Monthly Archives: December 2017

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Utopia Project in High School ELA

Blog Post Author: Noah Grissett, English Language Arts teacher

For the past 2 months, students in the VIS high school ELA class have been working on creating their own utopia worlds. This project is a great blend of both creative writing and informational research. The utopia consisted of long-term essential questions that the students had to answer in 10 over-arching areas (Politics, Money, Housing, Art, etc.). For most of the sections of the utopia, students were required to do research about various techniques used currently or in the future and use that research in their project. Students had to back up their decisions with data and evidence, while still being allowed to create a society without limits. I believe that this project appealed to the students’ creative side while still forcing them to think about challenging, critical questions.

The unit itself was divided up into two individual projects: the writing component and the presentation component. After spending a long time on the writing project itself, the students then took their essays and transformed them into persuasive presentations to encourage both their peers and their teachers to join their utopian worlds. Here are a few of the projects themselves if you would like to take a look:

 

Overall, I believe this project was really helpful in developing critical thinking skills for our 21st-century students. They were required to use technology to research, develop, and present their ideas in a meaningful way. It also helped them think about real-world problems that they see in their own society and to come up with inventive yet realistic fixes to those problems. This project is also modifiable to a variety of age groups from high school down to upper elementary. Thank you to Dr. Bobbi for the idea, and thank you to all of the teachers and administrators who took time out of their busy days to come and listen to the presentations–it really made the students more focused and intentional in their presentations!

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Creativity Through Fine Arts@VIS

Blog Post Author: Mehreen Hassan, Art Teacher

The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be the 22nd FIFA Worl Cup, an International soccer tournament which is scheduled to take place in Qatar in 2022. Qatar will be the first Arab country to host the World Cup and the first time it is held in the Middle East region. The tournament will involve 32 national teams, including that of the host nation, and will consist of a total of 64 games.

 

“In line with Qatar National Vision, Qatar has been contributing in the promotion of sport in the world and in using it as means of communication and of strengthening ties between different nations and peoples by hosting multiple regional and international sports events in recent years. This led the sports infrastructure to be comprehensively and increasingly developed, allowing Qatar to become an international sports hub.”

 

Inspired by Qatar National Vision, VIS High School Art students designed an Installation for the National Day. Their display included shimmering clay hand sculptures meticulously created by the students. The boys also designed 3D paper footballs using 20 folded paper circles and gluing them together which they profoundly painted in colors of Qatar flag.

Visual Art is offered as a High School elective at VIS. The students were extremely excited to work on this art project as it not only reflected their patriotic spirit but also demonstrated their love for The Emir, Shiekh Tameem Bin Hamad Al Thani who as a member of International Olympic Committee, heads Doha bid for 2020 Olympic games.The students proudly exhibited their artworks adding their beloved Emir’s picture and Qatar Flags adding to the VIS National Day festivities this year!

Fine arts enrich our students’ lives and help them express themselves in creative ways!

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Model United Nations (MUN)@ VIS

Blog Post author: Bayley Chevron, Social Studies teacher

Model United Nations, or MUN, is an extra-curricular activity in which students typically role-play delegates to the United Nations and simulate UN committees. This activity takes place at MUN conferences, which is usually organized by a high school or college MUN club. Qatar Leadership Conference (QLC) was a three-day conference that encouraged middle school, high school, and university students to become global leaders. It offered many useful sessions, mostly focused on leadership and international politics. This is the first year that VIS has taken part in MUN and the energy and excitement of our students make it worthwhile.

