As part of An-Najah National University outstanding steps to global competition with other leading universities, Dr. Yahya Saleh, from the Department of Industrial Engineering, Lect. Wafa Shamis and Ins. Dana Adas, both from the Language Center, initiated co-teaching in a well-structured highly organized, pre-planned student-centered approach to education. The initiative came into reality this semester; Spring 2012, due to the need for collaborative teaching among teachers from two separate disciplines; English language and Engineering. Adopting such an approach required the teachers to rethink and redesign the course material, outline, teaching strategies and assessment tools and techniques to cope with the new teaching approach.
The co-teaching team affirmed that co-teaching should address the needs of the engineering students in terms of critical thinking, problem solving and decision making skills in accordance with research/project writing skills. More specifically, the team considered these needs via careful selection of some real-life engineering research-based case studies closely pertinent to the main topics of English for Engineering and Science 10322. Thorough analysis and discussion sessions of those case studies are being conducted between the students and the co-teaching team in an attempt to achieve the goals of the co-teaching initiative. The main goal was to enhance critical thinking, communication and exchange of knowledge for the sake of writing project proposals to meet the students’ needs in scientific research.
Dr. Abdul-Kareem Daragmeh, The CELT Director, pointed out that this initiative enhances the CELT’s vision and mission resembled through exchanging knowledge, expertise and teaching practices. This co-teaching initiative reveals commitment, cooperation and dedication of An-Najah faculty in a step towards excellence in teaching.
Inst. Dana Adas, an academic assistant at the CELT also indicated that this initiative is a realization of the recommendations made at the critical thinking workshop organized last semester at the CELT to meet the needs of the target students since the textbook content touches upon research related skills for students of science and engineering.