The Transformative Power of STEM and STEAM Education: A Conversation with Annam Arif

Discover the transformative power of STEM and STEAM education and how it is shaping our future as we engage in an enlightening conversation with our guest Annam Arif, the head of ICT and Innovation Technology at English Language Private School in Dubai. Through an insightful tour of what a robust STEM curriculum looks like, Annam takes us beyond the world of robotics, demonstrating an interdisciplinary approach that fosters deep thinking and a keen interest in learning among students. We also dive into how the school's leadership played a pivotal role in bringing Annam's vision of a space lab and a design technology lab to life.

Our discussion does not stop at STEM curriculum integration. Annam shares the innovative strategies her school has employed to involve parents in the educational journey, creating a stronger community spirit.

Bio: Annam Arif is the  HOD of ICT & Innovation Technology- English Language Private School Dubai. 
Connect with Annam here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annamarif/

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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hello everyone, welcome to the Teach Middle East podcast. My name is Lisa Grace Wilson and I am on the podcast today with Anam Arif, and she is the head of ICT and Innovation Technology at English Language Private School in Dubai, and we're going to be diving into STEM education STEAM education. This is a good topic because we are now in the month of October by the time you're hearing this podcast and we are in STEM MENA month. And where have you been, guys? Stem MENA is the largest STEM conference in the Middle East, where we dive deep into STEM teaching and learning.

Speaker 2: 1:15

You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Should I be saying STEM or STEAM? You know that's something that we've been getting a lot of STEAM innovation, stem innovation. But guess who? Anam is passionate about STEAM and STEM and she's at English Language Private School and I'd love to welcome you to the podcast, anam.

Speaker 3: 1:44

Thank you so much, lisa. Hello everyone, my name is Anam and, as Lisa has given introduction, I am a very STEM passionate person. Then again, it's STEM, it's STEAM, it's STEAM. You have so many other names, but we would keep it to STEM, because it is one of the core subjects where science, technology, engineering and math are coming in. So thank you so much, lisa.

Speaker 1: 2:06

You are welcome and Anam, I'm having Anam come to STEM MENA to be one of our STEM coaches. So we're excited for that. And if you are listening to this podcast and you are a STEM teacher and a STEAM teacher, just go to STEMMENAcom to register. Or if you want to be a STEAM coach or a STEM coach on the day, just email me at editor at teachmedleastcom. We are looking for about four or five. I think we already have about three so far. Anyway, we need some more. So we're looking for a few STEAM coaches STEM coaches to actually give help to other teachers on the day to make the most of the workshops.

Speaker 1: 2:47

At STEMMENA. We're going to have STEM Talks, which is TED-type talks about STEM, and we're going to have. Also, we're going to do workshops and then we're going to have the STEM Awards. By the way, guys, STEM Awards, we had over a hundred entries for STEM innovation in the classroom, STEM Teacher of the Year and STEM Club of the Year Award, so it's going to be great. So, Annam English Language Private School I've been in the UAE for a long time and I it just was not fully on my radar. Take me into your wonderful school, Describe it to me.

Speaker 3: 3:26

So let me give you a very quick brief about English Language Private School.

Speaker 3: 3:30

We are one of the oldest school you'll be shocked in the UAE we were founded in 1978 and one of the few licensed non-for-profit schools.

Speaker 3: 3:40

So by non-for-profit, we are very proud of this. When we say that we are a non-for-profit organization, because whatever we gain from the students is return to them back in terms of their resources in the classroom, the quality of education, the teachers you know all of those things. So we work very differently compared to many commercial schools and I may sound very more proud and confident about it, but it is a fact that the level of education that we're giving currently in the school the technological resources whether it be smart boards in the classrooms you know, the different type of STEM resources in the classrooms, the makerspace labs, the design and technology lab is actually either very much competitive to the other commercial schools or way better as well. So this is something that we're very proud of at the moment the whole STEM setup that we have recently introduced in the school. So maybe you know we like to be a little more voiced out now, at the moment because of the level of growth that the English National Private School is doing for the students and the teachers in education.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Listen, we love to highlight good practice and innovation here at Teach Middle East, and that's why I'm excited to learn more about sort of like you know what you guys are doing there. I might need to pay you guys a visit because I haven't been there for some really long it's just not been on my radar. But, like I know, we have all the schools on schoolfinderae but I just, I, just, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Anyway, I'm glad we're chatting we mentioned last time, it's basically two schools, we're two sister schools. It's the Pakistan Education Academy, which is more of a federal war towards the Pakistani curriculum, and then we have the English language private schools just opposite to the St Mary's. So you know all of the old schools, you have Sheikh Rashid there, you have St Mary's there and then we have English language private schools. So it's it's. We're in the same community. I don't know why we're just here in the back.

