Meeting Middle East Educators

IMG_0542 Last week I presented at the TeachME 2009 International Education Conference, in Dubai. It was a great pleasure to meet dedicated educators from across the Gulf Coast region. 

While many of the attendees are expats, a sizable number were local teachers and administrators. Their similarity to American educators far surpassed any differences. A smile behind a face veil is no less joyful. 

As President Obama said at his inauguration,  "We cannot help but believe that …as our world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself…" 

I suspect teachers will lead the way. 

Notice the TurningPoint response cards on orange lanyards – everybody loves clickers!

5 Replies to “Meeting Middle East Educators”

  1. Hi Peter,
    I was at this conference, in fact, that is me in the very back row in the picture. I really enjoyed your sessions. I am a librarian, so a slightly different kind of teacher. The concepts of rigor and relevance will be very helpful as I design information literacy instruction materials and activities for my students and faculty. These ideas were very needed here. Much of the K-12 instruction previously has been focused on rote memorization, so I deal with college students who lack critical thinking skills and expect to be passive in their learning. Education is changing for the better here. Thanks for being apart of that change.

  2. Hi Carla,

    I had a great time working with your group. I wish we would have had a longer session, to explore more fully. Glad to hear your are leading the charge for critical thinking skills in line with the new information flow. Libraries are certainly revolutionizing to keep up! You might enjoy my post Transforming Information Flow in School Libraries http://tinyurl.com/cuj7yj

    Thanks for the comment – keep in touch

    Cheers,

    Peter

  3. Comment from attendee, Malika Boucif on http://teachmeblog.wordpress.com/

    Hi,

    First of all I want to thank all those who have contributed in the success of the TeachME Conference. As a teacher, I was pleased to attend the conference. For me, it was a great opportunity and pleasure to meet people from different schools, backgrounds, cultures, countries… The conference was not only a place to share knowledge but also a place to share experiences, to make friends, an above all to open up on new perspectives.

    I would to like to present special thanks to Mr. Peter Pappas for his rigor and relevance. I really found his talks and workshops amazing and interesting. I have learned a lot from him, and I am sure that I am going to apply what I have learned from him in my classroom.

    I would like also to thank Miss Kate Shuster for her enthusiasm, energy, and cheerfulness. I was glad to attend the Students’ Debate Session where I learned a lot about the art of debating.

    Finally I have some remarks for the organizers. Well. I think that two days are not enough for this kind of conference. For instance, I was interested in so many workshops and talks, but some of them were held at the same time, so I couldn’t attend all what I wanted to. I really want the organizers to look carefully at this matter and to think of a better management of time and schedule for the next conference.

    Thank you very much for everything, my specials thanks also to the hostesses who were really kind, helpful, and cheerful.

    Look forward meeting next conference.

    Malika Boucif

  4. Hi Peter

    I have been playing around with your Rigour and Relevance model in designing criteria for evaluating problem triggers for post secondary students. Thanks again for a useful model, it was great meeting up with you!

    Cheers,

    Glen O’Grady

  5. Hi Glen,

    Great to get your post. I’m glad you see value in the R and R perspective. I think that teachers and students find it to be a useful lens to use for reflection.

    I’m very interested in finding out how you apply it to PBL evaluations. Please be sure to share with me.

    Good luck on your upcoming PBL Symposium. http://www.rp.sg/symposium/2009/

    Let’s keep in touch!

    Cheers,

    Peter

Leave a Reply to Peter PappasCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.