The Office of the Assistant to the President of the Arab American University, in cooperation with the Faculty of Arts and Education, has held a scientific workshop for the University students titled “Transformative Education”. This lecture was held in partnership with the Teacher Creativity Center, and it comes in celebration of the global campaign to protect education, which falls on the twenty-second of April each year.
The lecture was attended by the University’s Assistant to the President for Community Affairs, Dr. Laila Herzallah, the representative of the Teacher Creativity Center, Mr. Abdullah Jarrar, Professor Dr. Mohammad Dawabsheh, lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, and the researcher at the Arab American University, Dr. Mousa Odeh.
The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Herzallah, Assistant to the President for Community Affairs, with a welcoming speech to the attendees. She stressed the importance of the workshop, which talks about a new term “transformative education”. This term will be presented through a research paper by Dr. Mousa Odeh. Dr. Herzallah pointed out that this new term came at a time when the education sector in Palestine is suffering from its worst conditions, especially in the Gaza Strip, where it is exposed to brutal aggression by the occupation, which killed thousands of students and teaching staff and destroyed hundreds of educational institutions, including universities and schools. She stressed the need for everyone to act in order to protect education, especially in Gaza strip.
For his part, the representative of the Teacher Creativity Center, Mr. Abdullah Jarrar, praised the partnership between the center and the Arab American University, noting that this workshop came on the occasion of the whole world’s celebration of the Global Campaign for Education. He indicated that Palestine has participated in it since 2008, as one of 120 countries and 200 educational institutions in the world. The person who has been leading the campaign for five years is Palestinian, and this year’s campaign is focused on the necessity of protecting education in Palestine i.e. the whole world stands in solidarity with the Palestinians and their case.
Via Zoom platform, researcher Dr. Mousa Odeh from the Arab American University presented a research paper on transformative education in which he spoke about its importance as it represents a qualitative shift for learners across three fields of learning: the cognitive field, the socio-emotional field, and the behavioral field. Dr. Odeh pointed out that transformative education focuses on finding innovative teaching methods that enhance creativity and critical thinking in each of the different areas of learning, given its focus on making the student the focus of the educational process and preserving the dignity and diversity of learners by focusing on global citizenship education that allows students to participate in various projects as well as addressing global social, political, economic, or environmental issues.
Transformative education also focuses on education for sustainable development by instilling the most important values in the minds of students, such as cooperation, democracy, patriotism, and respect for the opinions of others, Dr. Odeh added. He stressed that transformative education is considered a process of building global citizens interested in building a more sustainable, just, and peaceful world. Thus, we need not only impart knowledge to our students, but also help them think critically from a global perspective.
