A workshop for students of education and in-service teaachers

1. TEACHING FOR
UNDERSTANDING
Sommieh Flower, Sitara Teachers’ Institute

2. Active, Hands-on Learning
• Learning is not a passive activity
• We must do something to learn a skill or concept.

3. Role of the Brain
• The brain is constantly searching for meaning. It looks for
patterns.
• New information must connect to something which is
already known to have meaning to us.

4. Every Child is Unique
• Education is not factory work. The teacher is not manufacturing a
product.
• Allah (SWT) created each one of us unique, from our brains, to our
hearts, to our fingerprints.
• Even identical twins have their own finger prints!

5. Tarbiyah is the Goal of Education
Tarbiyah: the act of nurturing someone to their full potential.

6. “SIT UP AND PAY ATTENTION!”
A five year old can concentrate on one thing for about 1015 minutes, at the most. Attention span normally increases
gradually with age
Implication: A variety of learning activities must be used
used to teach a particular concept.

7. If They Care, They Will Learn
• Emotional Intelligence: The more we care about
something, the more motivated we are to learn about it.
• The more our five senses are engaged, the more we care.
• The more we care, the more we remember.

8. From our Esteemed Teacher
• Do not debilitate your hearts. Seek for them creative and
fun ways to teach wisdom, for they tire like your bodies
do.
Hazrat Ali ibn Abu Talib (r.a.)

9. Planning Effective Lessons
• First, use the curriculum guide or syllabus to identify the
objectives of learning the topic.
• SWAT (Students will be able
to…describe, design, explain, discuss….)
• Design the activities they will do to achieve the
objectives.
• Plan the activities, gather your resources, and teach!

10. Use More than One Resource
• Remember, the textbook is not the curriculum. It is only
one resource you may use to teach a concept.
• It is more important to teach concepts than to teach
information.
• Conceptual understandings teach us how to become
independent learners.
• Example: Reading is a concept. We first understand that
letters make sounds and then that these sounds are
combined to make words.

11. Start New Lessons with KWL.
• What do we already know about this topic?
• What do we want to know? Let students generate questions of
their own. This creates the motivation to learn more.
• At the end of a lesson or topic, What have we learned?
• Connect new learning to old learning and create a chart, mind map
or other graphic organizer that shows what the class knows.
WE THE STUDENTS!

12. GLOSSARY
• Brain compatible learning- understanding how the brain
•
•
•
•
works and teaching with those principles in mind.
Concepts- big ideas about a topic that give us a pattern to
follow so we can build understanding.
Curriculum- a plan of instruction that details what students
should know and gives suggestions for how to teach the
material
Developmentally Appropriate Practices- National
Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
coined the phrase developmentally appropriate practice to
describe the concept of matching environment to the varying
needs of young children (Bredekamp, 1987).
Early childhood education should be horizontally relevant, or
meaningful to the child in his current stage of life, not at some
point in the future (vertical relevance). (Alfie Kohn, The Schools
our Children

13. GLOSSARY
• Developmentally Appropriate Practices- National
Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
coined the phrase developmentally appropriate practice to
describe the concept of matching environment to the varying
needs of young children (Bredekamp, 1987).
• Early childhood education should be horizontally relevant, or
meaningful to the child in his current stage of life, not at some
point in the future (vertical relevance). (Alfie Kohn, The Schools
our Children
• Objective- the goal that the lesson is designed to achieve.
What will students learn and how will they apply the learning to
demonstrate mastery and understanding.

14. About Your Instructor
Sommieh Flower
•
Director of Sitara School and Teachers’ Institute, a free school for
impoverished children and aspiring teachers.
•
Principal of Crescent Academy International in Canton, Michigan,
U.S.A. from 2000 to 2010.
•
Thirty years’ experience in Islamic education as a teacher and
administrator, speaker and workshop facilitator
•
Educated at New York University and Jersey City State University
B.Ed. in elementary education, M.Ed. in school administration and
curriculum
•
Board member: Islamic Schools League of America, Islamic Education
Foundation of New Jersey, Muslim Teachers’ Council, Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)