collection should be a continuous process in the life of the school and its teachers. Unfortunately, many have gotten used to the traditional way of teaching where a teacher goes to the classroom and starts the lesson with a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Data are rarely collected to guide the teaching process. The board and the administration together with the teaching staff should change this situation and work hard to create a data-driven culture in the school. What kind of data teachers and administrators should seek to collect? How do we do data analysis? How do we draw conclusions from the data analysis? How do we come up with intervention plans based on this data analysis? This workshop answers these questions and gives real examples of its application. The workshop will give hands-on activities for teachers to train them on the use of data in driving instructions in the classroom.

3.       Using Data to design a Tarbiyah Plan for the School

It is hard to see a school that has a clear comprehensive Tarbiyah plan that involves all members of the school: students, teachers, administrators, and parents. This workshop will explain how teachers and administrators can use data from parents, teachers, and students to design a comprehensive Tarbiyah plan that requires actions from all stakeholders. These actions are integrated together in a unique way to produce short-term and long-term improvements in the different areas of Tarbiyah in the school. Multiple sources of data and documents are used in the design process. The workshop also shows how the school can take a step-by-step approach to implement the plan. It also explains how to evaluate the success of the plan.

4.       Motivating the Learner: Islamic Principles

Motivation is an essential part of teaching. In fact, no or little learning will take place if the learner is not motivated to learn. You may be the best teacher in the world, but if the student is not willing to listen, no learning will take place. What does the literature say about motivation? How do non-Muslim scholars in the field of education view this issue? How do they handle it? How does the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, deal with motivation? How does it compare to the non-Muslim approach? What are some of the techniques and strategies the principal and the teachers can use to motivate students to learn and to create a positive attitude in the school towards life in general and learning in particular? This workshop will answer these questions and will give hands-on activities to teachers to work on and take back with them to implement in their schools.  

5.       Active Learning Techniques

Are you disturbed by the apparent passivity of students during your lectures? Do you find their attention wandering after you've been speaking to them for 15 or 20 minutes? If so, you might want to incorporate some short active learning components into your lectures. These are activities lasting 5 minutes or so in which the students switch from listening to you to actively engaging your material in some type of structured exercise involving thinking. Experts tell us that not only do they learn a lot during that 5 minutes, but their attention level is significantly increased for the rest of your lecture. In this workshop I will present several active learning strategies. Most of these strategies can be implemented in Islamic and non-Islamic schools. 

6.       Teaching Skills from Quran and Sunnah

The past decade has seen an explosion of interest among faculty in the teaching methods variously grouped under the terms 'active learning' and 'cooperative learning'. However, even with this interest, the majority of faculty still teaches their classes in the traditional lecture mode. There are a wide variety of active learning techniques which can be used to supplement rather than replace lectures. We are not advocating complete abandonment of lecturing, as both of us still lecture about half of the class period. The lecture is a very efficient way to present information but use of the lecture as the only mode of instruction presents problems for both the instructor and the students. In this workshop we will introduce many teaching skills from the Quran and the Sunnah. These skills will present teaching as an active learning method.