Teach Like A Champion

Teach Like a Champion Program

 

Queen Rania Teacher Academy (QRTA) recognizes the vital role of teachers which motivated its efforts to providing them with the knowledge, skills, and support necessary to enhance the quality and effectiveness of teaching in the classrooms. In developing its programs, QRTA refers to reliable global and modern sources, which include educational books and research studies of strategies that proved to be successful in the classroom.

Among those resources is the “Teach Like a Champion” (TLaC) book authored by Doug Lemov, which includes thousands of hours of recorded classroom observations of the most effective teachers that have the potential to produce dramatic improvements in students’ achievement especially in the national tests results.

QRTA was granted the right of translation for the first edition of the book "Teach like a Champion" which includes 49 techniques and the accompanying videos. In 2012, the Queen Rania Teacher Academy launched a training program based on the book "Teach like a Champion" that deals with a series of applicable foundational and organizational techniques that support teachers. Those techniques support the teachers in establishing a learning environment that actively engages students and raises the level of academic and behavioral expectations in the classroom. As a result, quality and efficient teaching will be achieved to improve students’ learning and skills.

Modules

The program consists of five main modules:

Module 1: Check for Understanding

Check for understanding (CFU) and its techniques are presented in a sufficient actionable, concrete, and everyday guidance ways. This module helps the teacher realize that the most crucial task of teaching is to distinguish between “I taught it” from “they learned it.” The techniques support teachers in ensuring that their students have acquired the learning and understand it. It assists them in pinpointing the moment their students` understanding stopped.

The techniques presented in this module of the training will help teachers to:

• Continuously assess students' understanding during the lesson.
• Frame data collection techniques through questioning, observation, and building a culture of error in the classes, which calls for immersing them in basic activities in the daily practices within the classroom.
• Change the function of checking for students' understanding to become therapeutic and not only at the limits of evaluation, which means judgment, to make only the final mark.

Module 2: Academic Ethos

The techniques discussed in this module focus on raising the academic ethos in the classroom by adopting the importance of research at the highest level of academic rigor during the different stages of delivering lessons. This module provides techniques that help teachers track the main tools and decisions that are made in each lesson. In addition, it provides appropriate techniques for each stage in order to add academic spirit to the subject which makes it acceptable and attractive, starting from prior planning and effective lesson design, making it move in the right direction.

 The techniques presented in this part of the training will help teachers to:

• Recognize the effective lesson planning techniques.
• Identify the techniques that impacts lessons’ pace.

Module 3: Ratio

This module focuses on three paths that teachers can take to increase ratio: questioning, writing, and discussion. A comprehensive explanation of the effective techniques that contribute to increasing ratios in each of these areas is provided. Those techniques will enable teachers to encourage their students to do as much cognitive work as possible, such as writing, thinking, analyzing, and speaking effectively.

The techniques presented in this part of the training will help teachers to:

• Identify ways to increase the amount of thinking in the classroom.
• Recognize the methods of increasing the participation rate in the classroom.

Module 4: Principles of Classroom Culture

This module focuses on behavior and culture.

It tries to frame two critical points teachers must understand in building classroom culture.

First, the purpose of a structured system in the classroom is to promote academic learning. Second, there is a difference between the power of keeping things from going wrong and the benefits of making our classroom a place where things go right, where culture and expectations are positive, joyful, productive, and caring.

During the training, techniques of managing students’ behavior will be presented by linking them with the emotional intelligence of the teacher and the learner together, which allows teachers to view these behaviors from another perspective to deal with and contain them instead of resorting to other methods such as punishment.

The techniques presented in this part of the training help teachers to:

• Manage student’s behavior.
• Build classroom culture.

Module 5: Managing Virtual classroom

This module deals with techniques for managing virtual classrooms in distance learning. It focuses on three main topics that we must take into consideration when designing and implementing distance learning lessons, namely:

The external environment of the learner: It refers to everything that surrounds the learner from external matters that may affect his learning.

The internal environment of the learner: It refers to the internal motivation that drives the learner to work.

Accountability for learning: How to create accountability and make students responsible for their learning.

The techniques presented in this part of the training will help teachers to:

• Recognize the meaning of motivation and its importance.
• Build motivation among students.

Objectives

The training techniques aim to achieve the following key objectives:

• Setting high academic and behavioral expectations
• Structuring and delivering excellent lessons
• Engaging students in the lessons
• Creating a strong and positive classroom culture
• Building character and trust
• Improving the pace in the classroom
• Helping teachers connect to their current classroom practices and harness the power of these techniques to make their teaching better

 Duration

Each module is a 3-day training workshop.

The training includes interactive activities carried out by groups of trainees. Videos and real-life case studies from classrooms will be presented and analyzed by the trainees and then collectively discussed.

Delivery Approach

Training is provided online.

 Target Audience

Teachers of all grades.