Attendees to the opening session included Prof. Rami Hamdallah, President of An-Najah, Brother Peter Bray, Vice Chancellor of Bethlehem University, Mrs. Karen Excel, USAID's Director of Education Development Office, and Dr John Schumacher, Director of the Palestinian Faculty Development Program (PFDP), in the AMIDEAST.
The Conference was supervised by Dr. Abdel Kareen Daraghmeh, Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at An-Najah, Dr. Rabab Tmaish, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Bethlehem University, in addition to several members of the faculty staff from both universities, representatives of different Palestinian universities and visitors from a number of Arab and international universities.
Dr. Ahmed Atawneh, Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Hebron University, delivered the opening speech in which he welcomed the participants and emphasized the importance of the topic under discussion which is the sharing of innovative models of teaching in higher education.
Mrs. Excel expressed her impression by the excellence centers that the different Palestinian universities have and said these centers represent the turning point in the quality and methods of teaching in Palestine. Through these centers, there will be many opportunities to exchange information and experience between the staff working at the different Palestinian universities in order to support the development of higher education in the country.
Such new centers will have major contribution to the development of teaching methods and the transformation of educational systems in Palestine to become more advanced and able to cope with the technological updates.
In his speech Prof. Hamdallah said that excellence is a major goal for any educational institution in Palestine especially that major changes are going on in the field of education and new technologies are being introduced to this field. He added that An-Najah works continuously on developing its educational system and design its academic programs to meet the needs of the Palestinian society.
This kind of development is achieved through the establishment of many centers and facilities such as the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, as well as the integration of modern technology and the employment of qualified staff. This combination can ensure a successful progress in the quality of teaching and excellent output which can be seen through the impacts it has on the local society.
Dr. Bray spoke about the difficulties that academics in Palestine have faced in their efforts to establish excellence centers and the real achievements they were able to make despite these challenges. He added that education is the only way for the country to develop; therefore, more investment should be made in the field of education and scientific research as such step would have long term impacts in the future. Establishing excellence centers in teaching is the first step on this promising path as these centers represent a fertile environment where teaching methods can be developed and updated in conjunction with the developments in technology and education around the world.
Dr. Schumacher said such centers must be given full support and attention due to their importance to the development of university education. He also called upon educators to suggest their own visions and ideas which are centered on the development of curricula and teaching methods.
Professor Bart Makjaterc, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Liverpool in the UK, delivered a lecture on Pedagogy, which is the holistic science of education. His paper was titled “Some Universal Methods in Higher Education Pedagogy”.
Professor Shron Sogro, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Dublin in Ireland, delivered a paper titled “The Importance of the Identity of Higher Education Institutions: Who we are and what we want to be?”
In addition to the abovementioned papers, the Conference also consisted of a number of papers presented by participants from the different Palestinian and international universities. The subjects that these papers have covered included: E-learning, innovative methods in teaching language and humanities, the importance of research and evaluation in supporting learning and teaching, in addition to innovative expertise in teaching scientific courses, social learning, cooperative learning and teaching as well as problem-based learning.
A number of workshops were also organized in which the participants presented several practical teaching methods such as the preparation of the academic file for the members of the teaching staff, designing educational outputs, the art of managing class discussions, as well as the principles of developing societal participation in higher education.