The American University in Cairo (AUC) on Tuesday will launch the first Arabic Massive Open Online course (MOOC) entitled "STEAM: Integrating Education with Life," the Cairo-based university said in a statement Monday.
The course will be launched by The Graduate School of Education (GSE), in cooperation with Edraak online platform. It will focus on STEAM education, a contemporary educational philosophy that integrates five main disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, is free of charge and open for registration.
“Since the Graduate School of Education aims to present innovative ideas about teaching and learning, this course focuses on moving from traditional teaching and learning that could be found in various educational systems in the Arab region to a system that caters for quality education,” said El Deghaidy. The fact that the course is presented in Arabic and offered online, added El Deghaidy, makes it accessible to massive numbers of teachers, educators and parents despite their location and through flexible timings where they can access the material any time throughout each week of the course.
Edraak is an online learning platform founded by the Queen Rania Foundation using technology developed by the Harvard-MIT consortium, edX, they may soon be available in Arabic and feature more courses specific to the Arab region.
The core idea of STEAM philosophy is to provide meaningful experiences by linking education to the real-world. The course presents suggestions and recommendations for infusing STEAM into the educational systems in the Arab region by focusing on the school culture, how teachers work and interact and how students learn with an emphasis on quality.
STEAM education helps make learning meaningful as topics are presented through projects where the learners are active and engaged. Through such projects, the various disciplines are integrated together. “This is significant to how the brain functions, how we learn and for developing skills needed for the job market. Many jobs are requiring creative thinking skills, collaboration and to think critically. The STEAM Education MOOC was designed with this philosophy in mind to provide for innovative ideas needed for the educational systems in the Arab Region,” said Heba El Deghaidy, associate professor at the GSE, who prepared and delivered the MOOC, assisted by GSE graduates Shereene Aly and Ahmed EL Zorkani.
The STEAM Education MOOC targets everyone interested in providing state-of-the-art theories in education, such as teachers, parents, school administrators and various stakeholders in the field of education.
"A freely available course in STEAM Education to teachers across the Arab world will be a tremendous advance in our efforts to improve education for the 21st century,” saidTed Purinton, dean of GSE, “our hope is that all teachers can see themselves as integrative, inspirational, and proactive teachers of skills and knowledge that today's youth will need to get good jobs and to participate actively in a global knowledge society."