My Journey. I will try to reflect on an experience that changed my whole life.

I will try to reflect on an experience that changed my whole life. If I want to give it a title, I would call it, from a humble person living in a small village to a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIEE) and stream coordinator. I have taught in three different countries respectively, Egypt, Sultanate Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Since I joined the ministry of education in the UAE, I have traced many great shifts in my life that made me proud to be teaching here. I developed professionally, academically, socially, and, mentally as well. I could pass all my experiences to my students and colleagues to develop as well. The greatest change that happened to me was the stream project adopted by the MOE, which inspired me to pursue my professional career and join my master's education program at the United Arab Emirates University. I will try reflecting on how this contributed to the development and enhancement of my students' motivation and attitudes to learn. I contributed to the whole school's performance and worked for hand in hand with my school leaders to develop my school and make it a creative place. I contributed to enhancing my students’ motivation to learn and to be innovative. In the year 2018, the ministry of education launched a new project to improve education at the United Arab Emirates Schools. This project’s name was StrEam, which refers to science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, and Math. Its main idea was to integrate teaching these subjects together to teach students new skills of innovation and entrepreneurship. I will try to reflect on how students, teachers, leaders, and parents perceived it. I will try to reflect as well, on how it affected the students’ attitudes and motivations to learn. Almost fifty schools were chosen to adopt the project. My school was one of them. It started by selecting teachers from the above-mentioned subjects to attend the training on how to apply the project at their schools. I was the one chosen from the English department. In the beginning, the idea was clumsy and hard to handle for me. Although the idea was very brilliant and taken from the world Stem education advocates teaching using new approaches and new strategies. Transforming schools from the traditional approach to the new approach of the 21st-century era was the core point of the project. It aimed at teaching students the 4Cs namely, Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication, and collaboration. This means as well a drastic and deep change to the educational practices inside classes in addition to the whole school later on including myself and my way of teaching as well. What made me proud of myself is that when I attended the complete training sessions with the teachers from the other departments, we asked the trainers and supervisors; on what basis you have selected the teachers to attend the training and to apply the project. The answer was simply because you think outside the box, this was based on your yearly appraisals by your principals which were outstanding and very high. The Ministry of Education in the UAE aims at having a generation of innovation and thinkers. We want you to teach students to think like engineers, scientists, inventors, and innovators, that is what they told us. Everyone including myself wondered how this was possible. We were wondering how to apply it inside our classes. How do the students, parents, and other teachers as well as the school leadership perceive that new approach? I myself was wondering how to apply it. Many questions came to my mind. Is it possible to achieve that project? All the other teachers had the same concerns. I had mixed feelings and thoughts. What about our students, how they will perceive that, I wondered how to make them do that. However, it was something that we had to do, as we had the training and got the knowledge. We must take the knowledge back to our school and accomplish it. I started to read more about it and ask others, I was trying to master it but still need to know more about how to integrate this into my teaching practices, especially since I am an English teacher, not Science, Math, or even technology. Yet, I felt a massive change was going to happen to me, I felt I am developing more. My skills of solving problems and thinking critically enhanced more. I know I can do it; the best is yet to come. Frankly speaking, at the beginning, I did not know what to do. I could not even start teaching it in my classes. I was familiar was teaching critical thinking and solving problems in my classes. Yet, I had no clue how to make my students be innovative or entrepreneurs’.Later on, we knew that the ministry of education would follow up by sending supervisors to check in the application of the project at our school. One day my principal called me to his office, an English supervisor from the stream project was at his office. He was from the ministry of education. I felt embarrassed, as we did nothing about the stream. What we would tell him. I was trying my best to think about how I would handle that. No one even started the project. Although the project advocated a new approach and useful ideas for kids, we still lacked the knowledge of how to perform it inside classes. The change was hard at the beginning, but it is imitable it was coming and happening. We had to handle it for the good of our students. I am the type of person who likes challenges and tries to take them as opportunities. I decided to take the challenge and decided to change. That day changed my entire future professional and academic career. I started to see education from a different perspective when I met the supervisor; he was a very nice person, so professional and so understanding. He asked for a room to be specially allotted for the project. We went to the mall together to buy some resources to use in one of my classes and perform a stream class. He explained precisely to me how to do it. I felt I was changing into a better innovative teacher. We set the scene for the students. I started to understand how to perform a stream class. We gave students one paper. Twenty straws and glue and asked them to build the highest tower in the world to solve the problem of overpopulation. The work started surprisingly. I was astonished to see my students communicating together in the groups we divided them into as a cooperative approach. They collaborated, thought critically, and were very creative. Most of them could build a stable tower in the allotted time with the allotted resources. It was going smoothly and they liked the new approach using their hands and brains made them more engaged in the class activity. They thought like scientists and engineers. What really surprised me was the high