Teaching is a job where your skills must be up-to-date with all new methods and techniques. Therefore, I wanted to enhance my skills to be a better teacher, and that is why I enrolled in the BLCSI program. My name is Abdullah Baazagi, and I am from Saudi Arabia. I am one of the participants in the leadership program at the University of Central Florida. I have a bachelor’s degree in Geophysics from King Saud University and a master’s degree in Geology from Portland State University. Since my graduation in 2015, I’ve been working in Saudi Arabia as a Geology teacher in high school, and a teacher of general sciences and social studies in middle school. I have been a teacher for a total of four years. My philosophy in life and teaching is that there are always new things to be learned, new knowledge to be attained, new places to be discovered, and new theories to be proven.
This is why I chose to pursue the BLCSI program. I love reading about the universe its my true passion and the most fascinating thing to me, to know that we are connecting together from all kind of materials in the universe. As carl Sagan said” The nitrogen in our DNA. The calcium in our teeth. The carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.” This quote one of many that made me interested in our universe. Throughout this paper, I will review my initial skills, goals, action steps, and action plan for the future, following my completion of the BLCSI program. I had a wide variety of initial skills coming into the BLCSI program.
First, in terms of English proficiency, I was fairly fluent in English, and advanced relative to most of my peers in the program. When I joined the BLCSI program, I was classified as a Level 6 English speaker. Since middle school I’ve been a big fan of movies, and I watched them in English, which helped me build my vocabulary. I also worked at IKEA in Saudi Arabia, and English was used in the workplace quite a lot. Most significantly, going to college in the United States helped with English proficiency due to my need to speak English on a daily basis for about three years. At first I studied English through an ESL program, and then later I switched to Portland Community College, and eventually Portland State University.
In terms of my teaching skills, as previously discussed I had four years of teaching experience before the BLCSI program, so I came in with ‘hands on’ skills in teaching and learning, classroom management, and lesson building. For example, I came up with an activity I called “treasure hunt” back home in KSA. For this activity, students would look for different kinds of rocks then research them to identify their origin, composition, and classification; they would also present their findings to the class. I also encourage my students to research the environment around them, so they can relate their learning to real world experience and retain the information. Finally, I have utilized technology in the classroom, such as Google Class and applications for active learning. I also had some experience working with students as a guide, in helping to coach and mentor them toward potential professional and career interests.
Coming to the BLCSI program I had a wide variety of goals. The first goal was to continue to develop and improve my English skills. Because of the number of years, I spent studying English prior to the program, my language skills were already quite good, but I wanted to continue practicing during my time at the University of Central Florida. Specifically, I wanted to expand my skills and achieve Level 8 English speaker status. Relatedly, I also wanted to practice my skills in becoming a better public speaker for classroom lectures. To me, this goal is the most important one because here in the United States there are many workshops, conferences, and meetings about how to be a confident speaker, and there are many famous American motivational speakers such as Tony Robbins. I aimed to gain the experience necessary to become a great speaker.
Second, I wanted to learn more about methods and techniques for ‘hands on’ teaching in American public schools. Specifically, I wanted to learn more about classroom organization, class management, methods for lesson planning and teaching, interaction with students, curriculum design and facilitation, and technology utilization. Lastly, I wanted to learn how to become a more effective coach and mentor for my students back home. To me, teaching is not simply about delivering information and knowledge to students. It’s also about guiding students in the classroom and in life. It can involve helping students to become better people and members of society. It can also entail helping motivate and encourage students to pursue professional or career interests that might catalyze them to maximize their own potential later on in life. I enjoy this aspect of my job and wanted to improve in this capacity.
As discussed earlier, my first goal was to improve my English-speaking skills during my time in the BLCSI program. To do this, I took classes in English through the ESL program at the University of Central Florida. I also attended regular meetings with my mentor in order to practice English conversation. I read books in English and went to meetings with other students who wanted to practice their English skills. Finally, I attended Toastmasters meetings on four separate occasions in order to practice and improve my skills as a public speaker. Now I am a member of Toastmasters, and I feel that the experience has given me the courage continue developing my skills.
In order to meet my second goal of learning more about American teaching methods and techniques, I first attended classes at the University of Central Florida in teaching and leadership philosophy. I also enrolled in a public-school immersion program wherein I observed teachers in their classes and how they use teaching methods and technology to deliver information to students. Additionally, I attended workshops and conferences about education, leadership in education, and use of technology in education. Finally, to meet my third goal I went to conferences and workshops and read about the best ways to help students with life guidance and career preparation. I also observing guidance counselors in American public schools and learned from them how they deal with student challenges, as well as how to approach any problems facing students. The other benefit I had is being with Saudi counselors learning from them and comparing between guidance in Saudi schools and guidance in American schools.
Action Plan for the Future After finishing the program and gaining all the experience I need to develop myself, I have made a plan to continue developing these skills after I return home to KSA. Concerning my English skills, when I return home I plan to start and English club in my school where students and teachers can meet to practice their English language skills every day. I will also be reading books and watching movies in English to continue to hone my skills. Finally, I will speak English with friends and colleagues who are fluent in order to continually improve my own vocabulary.
In terms of my hands-on teaching training, I plan to introduce a program of new elective classes at my school in order to give students more options and allow teachers more opportunities to share knowledge. I plan to first pilot this program in my own school in order to evaluate its efficacy. One example of an elective class would be a Geology Lab that expands on student learning in the fields of Earth Science and Geology. I’m also planning to establish a database for all the experiments used by schools so that successful ideas can be shared and accessed by others. If this is successful, I will present it to the Saudi Ministry of Education for rollout nationwide. Success is not guaranteed, but I will keep trying to help my students in any way possible.
Lastly, I intend to continue developing my skills in the area of student guidance and coaching/mentorship by developing a program where role model students can be paired with struggling peers to help them improve and develop these skills in student learners. This should help to create a greater impact with the effort. It is essential that I continue to develop my skills in order to be a good teacher. I came into the program with skills such as, English proficiency, hand on teaching and, using technology in classes for educational purposes. The goals that I set for myself were to improve my English language skills, to learn about techniques and methods in American teaching, and to develop my abilities in guiding, coaching, and mentoring students for character building and career preparation.
The action steps that I took to complete these goals were, attending classes in UCF global and finishing the course, meeting with my mentor regularly, going to the meetings of toastmasters. For my second goals I had the chance to go to the leadership course and observing classes in American public schools. As for my third goal I went to workshops and conferences, meeting with guidance and deans in American public schools and, reading books about helping students. Lastly, I intend to continue developing myself in these areas after I return to Saudi Arabia by starting an English club in my school, applying the elective courses in school, and establishing a database about all experiments using in labs for educational purposes.
