Dear all,

Please find this week’s news and updates below;

1. Teacher Strand

1.a. Lesson Observations & Effective Teaching Criteria Study

As part of quality assurance and school development activities, this year TLDU has been focusing on the lesson observation procedures that we have in our school. To this end, in the Fall semester, TLDU collected feedback from the observers regarding the aim, changing needs and the different components that we have in our lesson observation cycle.  Following this survey, the data was shared with the management group in a lesson observation refresher meeting, in which the participants had the chance to reflect upon our ongoing process focusing on the areas to improve.

In the second meeting in Fall semester, the participants shared and reflected on different lesson observation types that they tried in their teams, such as self-observation and peer-observation.  In that meeting, with the key principles and considerations, TLDU also presented some other lesson observation types, Instructional Rounds and Three-way Observation, which could be used in our context with different purposes.

 

 

Following these meetings, TLDU started working on ScOLa Effective Teaching Criteria to evaluate the perceptions that the observers and observees may have when they put it in practice.  Based on the collated data, some suggestions on the criteria were shared with the management team in the third meeting focusing on lesson observations.

 

 

With the in-depth reflection of the active participants, final suggestions were collated to be implemented.  When this study is finalised, the updated criteria will be shared with all the parties in the school.

 

1.b. ScOLa Faculty Reading Club

The first session of the club took place on 05.04.2023 with the participation of six members. There was an introduction to the reading club and discussion of the introductory chapter of the book Social Animal. Participants had the opportunity to reflect on our responsibilities as instructors. Our reflection discussion led to an understanding that, as educators, our role is not merely to teach English, but rather to help our students develop academic and life skills.

 

2. Student Strand

Student Development Sessions:

This week, we recommend our students to watch the recording of a previous session called  “Tips and Tricks on How to Improve Fluency in Speaking” by Wioleta Wenclawek. They can find the recording at the bottom of our LMS page (ScOLa Extra-curricular Activities) under the section of “Session Recordings from the Previous Year”.

Please encourage your students to watch this session.