MUN is a way to become an active, more concerned global citizen, while in this era of globalization, being globally aware is more important than ever. Model UN also builds confidence, leadership, and diplomatic skills. It enables students to utilize research, public speaking, and teamwork skills.
Student Testimonials:

“It was a one-of-a-kind experience for us to be able to boost our leadership skills and knowledge with students and presenters from all around the world,” said Deema Al Ali, a grade 10 student at VIS. Ghalya Al Khater, a grade 10 student at VIS, stated “It was a privilege for me to go to these conferences and be joined by mature and intelligent people. Thank you VIS for giving us this opportunity”. Abdulla Al Obaidli, a grade 11 student at VIS, was able to have his voice heard on the prestigious Qatari newspaper, The Peninsula, saying, “Participating in this conference increases our knowledge, promotes our leadership skills, and helps us build our individual paths for the future. This is a great platform for us to start preparing for college, as it teaches us to communicate with people from different backgrounds and fulfill our objectives together.” ’http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/24/10/2017/690-students-and-teachers-attend-QLC

By engaging our students in MUN, we are working on shaping local leaders and global learners!

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Hour of Code@VIS

Blog Post author: Margo Tripsa, Director, Curriculum and Assessment

The week of December 4th was Computer Science Education week. Vision International School, along with thousands of schools around the globe were taking the opportunity to be part of an exciting global movement last week and explored coding with students. All students grades 3 and up at VIS joined millions of students and teachers in over 180 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, during the Hour of Code week.

This is a global event that encourages students to participate in self-guided activities in order to develop their computer science skills. As a school, we decided to go with coding for Minecraft. Minecraft is an app that is widely popular and has a great impact on developing students’ design thinking. All students, elementary, middle school, and high school students, girls and boys, were highly engaged. All of the received certificates, and the first three students who finished first in each class were acknowledged as the Hour of Code Super Coders. All teachers were impressed with how much students learned from a single hour of coding! Students are encouraged to continue practicing these newly acquired skills. Some apps they could use are 

Scratch (all ages, web-based)

Scratch Jr. (elementary & middle school, iPad)

Tynker (elementary & middle school, iPad)

Swift (middle school, iPad)

Code.org (all ages, web-based)

Lightbot (elementary, iPad) 

 

There are many free resources for teaching coding. Check out the following three:

1.Hour of Code (2-min video); learn more about it Hour of Code website, or this 2-page poster

2. Code.org is a must!

3. Make a simple app in one hour – Check out Code.org’s new App Lab activity.  

AppLab is a coding tool for middle and high school and is open for anyone to build JavaScript apps. Students who are ready to challenge themselves can go beyond block-based coding. The new Hour of Code tutorial helps students design a “choose your adventure” app in JavaScript or blocks. Making your own web app is a fun enterprise!

The Hour of Code has many other resources listed on their website (https://hourofcode.com/us/learn) such as Creating Your Own Google logo with coding.

 

If you live in Qatar, you might want to check out the Qatar National Scratch Coding Competition.

Kids of today need to understand programming languages to be prepared for future jobs. Everything involves technology today. Imagine what it will be like in 10 or 15 years!

 

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VIS and the Ajyal Film Festival 2017

Blog post author: Karl Rydlo, Head of PE Department

VIS students participated in the Ajyal Youth Film Festival 2017

About twenty high school students from both the boys’ and girls’ divisions of Vision International School, Qatar took part in the 5th annual Ajyal Youth Film Festival in Doha, Qatar.

Ajyal, meaning ‘generations’ in Arabic, invites people of all ages to come together and discuss cinema through events that inspire creativity and interaction. Driven with the goal to inspire and create, Ajyal Youth Film Festival has been designed to empower the region’s youth and to inspire film enthusiasts, opening up a fun and collaborative environment, where young people can express themselves through the beauty of filmmaking.

 

The festival was held at Katara Cultural Village from November 29th until December 4th, 2017. The largest to date, it screened 103 films from 43 countries, including 20 feature films and 83 short films, illustrating the ability of storytelling to transcend borders, transform minds and touch hearts.