motivation, I noticed among students even the low achievers participated and collaborated actively in building and collaborating to build the highest tower together. It worked. The man told me that, what just happened in your class was the stream. I went on teaching using stream skills, every week the supervisors visited our school and made sure I mastered it. My first stream class was a success, this made me become more confident about my students and myself. We could do it. My students'' attitudes and motivation toward learning became better and higher. Their social skills and their academic achievement progressed and improved as well. I noticed that they liked the innovative way of teaching; they became e happy whenever I invited them to the STrEaM room. I was proud of my students and myself as well. Things started to make sense for me now. The more I taught them the STREAM approach, the site more I became knowledgeable about it. What I teach I master. I believe now, that I can do it, and even, I can help others. Even my students’ behaviors improved in a better way; they became more cooperative and friendly. I noticed that while they were working collaboratively as one team. I really liked their interaction together. They liked the challenge and did more project-based lessons with me. Now they learned more about solving problems. Things started to change astonishingly. I could do it, but still, my other colleagues needed assistance to master it as well. Teachers who attended the training with me were still reluctant about the change, some were not totally convinced about the whole idea overall. While others just did not want to do anything. On one hand, some leaders at school shared the same opinion for their own reasons. On the other hand, still, we have visitors and supervisors coming to check on our school, and how things were going on as for the stream project. It was a great project, yet still, some needed to understand how to apply it. I know I had to go along with the change and develop myself and help others to do so. This was another challenge for me as I was the first one who started applying the project and got more knowledge about it for the supervisors. This put more responsibility on me. I did not want to let my colleagues and school leaders down, who really wanted to go on promoting the project as well. They started to rely on me to help them. I decided to do so and take the lead. I felt that I am the only one who can take my intuition and work hard to make the project happen on the real ground. One day my principal called me again to his office. He himself now became convinced to apply the project for one reason or another. He told me that we needed to make everyone do the project. You would be the leader. You are the leader; I thought he meant it that time. By then I realized that I must take the lead seriously and started to guide others. I felt I was growing more and more now. I suggested inviting the other teachers to my class to do peer observation about adopting the new approaches at our school. The supervisor too told me you are a leader you can lead the change at the whole school. I really did that, I even ran professional devolvement sessions for the whole school. We needed to think in a strategic way. We applied a holistic design to the whole school and applied it to all departments. Reflecting on what was going on at that time, how this changed my whole school, the leadership, the teachers, and the students overall were tremendously changing for a better way of thinking critically. I started by applying the 4cs to the whole department to be integrated with the daily planning and one of the learning outcomes was to create innovation and solve problems. Even the process of teaching practices was changing for the best. We applied our strategic approach to have a creative and innovative school. I could see this was happening with the guidance and assistance of high leadership, management, and fellow teachers. This even improved students’ social and emotional life they liked stream classes and they grow mentally. Now they are really well prepared for a new future, I felt I made a great change at my school. We all used strategic thinking to perform the project. It started from the top (MOE) down to students and teachers, But we could make the change together. We shared the same outcome to have a creative school. We all performed the same process. Yet we had to use the backward process as well. When we realized that we needed to start from the end, in other words, the learning outcomes that we wanted to reach were that our students be innovative. Every department, each teacher, and the leaders all worked to achieve that. (Dimmock, C., & Walker, A. 2005). As for the parents, I suggested keeping them updated about the project using social media like class Dojo this made them involved and like the idea when and competition to them, we invited them to reward the winners. I saw my dream is becoming true. The outside community is involved now with the core of the educational organization. Further, I participated with my students in the Emirati school stream exhibition about the students'' work. We got an invitation to show one innovative robot about the year of tolerance using stream techniques. We were even on the media when one of our Special needs students designed an artificial leg for people OF DERTIMNATION. This meant everyone could befit from this new project, the whole school, the parents, and the local community. I myself have developed a lot I became MIEE, Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, and when I wanted to learn more about stem to teach my students I attended all Microsoft online training about the stem, and this developed me a lot. I helped others to develop as well including my school and the local community. I could change the culture of a school and build a culture of innovation. I contribute as well to spreading this culture to the local community I believe now that the international notions of ‘STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. (Irwin, J., Pearce, et al .2014). It could be the greatest way to teach students innovation and make them ready for the future. Still, the innovation practices of the whole teachers, management, and leaders play a crucial role to develop the innovation skills for all students. I suggest more training should be introduced to teachers and high management as for the stream practices to develop the innovations skills for all. To sum up, what I have noticed, is that the whole school changed to be a creative one. When we adopted the stem or stream approach, I was proud of the students and myself to contribute highly to achieving this with the help and guidance of my leaders and fellow teachers. I suggest that stream or stem should be taught at every school in the United Arab Emirates