The Map of My Personal and Professional Life

While I was mapping my educational life, I found it difficult to separate my work from my personal life. There is always a side effect of balancing one and the other. At times I had to pause my professional life in order to improve my personal life. For instance, getting married and raising my five kids which took much energy and effort. Thankfully, by now, three of them are independent, highly educated adults, and two of them are currently paving their way to building success.

My education journey began when I was four years old. After finishing my studies in Syria, I had to stay home for a while to raise my kids. During this time, I was enriching my knowledge by reading, taking courses, learning and making whatever is needed for the family members. Throughout this period of time, traveling to Europe every now and then always proved to be a learning resource for me; an environment to experience cultures different than mine.

In the Fall of 1996, my family and I relocated to America and my professional life again ensued. My first teaching job was in a private school where I taught Arabic and Quran. Then I moved to MCCC to teach non-credit courses. After that, I moved to Immaculata University for a few years. Recently, I teach at Villanova and West Chester Universities.

Since I began teaching in the USA, I've always strived to improve my way and ability of teaching. I attended special courses for Arabic language teachers. One of them was at Penn State under the name of STARTALK, and the other one was in CLASSROAD under the name STELLA. Recently, I am attending the M.E. program at Arcadia to maximize my skills and to expand my knowledge of teaching methods.

My classes are always student-centered. I use the problem-based learning approach, and I play the facilitator's role who listens to students more often than lectures.  For the future, I am planning to use more technology in my classroom, to create more realias for the students' activities, to attend more education conferences, and to collaborate more with other teachers.What else?? I always need to add more.........