(MENAFN- Gulf Times) The "Destination Imagination (DI) Qatar Invitational Tournament" this year is offering specialised training for teachers especially those who mentor participating students in the competition.
"We have been trying to focus very heavily on how we get the right training out to the teachers because most programmes focus highly on the students," said ALF Foundation programme manager € education Renee Rainville Gill.
ALF Foundation wants everyone in Qatar to benefit from the programme including teachers who serve as second parents and spend a lot of time with students.
In a predominantly Arabic-speaking environment, Gill said they had worked closely with DI Inc to translate training videos into Arabic which could be used by the trainees.
The DI programme also capitalises on tapping social media to make students fully aware of their challenge by watching the training videos online.
As teachers become more knowledgeable in training their students, the whole team benefits from the creativity and innovative inputs of each member.
"Our training is very focused on how we promote independent, critical and creative thinking, collaborative work, all of that is inside that, and breaking them down into small manageable pieces to make sure that everyone € teachers, adults, licence-holders, students € is benefiting from the programme," Gill said.
Kristo Pienaar, a teacher from Newton International School in Qatar, lauded the DI programme saying that it is a bit more free compared with the specific curriculum in schools.
"Students have to do it by themselves and basically you ask them open-ended questions, some of the solutions they come up with are something you won't necessarily expect but you have taught them in your curriculum," he said.
Pienaar noted that solutions formulated by students range from very simplistic to unique and interesting. "Creativity and lateral thinking is definitely a feature of it."
"There has been an excitement of going to school because they are excited of the DI days and they get average children involved as well, so that is good," he said. "It is good that students are getting excited about education and I am happy to be part of it."
Sharing their experience in the previous competition, Bilqis Khan and Ibrahim al-Emadi, from the same school, said they learned how to manage their time and had become more confident in communicating with other people.
"If you listen to other people's ideas, you can use them to your advantage and help solve the challenge," al-Emadi noted.
The programme also includes inviting well-known international educational institutions that focus on management, entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation skills to establish campuses in the country.
In implementing the concept of independent learning, each DI student will be invited to take part in a skills workshop to be offered at Carnegie Mellon University Qatar from December 12-15.
The activity aims to break down the barrier of a follower mentality and allow each member of a DI team to develop a skill that is interesting to him or her and transmit that to other team members in an effort to increase collaborative skills.
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