TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Sommieh Flower, Sitara Teachers’ Institute

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

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.

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!

Tarbiyah is the Goal of Education

Tarbiyah: the act of nurturing someone to their full potential.

“SIT UP AND PAY ATTENTION!”

A five year old can concentrate on one thing for about 10-15 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.

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.

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.)

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!

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.

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!

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

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.

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)