{"id":60362,"date":"2021-07-28T09:49:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T14:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=60362"},"modified":"2021-07-28T09:49:33","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T14:49:33","slug":"professors-host-workshop-on-differentiation-for-teachers-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=60362","title":{"rendered":"Professors host workshop on differentiation for teachers in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By UNIVERSITY RELATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort Hays State University\u2019s Dr. Jerrie Brooks, assistant professor, and Dr. Robert Moody, professor in the Department of Advanced Educational Programs (AEP), held a virtual workshop on Differentiation in the K-12 Classroom on June 15th<\/sup> and 16th<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This workshop was unique, with 35 K-12\nteachers from over a dozen countries, all currently living and working in Saudi\nArabia. A genuinely international group of educators, their home countries\nincluded: Yemeni, Sierra Leonean, Kenyan,\nAmerican, Saudi, Jamaican, Indian, Pakistani, South African, Palestinian,\nLebanese, Jordanian, Canadian, Eritrean, and Egyptian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This workshop marks a\nmilestone for FHSU. According to Dr. Sherry Crow, chair of the Department of\nAdvanced Education, \u201cSeveral attempts at organizing and conducting such workshops with teachers in Saudi Arabia have occurred\nover the last few years, but this is the first time a workshop in education by\nFHSU has actually taken place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raynor Roberts, FHSU\nalum and member of the Association for Professional Educators Abroad, has\nworked for several years to bring programs like these to fellow teachers in Saudi\nArabia. In conjunction with the FHSU Office of Global Partnerships and the AEP\ndepartment, Roberts\u2019 efforts are paying off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Roberts,\n\u201cmany teachers in Saudi Arabia are doing great work, but lack resources,\nparticularly in areas like differentiation as this is not a major component of\nthe education system in this region.\u201d He has found the teachers are open to new\nperspectives and are eager for the direction and support for their teaching\nthat workshops like this one from FHSU provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who may not\nbe familiar with the concept, \u201cDifferentiation\u201d is the practice of adapting\ninstruction to meet the educational needs of a diverse group of students. This\napproach is not the norm in middle eastern countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The desire for these\nteachers to expand their knowledge of individualized instruction has helped\nopen the door for Roberts and Fort Hays State\nUniversity. The ability to provide resources that will ultimately help\nstudents who these eager educators teach, whether in Saudi Arabia or in one of\nthe many home counties that they come from, closely aligns with the greater\nmission at FHSU to \u201cprovide accessible quality education to Kansas, the nation,\nand the world.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent workshop is\nnot the first time Roberts has collaborated with FHSU on a professional\ndevelopment opportunity for teachers in Saudi Arabia. Roberts worked with Dr.\nGary Andersen, assistant professor of advanced education programs, in 2017,\nproviding a lecture series on classroom culture. The success of this activity,\nand the receptivity of the teachers involved, inspired Roberts to provide an\ninteractive educational opportunity for the Saudi teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another significant\ndifference between the recent workshops and these initial activities is that\nRoberts, with the assistance of Cindy Elliott, assistant vice president for\nglobal partnerships, was able to acquire official recognition and approval from\nthe Saudi Ministry of Education. Dr. Ibrahim Alfarhan, director of the\nInternational and Foreign Education Office, gave a welcoming speech for the\nevent. Dr. Alfarhan\u2019s office is also providing a certificate to all\nparticipants. This workshop marks the first time an educational program at FHSU\nhas gained governmental approval to work with teachers in Saudi Arabia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make this meeting\npossible, the successful use of technology was vital. Moody, Google Certified\nTrainer and ISTE Certified Educator handled the setup and technology on the\nFort Hays State University end of this\nmeeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moody discussed the\nsuccess they had, not only in the video discussions with the participants but\nalso with the Google Classroom features that allow materials to be shared long\nafter the conference has ended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just checked, and\npeople are still going to the Google Classroom and reading and downloading\nmaterials from there, nearly three weeks after the conference,\u201d Moody\nsaid.  \n\nRoberts added that he\nbelieved the Google site would see even more use as the new school year\napproached, noting that this is the type of support these teachers want, and he\nhopes Fort Hays State University can provide\nmore of it in the future\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By UNIVERSITY RELATIONS Fort Hays State University\u2019s Dr. Jerrie Brooks, assistant professor, and Dr. Robert Moody, professor in the Department of Advanced Educational Programs (AEP),… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60363,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60362\/revisions\/60363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}