WES 21 - Sharm - programme

This presentation will showcase how the Egyptian Scholastic Test (EST) can be used by students and admission officers in universities to help students choose the major that best matches their abilities and capabilities. Discussion will focus on traditional test components such as skills, content, format, design process and psychometric properties of standardised tests.

Jim Kell demonstrates the impact of the world-renowned cognitive abilities test (CAT4), when implemented digitally on a large scale. His presentation explains the importance of understanding children’s cognitive abilities and the use of CAT4 for improving teaching and learning. Jim also indicates how CAT4 data can be correlated with subject assessment data such as Thanawiyya Aama and its alignment with educational measures such as PISA. Jim is assisted by Jailan Sharif, Sayegh Project Manager and authorised CAT4 Advisory Specialist, and they make frequent reference to the CAT4 Microsite, a new support tool for CAT4.

This presentation addresses the vision guiding an Egyptian education transformation into a modern education system, equipping its graduates with the proper life skills and enabling them to lead successful lives while contributing to sustainable development of the country. The talk reviews ongoing plans to develop new curricula, new assessment models, teacher transformation, and most importantly the change in parents' mindset towards education.

In this session, we will review the challenges of transforming learning in the Egyptian educational context. Most importantly, we will consider this from the perspective of teaching and learning, thinking about how we can improve opportunities for students to succeed. This session will also explore how technology can support the transformation of Egypt's Thanaweya Amma through the design of the assessment. Finally, we will explore the journey of the transformation from paper to digital assessment and how Egypt is now a world leader in onscreen assessment.

This session will look at how to encourage discussion and keep high-quality engagement whilst teaching in an online setting through various techniques and questioning skills.

Andrew will start by defining and explaining the 4Cs of 21st Century Learning (Communication, Collaboration, Creativity and Critical Thinking) before exploring ways to develop these skills. By seeing students participating in and reflecting on activities designed to develop the 4Cs, we will see and hear how these impact on their learning.

While enabling remote teaching and learning has not been easy for most institutions, the fact that the lockdown has accelerated digital adoption means the foundations are now mostly in place to build on for the future.

Online, blended and hybrid learning have now become the new norm. In this session, we will shed light on the transformation of ESL pedagogy and the choices that teachers have to make during online teaching, as well as the challenge of engaging students.

Engaging digital content and accurate online assessments helps learners benefit from the advantages of remote, blended or face-to-face contexts. This session will examine how these resources look and function in an ELT programme in higher education.

The challenges facing Arabic language teachers are numerous, and they surfaced, especially during the current phase of online teaching. Thus, how can we cope with this sequence of changes? Based on the series “My Arabic Language”, how can we set teaching strategies that enable us to balance between technology and authenticity?

This session will introduce teachers to the Pearson English Portal, using Stones and other titles to showcase the features, benefits and value of the tool in the online classroom.

In this session, you will find out how inquiry-based learning helps support ELL objectives, by developing thoughtful, confident students, with high levels of research skills, problem solving and critical thinking to equip them for an international world of work and study. This session will spotlight Pearson's exciting new resource developed with authentic BBC materials, called 'Now I Know'.

Reading is a crucial skill in the curriculum, and reading for pleasure is a very useful resource to develop the reading skill. York Digital Library offers students the opportunity to access a complete library at the click of a button. York Digital Library includes English and Arabic readers, a variety of audio books, audio flash cards and interactive activity books, in addition to many teacher resources.

Encyclopaedias are one of the most important sources of knowledge. The Butterfly Encyclopaedia is the first online school encyclopaedia in Arabic. It consists of thousands of rich, interesting and scientifically accurate articles classified into five categories: Science, History, Geography, Civilisation and Literature to educate students in different areas of knowledge. Articles are graded to suit different age groups. They can also be linked to different curricula.

Problem-based learning deepens students' ability to think mathematically by connecting ideas, seeing relationships, asking questions and trying different approaches.
York enVision Maths creates opportunities for meaningful activities that engage students in problem solving and higher-order thinking in authentic settings, to address real-world problems and resolve realistic dilemmas.

Learning vocabulary is key to acquiring any language and being able to speak it. This becomes more important when learning modern classical Arabic. This session covers the importance of learning vocabulary in any teaching environment (face-to-face, blended or fully online classroom).

Research tells us that the more we read, the deeper our knowledge can grow. But how can we get our students to WANT to put down their devices and pick up a book?
Come learn how Teacher Created Materials creates a world in which children love to learn through a wide range of levelled, guided readers that capture students’ interest and help build knowledge through “disguised” learning!
Kim Bernard will share fun and engaging tips and strategies that you can use in your classroom tomorrow.