to have a generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. As Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) have become a popular learning approach in the 21st century (Ghaddah, Al Murshidi, 2019). I have seen the deep effect on students, my teachers, leaders, and myself. When the whole school became a creative one. Even the feedback we received from the local community was positive. Such an amazing experience changed my life. Even after online education, our students started to do stem and participated in the ADNEC STEM challenge on social media.This reflection is about an experience that changed my whole life. I have learned many lessons from this experience. It made me feel proud of myself. This changed me into a new person. I have learned about the new technologies, sustainability, and a great deal of new information about the new world and millennium. I started to see things from a different perspective, especially in the globalizing world. The world now has limited resources. It has unlimited creativity, ingenuity, and innovative abilities as well. I started to believe more that schools play an essential role in preparing the current students to be able to face sustainability future challenges. Our school decided to teach sustainability to our students. I felt another drastic change happening to me again. It all started, when our school had the initiative to help our students be aware of the earth's resources. We started to teach our students how to keep these resources safe for future generations. I was leading the change again, but this time on a wider scale. I had the feeling of a real leader. I felt that I was a transformational leader. I could help and guide others for better learning opportunities. My school chose me again to attend the sustainability professional development sessions and share ideas with my students and my colleagues as well. It filled my heart with happiness to be a leader again. Realizing that there could be a global resource for possible future crises, guided me to teach my students new types of information and skills. I felt a great responsibility was there on my shoulders. As my students belong to different backgrounds and had different mentalities, I showed deep understanding and respect for their traditions and cultures as well as their backgrounds. After I had guided my school to be a creative one, integrating the stem approach, I was leading another challenge on a global and international scale at that time. I have developed professionally, academically, socially, and, mentally as well. I started to acquire and deliver different types of knowledge about Sustainable Development Goals. I chose suitable topics for each culture. I felt that I was leading others as well as being vulnerable to others’ cultures on a global scale. I felt that I was changing from a traditional teacher to a modern teacher and a leader who could pass all his experiences to his students and colleagues to develop as well. I could lead the change and innovation at my workplace. The greatest change that happened to me was the stream project adopted by the MOE, which inspired me to join my master's education program at the United Arab Emirates University. I could achieve success in my endeavors and my students improved to be better learners. They started to think about the whole globe now. I myself learned many new things; I became the new leader who could lead the change for my school community and the outer community as well. My practices changed to be more comprehensive, innovative, and creative with a new vision that is open to the outer world. I believed that everything and anything I do at my school or inside my classroom would definitely have an impact on the whole world in the future. I felt that I had the responsibility to share the international knowledge with everyone in my school community and the outer community as well. This contributed to the development and enhancement of my students' motivations and attitudes to learn new things with a new approach. I felt that I contributed to the whole school performance. I worked hand in hand with my school leaders to develop my school and make it a creative school through a new perspective. We started to explain to the parents and students more about stream and sustainability. We made it clear to them that we want their sons to be scientists, engineers, and creative innovators. In the meantime, we wanted them to be aware and think about the earth, and the resources to sustain it. I believed that it was important to teach my students sustainability to make them understand the notion of a good life. I encouraged them to think about how to create a better world. I could teach them to think about sustainability via future projects in relation to their present. Teaching them that anything they do in present would have an impact on their future, made them better thinkers, and improved their daily practices. They started to think about the rational use of water. They started to think about not causing air pollution. They believed that we should pass the earth to the next generations clean and healthy as well. I contributed to enhancing my students’ motivation to learn those new things and to be innovative as well as sustaining our environment. I started to work on spreading the idea to the whole community. We started inviting parents to school to explain to them the new approaches adopted at stem and sustainability initiatives. We used different ways to reach them such as phone calls and direct text messages. We used the class dojo to advertise the competitions. We started inviting them to school and asking them to participate in a stream initiative and competitions by encouraging their sons to participate in the project. Many parents liked the idea of having a new project and new ideas adopted by the school. They were very enthusiastic about the project and they liked the idea that their sons think outside the box and be related to the outer world of entrepreneurship and sustainability. It was such a great feeling to be leading this change. We invited the parents to attend professional development sessions at our school about teaching that program inside our classrooms. They became more interested when they realized that their sons were learning about 21st-century skills and sustainability. It made the parents very eager to get their sons involved in the project especially when they know that their sons thought like engineers, and scientists, and would care about the environment at the same time. We wanted to make the program familiar to the parents. We encouraged the parents more, so we made a competition between parents and invited them to school to recognize the winners. We used social media to advertise more about the program. Students from different backgrounds and nationalities starting from