Sunday, April 17, 2016

What we do

Support Learning program is a kind of project supported by Aga Khan foundation, where teachers of different villages in Naryn region can get a support in professional development, and in teaching their subject itself.  In some stages we organize and provide methodological trainings for teachers and between such sessions we observe their lessons and implementation of new knowledge and skills into the practice. Teachers use at their lessons textbooks that were distributed to them at the beginning of the year. They follow the curriculum developed for the academic year, according to the textbook and their additional sources of information. Thus, at this academic year it was organized the first meeting for all teachers involved into the project work. I explained the main rules and responsibilities of the teachers, their tasks, and the plans of our program for the goal of professional development and developing their teaching skills. We discussed their needs and opportunities to work with their students in pilot groups.
  For this academic year we continued our work with Math, IT teachers and teachers of English language.  As a trainer of Professional development I organized for them sessions where they could learn more about critical thinking, and different strategies of work in the classroom. We collaborate with Math teachers in Naryn and a trainer Klara Kazakovna -a math specialist, helped us to  share her expereince of work and preparation for Olympiad . At the training for Math teachers, many of them shared their working experience, presented demonstrative lessons to each other and some of presentation of their school activities with schools' kids.  AKES could support Klara Kazakovna to travel to Tajikistan, where she organized 7-days’ training for Math teachers in Khorog. It was unforgettable experience for her and for teachers there, because they could share their strategies of work in preparation of school' students to Olympiad.  She shared her thoughts and new methodology of work with our AKS teachers of Math and IT in Osh too. Such kind of positive experience gave to our teachers a good motivation to work in a team and to improve the process of teaching and preparing students to School Olympiad.
On the next stage we organized training for English language teachers. They could learn more about speaking, writing, and reading skills. I introduced to them several methods and strategies of work in teaching and shared different opportunities to learn English online and through some other courses. For this training we invited administration of the schools and it was very good dialogue between us and them about the strategic plan of work, developing the project for the next years, and the main reason for that is to improve the quality of education at schools and to give more opportunity for graduators to pass exams to Naryn UCA, and other Universities. Directors and deputy directors appreciated that we invited them to the meeting and discussed directly with them the role of the program and the stages of our work.
After these trainings we observed lessons of our teachers and provided for them a feedback in order to reflect and analyze the process of work and their teaching results that was shown in diagnostic tests and in Olympiad at schools than between the best students from our pilot groups. Students of English language teachers wrote essay and students of Math answered to the control work that was designed for them by Klara Kazakovna (a neutral teacher) from Naryn.  The result shows that teachers and we have to continue our work because in education the result can’t be seen immediately and this is ongoing process that gives  already good results in students’ motivation; their speaking skills; and knowledge in subjects that we work with. Teachers are very happy to meet for our meetings, to share their knowledge and experience of work.

At last academic year we organized successfully a methodological conference for our teachers in Naryn and in this year we are looking forward to organize it too. We have a lot of work to do in order to prepare for it, but we aren’t afraid of challenges, because it gives a great and positive effect for all of our teachers and for their development in all aspects. We a have a good team in our project and support each of us will get unpredictable result!