Methods and Pedagogy

Global Academy embraces three broad perspectives: Reaction Perspective, Response Perspective, and Critical Perspective under which two of them are considered the stepping stones of school’s comprehensive plan. The first one is the Response Perspective which paves the way to Critical Perspective. Under such perspectives, branch out the subject matter, the strategies and devices implemented by the teachers. The subject matter chosen is thematic and content based instruction. Themes are developed into units where each covers different standards or competencies. Through these competencies, Performance Tasks are assigned to build on the critical thinking of students. To help students perform their mental tasks, Bloom’s Taxonomy aligned with Lund’s Taxonomy entitle the tasks to make the students independent thinkers and responsible individuals who implement the above techniques and strategies. Teachers in specific are hired according to criteria that meet the objective mentioned. Each is an expert in his field. Literacy teachers conduct only literary courses, while subject teachers conduct Math, Science, Computer courses and etc….

Cooperative learning has always been our corner stone in implementing the different teaching techniques. Students learn through ability grouping. They exchange expertise through different cooperative learning techniques like, Jigsaw I, II, III, Think – Pair – Share, Think – Pair – Square, Think Round Robin, and Numbered – Heads together, STAD, SQ3R, and students are seated according to different levels of achievement. Heterogeneous and Homogenous groups serve to increase student’s involvement.

Instructors’ daily lesson plans include the 3 teaching stages the pre, through, and post stage. Each containing different tasks that involve all types of learners and consider their multiple intelligence (kinesthetic, Audiovisual, Visual, and Auditory ) as well as their artificial one (Linguistic, Logical, Mathematical, Bodily Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal, Naturalistic, or Existential intelligence) too to represent the content information and have maximum student engagement. Audio learners, for instance, are encouraged to read, write, and make oral presentations and debates. Visual learners are motivated through the use of posters, films, YouTube videos, pictures, and other visual products. Kinesthetic learners are stimulated through role playing or clay playing, or other hands on materials. All the above cooperate to deliver the objectives required to students. Objectives which are the pillars of the curriculum are said to be covered throughout the scholastic year. Thus, the annual calendar, the teaching days, and the level of students determine the pace as to which the content objectives should be covered.

Instructors plot curricular and extra-curricular activities that align with the objectives to be covered to allow the optimal liveliness in classes. Integrating technology and implementing action research with instruction do not conclude our learning and teaching process but add to its effectiveness. Content adaptation and format adaptation are two major strategies implemented by our teachers to adjust either the content or the techniques to meet the level of different students. Each subject matter might have a different type of instruction. For instance, to assist students in language development, instructors implement the strategy DISSECT (D: Discover the word’s context, I: Isolate the prefix, S: Separate the suffix, S: Say the item, E: Examine with someone, C: Check with someone, & T: Try the dictionary) to acquaint learners to word Identification and Decoding. Teachers notice the importance of moving gradually over objectives, for this they start their lessons with a rationale that reminds their students of previous covered goals and ease their shift to new ones. Simultaneously, coordinators investigate the productivity of classes through regular class visits and observations. These visits highlight strengths to be shared and weaknesses to be enhanced.

The school’s atmosphere is always built to be positive and healthy where staff and students exchange mutual respect for the betterment of the learner himself, as a “whole being” where this individual character is elevated socially, intellectually, psychologically and even physically.