Emiratis, Egyptians, Yamani, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi were participating actively in the project. They were innovative and creative. They responded in different ways, yet all students from different cultures and diverse societies participated actively. I still remember the great enthusiasm they had that time. Now they became global citizens caring for the earth and thinking like scientists. I felt I was helping them to grow mentally, emotionally, and intellectually as well. We received an invitation to attend an international conference at the United Arab Emirates University. I went there with one of my stream students to display our ideas about sustainability as an initiative of our project. His family joined us at Al Ain. They were very proud of their son. He was an autistic student, but he was a very smart one. He invented and made a new Robot to keep the environment clean; he even named it the tolerance Robot. It was such a great opportunity for us to share our ideas with the wider community. The United Arab Emirates University hosted the international conference for autism and invited my student and me. Astonishingly, one of our students was on the stage speaking about his inventions and I was there with him. I saw the tears in his mother’s eyes when the university recognized my student as well as myself. I still remember the happiness and joy that I have seen drawn on my student’s young faces. I actually cared for him so much. We came all the way together from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain to support him and his family was with us because he was a really innovative and creative student. I respected his wish and his family as well, to participate in that international conference. After that, we were on the news. The same student could design an artificial leg to help the disabled player run. Again, it was eco-friendly for sustainability reasons. The news wrote about him. Zayed could challenge his being an autistic student to become an innovative and creative one. This is all because of his family, teachers, and school’s support for him. If you are a leader, you should care for everyone. You must support them. This was a clear example of the great power man has, if he is being supported by others. I had a great feeling seeing him as a successful student. Great things happened with the application of the new project. It was the sustainability ideas as well that added more to the students'' ways of thinking and creativity. It was a great idea to have an initiative for the stream project. When we joined the system of Sustainable Schools in Abu Dhabi, it all started by attending professional development meetings. Lecturers from the United Nation held these meetings and training sessions. They were mainly about the sustainable goals for the whole world and the UAE as well. I felt that my students and their parents as well as myself were thinking differently. We were considering the national and international agendas as well. When I started to teach the 17 sustainable development goals to my students and advocate them to the school community as well as the wider community. I felt the change and that I was developing more and more. When I started thinking about this decision about sustainable societies and sustainability, I got the feeling that teaching them was both exciting and challenging. I liked the challenge, so I could be a different person and help others to think outside the box. My students and their parents were very glad to be involved in international and global issues and learn about the UN development goals. Since the United Nations declared 2005-2014 and on to be the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development calling on universities to help create a more sustainable world (UNESCO-2006) as quoted by (E. Melanie DuPuis & Tamara Ball 2013) I felt that I was developing deeply, steadily, and great as well. I saw myself moving from only an English teacher to a STEM and sustainability coordinator. I was approaching global thinking. I started meeting new people from different backgrounds and different cultures. This enriched my teaching experiences and practices. It reflected the improved ways and new strategies; I began to use to teach my students. When we launched the Stream program at our school, I decided to teach my students about sustainability. It was such a great feeling to be connected with the global world and help others to be connected to international and global topics as well. When my school chose me to participate in the sustainability initiative taken by the Abu Dhabi environment agency. I was really so excited and curious at the same time. I considered it a highly sophisticated step for me. Especially my principal again chose me to attend the sustainability training to train school teachers and students about Sustainable development goals (SDG). I felt proud of myself, as now I was meeting with people from the United Nations coming to the United Arab Emirates to train me on international goals for the whole world to achieve. I felt that now I belong to a bigger and wider world. I was not just a teacher working at school. I became an innovator on a world scale. I was leading the change toward making my school not only a creative one but also a global one. I made my students and my colleagues aware of the international development goals. I developed and educated myself more by studying the courses on Microsoft's educational website about sustainability to help educate my students and colleagues as well. I made this to keep myself updated about the latest up-to-date and state-of-the-art methods of teaching all around the world. This also develops my students and teaches them the most up-to-date methods of teaching with the latest updates. I felt that I was doing a great job at that time. I began to feel and realize that my whole life was changing and I started expanding my knowledge, understanding, and expertise, not only that, but also I realized that I was growing professionally too. At that time, I realized that I am part of the big world and that anything you do at school or teach the students would have a deep impact as well overall world. As I could move from globalization to internationalization aspiring to seek opportunities to expand my school operations and find resources outside the immediate society and environment. (Dimmock, C., & Walker, A. 2005). Thanks to the United Arab Emirates and the ministry of education for supporting me, in fostering my students' learning process using different pedagogical approaches. I feel I could reach the sky with my students by learning about digital citizenship, and global and, international goals. Now I believe that excellence is an ongoing journey. I am sure that the best is still yet to come.

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