 

Since the beginning of academic year 2017/2018, our students have been taking an elective Film Study class taught by Ms. Sukey Oleson and Mr. Karl Rydlo. Together with 550 other youngsters from 45 countries, aged between 8 and 21, the students screened and voted on 4 feature and 10 short films, including the award-winning animated film “The Breadwinner”. Executive-produced by celebrity actress Angelina Jolie, the film portrays a tale of female empowerment and imagination in the face of oppression, and a celebration of the culture, history, and beauty of Afghanistan.

 

Festival also featured the Ajyal Talks, a series of open discussions about real, globally relevant issues and the power that film can have in increasing global awareness. Subjects included child trafficking, the ways in which media can influence perceptions, and the power of art in overcoming adversity.

 

Ajyal Youth Film Festival and beyond…

Vision International School’s students will further expand their knowledge in film-making by continuing to participate in their elective Film Study class that has been offered in partnership with Doha Film Institute. Dr. Bobbi McDaniel, the girls’ division principal introduced the program to VIS at the beginning of 2017/2018. The ultimate goal of the program is to produce a short film that will be featured in the “Made in Qatar Category” at next year’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival.

“The best part of the Ajyal Youth Festival was that we could watch movies we would have never heard of or seen in the movie theatre!”

 

Student Testimonials:

Marcus, Grade 9

The best part of the Ayal Youth Festival was that we could watch movies we would have never heard of or seen in the movie theatre! We watched movies we never heard of before, made new friends, and even got to see famous people! The best part was that Sheikh Tamim, The Emir of Qatar, gave us a surprise visit and I even saw some big stars including Sophia Bush and Kaya Scodelario.

The full-feature movie that I enjoyed and voted for was and had to be Walking Out. Walking Out is a very interesting story about an urban teenager, who journeys to rural Montana to hunt big game with his estranged, “off the grid” father. I loved the story and how it was based on a book, which I have not read yet, so I am actually planning on getting the book. It got me interested!

 

Abdulla, Grade 11

My favorite part of Ajyal Youth Film festival 2017 was Q&A session after movie screenings. In this section, we could ask someone from the moviemakers (director, producer, or actor) about anything from the movie. I participated in all of them! I think it is very important to expose young generation to filmmaking industry, for many reasons, for example, to give an opportunity to express their opinions and to enable them to learn more about a possible future career.

 

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Technology in PE@VIS

Blog Post author: Liam Fleming, PE teacher

A common thought is that PE can only be and is only a class where students run around and “play” games. However, here at Vision International School (VIS) we are constantly trying to break the mold for PE and push our students toward a greater understanding of performance and how their bodies move and work. In our Grade 7 boys class, we began to use Google Forms as a tool for peer assessment. As a number of our students play and watch football they will constantly be assessing their own performance, the performance of their peers, or of their favorite players on TV. The action of watching a performance and assessing is one that is fairly common to our students but formalizing it during their PE challenges the norms. By critiquing other player’s performance, out students engage in higher level thinking during their PE classes, get to create success criteria, and to understand what it takes to get from good to great. 

Not only were our students being asked to assess using Google Forms but they were being asked to provide FIFA-like statistics for one another. This would tie in nicely with Mr. Liam’s new Ultimate Team idea where students can earn their own FIFA Ultimate Team card. To have this higher level thinking in PE is exciting and the initial results seem extremely positive.

We have started to put together ‘highlight reels’ of our performances in PE for us to showcase around the school and to our parents at home. The VIS PE Department is extremely dedicated to providing high-quality PE to our students. This allows them a better understanding of the benefits of being physically active throughout their lives. 

Physical education plays an important role in educating our students holistically.

This post was submitted by Liam Fleming, PE teacher, VIS

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Hello world!

 

We are a group of dedicated teachers at Vision International School (VIS), Qatar.

Our brand new teacher blog, called Teacher VISion, provides us the platform we need to share successful instructional practices and lesson ideas with each other and with the world, helps us connect with educators worldwide, and will help us grow as reflective professionals.

Thank you for reading our Teacher VISion blog!