Queen Rania attends ‘Teach Like a Champion’ workshop

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah dropped in on the “Teach Like a Champion” training workshop organized by the Queen Rania Teachers Academy QRTA at the Teachers club in Amman today. The workshop is conducted by teachers’ training expert and author of the highly acclaimed book, Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov. The book, which was translated into Arabic by QRTA, offers effective teaching techniques for teachers, especially those in their first few years of their teaching careers. The techniques in the book are concrete, specific, and are easily implementable in the classroom. The three-day training workshop, which began Tuesday, focuses on the “Cold Call” teaching technique which makes sure students are constantly paying attention in the classroom. The workshop included 95 public school teachers, 10 Ministry of Education staff, and 15 QRTA staff. During the workshop, Her Majesty stressed the importance of teachers’ training on an ongoing basis to enable them to renew their tactics and experiences, thus raising the level of students’ achievement and strengthening the relationship between the student and teacher. Her Majesty also pointed out the importance of innovative teaching methods, including the “Cold Call” method which gets the students accustomed to being prepared to face any situation, whether inside or outside the school. Cold Call uses a system that ensures all students assume it is possible that they are about to be called on, even if they didn’t indicate their willingness to participate, and therefore think they must be prepared to answer. The system ensures that all of the students answer all of the questions in their minds, instead of one student answering each of the questions out loud. Lemov considers Cold Call the single most potent technique in changing the academic climate of a classroom. It is also a technique that Lemov has experienced not only in public schools but also at Harvard’s business school and believes it is among the most universally applicable of the techniques. The Arabic edition of “Teach Like a Champion” will be launched on Thursday by QRTA. Her Majesty launched QRTA in June 2009, in partnership with Columbia University, as a center of excellence in teachers’ education in Jordan and the region. To date the academy has trained more than 5,500 educators.