OREANDA-NEWS. February 19, 2013. The Basic Teaching Skills in Math, Science and English Language for Intermediate Teachers Program was recently launched in cooperation with The Ministry of Education and The Teaching Experts Co. at an al-Khobar area hotel, reported the press-centre of Saudi Aramco. 

The aim of the project is to improve skills and allow for practical implementation of the new curriculum’s philosophy.  

Ahmad Ghamdi, project supervisor, kicked off the program. “Saudi Aramco is delighted to meet on this day with this group of teachers practicing the most noble of professions,” he said. “This training program is in the context of a series of social responsibility programs that Saudi Aramco offers to the local community. We give many thanks to the Ministry of Education for allowing us this opportunity, and we look forward to achieving its goals so it may have a positive reflection on our students who are the hope of this country and its bright future.”

Relaying Experiences
The manager of the Math and Natural Sciences Professional Development Program at the Ministry of Education, Mush’i B. Dossary, thanked Saudi Aramco for its exceptional community outreach programs, especially those designed to develop teachers.

“Saudi Aramco’s sponsoring of this program is a great example of the true partnership the Ministry of Education and the company have. We are happy today to launch this initiative targeting 150 male and female teachers of math, science and English language.”

In his speech, the project manager at The Educational Experts Company, Ahmad Zahrani, said, “True construction of countries is dependent on true construction of human beings. This is why we made people the center of our concern — because people are the core of continued development and the greatest contributor to the rise of a country. Therefore, we consider this training program as a practice in critical thinking.”

Connecting Curriculum with Reality
The 10-week program is targeted at English language, math and science teachers and includes a learning philosophy, science curriculum, student-based learning, lifelong continued learning, next step in conceptual comprehension, science technology and evaluation in science curriculum’s and math curriculum’s learning philosophy.

At the end of the program, an evaluation process will be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the proposed development methodology, by examining the following levels:

Reaction: Teachers’ satisfaction level with certain aspects of the training program, such as training material, trainers and training methods. This will be measured through a questionnaire handed out to all trainees.

Learning: This will measure trainees’ level of understanding of the concepts, theories and skills by conducting exams before and after they’ve received training. The purpose of the exams is to measure the trainees’ level of attainment and command of skills and information.

Behavior: This will measure changes in trainees’ behavior as a result of the program. It will be evaluated through gathering field information from the trainees’ direct superiors, their colleagues and the trainers themselves.

Results: This will focus on the training outcomes and the impact they have on an institution’s efficiency and its ability to attain the aspired goals. Measurement criteria include production quality and competency achievements.