Eedad Project: Building the Capacity of ADEC’s New Teachers

2013 - 2014

EEDAD project established in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Tawteen Council, aimed to train and mentor potential educators to work with ADEK. The project aimed to increase the number of national teachers working in ADEK schools, and to introduce new instructional criteria for ADEK’s New School Model. Furthermore, the program aimed to support graduates seeking employment in the educational field and provide them with the necessary expertise. After completing the “Induction Program”, new teachers would undertake an internship in one of ADEK’s schools.

ASK’s Instructional Designers designed and developed the “Induction Program” and the “Coaching & Mentoring Capacity Building Program”. The content of both components were customized to meet beneficiaries’ needs, while being benchmarked to international best practices and standards. These were implemented by ASK’s highly qualified Expert Trainers/Coaches, who aimed to enable and enhance the capacity of potential new teachers to effectively employ modern teaching pedagogies, utilize available resources, and engage with students, parents and other teachers. Both components offered practical and authentic learning opportunities for both potential new teachers and expert teachers, enabling them to intrinsically adopt new attitudes, skills and knowledge, and translate these into new behaviors and practices that can positively contribute to their future roles as teachers and mentors. The two program components focused on building the foundation for a strong and beneficial mentoring relationship between the potential new teachers and expert teachers, through collaboration and continuous learning for the ultimate purpose of providing meaningful learning opportunities for students within ADEK’s New School Model.

The project enhanced the readiness of potential new teachers by developing and enhancing their educational pedagogies and competencies within ADEK’s New School Model. The program offered potential new teachers a systematic structure of support by enabling them with vital information, attitudes, techniques and strategies on topics that are critical to them during their first years of teaching. The project was also successful in enabling more experienced teachers with the necessary competencies, strategies and tools to support, guide, and mentor new teachers by enhancing the latter’s skills and confidence to succeed in the teaching profession.