Translator: Ghalia Turki Reviewer: Abd Al-Rahman Al-Azhurry
Hello.
Silence, please.
Where's the attendance sheet?
Tell your classmates there are three grades for this lecture.
Students!
Pass the attendance sheet.
We're now on Chapter 4.
Introduction.
Communication between a teacher and the students
inside and outside the classroom
is considered one of the most important factors
in the educational process.\
A.
A. Inside the classroom
The teacher should make appropriate eye contact with the students,
communicate orally
and try to create an interactive atmosphere with them.
For example, the teacher shouldn't read the lecture
from a book or slides.
B. Outside the classroom
You can read the rest of the chapter on your own.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Did you like that teacher?
I was a student before, and I didn't.
And when I became a teacher, I decided not to be like him.
For my first lecture,
I tried very hard to prepare it well,
by focusing on the details and organizing them.
Then I gave my first lecture wholeheartedly.
And when I looked in my students' eyes, they looked all like this.
Only one student seemed focused, a guy with very messy hair.
I asked him: "Do you have any questions?"
He answered,
"What's the point of everything you just said?
(Laughter)
I realized that good preparation is not enough
to inspire students to study.
I have to motivate the students from deep inside them.
I have to make them excited and motivated to study.
The next lecture wasn't a normal programming lecture.
Instead, I made it a lecture about programming viruses.
Ta-da!
Students were excited to learn how to program such a weird creature.
All of them paid attention to the lecture
and handed in their work at the end,
except for two students,
who didn't come to class or hand in assignments.
I was motivated to encourage even these two to hand in their project.
I called them and said I was waiting for them in a café.
When they arrived, I asked about the homework.
They couldn't answer since they copied it from their classmates.
I explained the assignment,
and went over everything for three hours.
I offered them a drink, but they were too ashamed.
They looked like they were thinking, "Why does he care so much?"
But in the following semesters and in my courses,
I noticed they were more concerned about attendance
and handing in assignments.
They became good students.
I realized that giving special attention to those students
helped them and pushed them to care about the subject, too.
So I started communicating more with the students through social media.
They started asking questions about the assignments.
Over time, I worked to remove the student-teacher barrier.
I tried to be not only their teacher, but also their friend.
And because what mattered to me was to benefit the students,
I created a website to upload the lectures.
I also uploaded weekly homework for them.
That helped the students to stop waiting for the last lecture
or last two weeks of the semester
to hand things in, or cram for finals.
Education needs to be progressive, not intensive in the last two weeks,
so that the student doesn't forget it.
That's why all the students handed in their assignments.
But I faced a problem -- they all started asking me questions on Facebook.
And when I'd return home to get some rest, there would be tons of questions:
"Teacher, how do I do this?"
"Teacher! I don't get this problem!"
"Teacher, it didn't work!" "Teacher, I swear, it's too complicated!"
I had to make double the effort to answer them all.
To reduce the number of questions,
I recorded the lecture in a 90-minute video,
then uploaded it so the students could review it themselves.
However, it continued: "Teacher, how can I solve this?"
"Teacher, I don't know what to do." "Teacher! Teacher!"
I found out the reason why when I told a student to review a video,
and the student replied, "It's too long!"
That was true.
The problem lay in the length of the video.
It was too long.
A student had to continually adjust
between concentration and distraction.
So I reviewed the online courses,
and noticed that the lecture comprised many short videos,
with every video explaining one idea from the lecture,
meaning that the lecture contained fragmented videos.
So I did that, I fragmented the lecture into separate videos.
At home, I divided the lecture into ideas and organized them.
I shortened each of the ideas so they didn't exceed six to nine minutes.
Then I recorded and uploaded them.
That was beneficial to me, first, because as a teacher,
I could see myself in the eyes of my students.
I noticed the ideas that needed to be explained in a different way,
or that needed to be shortened,
or that I could use better examples for.
And that helped me to improve myself
and organize the lectures in a better way.
Conversely, the students cared more and more,
because they were understanding the lectures better, and therefore,
had fewer questions.
And they made fewer calls asking about the assignments and quizzes.
To motivate the students more,
to show them my appreciation
and let them feel how much I care about how hard they work,
I gave them awards -
whoever solves this problem wins this award,
whoever solves that one wins that award -
even if it was a nominal one.
I didn't expect them to care about the awards,
so I was surprised they were motivated to compete for them.
To them, it was a sign of respect from their teacher -
an expression of appreciation for their efforts,
regardless of their grades.
Based on my work at the university and at a programming company,
I saw that there was still a gap between academic life
and practical life.
In an attempt to shrink this gap,
I talked to the dean and to the company's manager
about offering some students training in the company.
The surprising thing was,
some students were better workers than the company's own employees,
and the company kept them as employees.
In addition to that,
a student did a project for the company
that could then be counted toward academic credit.
That motivated me even more.
It was a very beneficial experience for me.
The idea is we have to encourage this;
we should encourage universities to set up special offices
to collaborate with companies,
in order to reduce the gap between student and academic life.
There's another important point to focus on:
it's not just about teachers caring for students.
It's also about students caring for each other.
I tried to grow the spirit of cooperation between students,
and motivate them to work with each other.
So I turned the projects, assignments and even the exams
into group projects.
That helped students to teach and motivate one another.
Also, good students will help the weaker ones to improve themselves.
We also have a lot of initiatives for cooperation between the students,
like Wikilogia and For New Hamak,
where students volunteer to teach and help each other,
and organize free lectures and workshops.
That doesn't imply a lack in universities,
but a maturation in our community that leads to the students' growth,
in both academic and social aspects.
And I'm standing here today
because my students think I'm a good teacher.
Thank you!
(Applause)