Speaker 1: 5:33

What curriculum do you follow?

Speaker 3: 5:34

We're following the National Curriculum of England and we do have you know we're following the EYFS, which is about FS2, then from year one to year 13. So around 2000 students at the moment. It is a huge school, but you should definitely visit, and I would actually like to invite every other STEM enthusiast who was looking into you know, exploring more STEM resources and design labs. We are very open to collaborating with schools. We've done different collaborations recently, so we're always welcoming.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Yeah. So guys, go see Annam, go to English language private school, check out how they're developing their STEM, because they're doing great stuff over there and they're open to inviting people to come and see what they're doing. All right, annam, let's dive into what you're doing there. You mentioned that you have some STEM programs going on there. Can you tell me more about what they are?

Speaker 3: 6:31

Well, recently we died more core into STEM, where we decided that rather than just having a robotics class, we needed to explore more about STEM, having a core STEM curriculum With STEM curriculum. We wanted more of cross-curricular links, so not only STEM in a science class, which is very obvious. We wanted STEM in an Arabic class, stem in an English class we'll be shot STEM in a math class and even why not? Stem in MSc class, because we were able to understand that, how STEM can have so many integrated links with different sorts of curriculum. So the key was that having it run from year one all the way to year 13,. Introducing design technology at IGCSE level as well in the middle, because then again it has links with your CAD designing, your prototyping, your project work, all of that and then introducing technologies like drones, lego spike, prime kits, lego STEAM part. For the younger ones, we have M-Tiny. You'll see Mayblock Ultimate 9.0 in the higher grades, like grade 8, 9, and 10. So it was more of having a Mechaspace lab, a junior Mechaspace lab and a senior Mechaspace lab for students of all age groups to come in, explore the STEM curriculum, work with different projects, make something We've got about that, about related to that and then also integrate those technologies into other subjects.

Speaker 3: 8:00

For example, you know, maybe in Arabic we have class VR headsets. You will be amazed to see that our Arabic teachers are using class VR in their classrooms. Like you know, virtual reality, augmented reality. You will be amazed to see that we have collections happening of English in a STEM classroom. For example, whatever they've learned in the STEM class, they have reflections of English happening in there. We do have a promotion of East STEM, which is entrepreneurship STEM. So whatever the product of STEM is made up in the class, the students have an opportunity to build a business plan around it. You know, they make a business plan, they go for the business skills and then. So this is how we've started making this STEM web title, where we are integrating different subjects in STEM and coming out of the norm of only limiting it to science, technology, engineering and math.

Speaker 1: 8:51

I want to give you the finger click. That is. I love it. I want to find out how did you get, like your Arabic teachers and your English teachers, to really embrace that whole STEM ethos in your school.

Speaker 3: 9:08

Whatever happened is, of course, a teacher who's coming from the same science background. It is always easier to work with her. You might just go through one training and she's always on the go and she will understand. But getting a non-core teacher like an Arabic teacher, an Islamic teacher, an English teacher, getting her on the same page, on the stem, is very difficult Because then you have to go with more trainings. But then again, I would say that I love you very much, lucky to have a very set of quality teachers who are able to pick up the pace with us. I would give you here an example of the class. We had said that. Just ask me how Arabic lessons, how the Arabic teachers are doing it.

Speaker 3: 9:49

Recently, in the year three class, I was visiting the class on the learning what's that we do? I saw the Arabic teacher. She had a lesson on food, spices, foods and spices, just generally talking about food and the spices, nutritional values. All of this was primary year three. She used class VR headsets to go and explore the food markets around the world, which was really amazing, because what students did is they attended the Arabic class for the whole 30 minutes. The remaining 10 to 15 minutes they use those class VR headsets to go and explore the food markets in Turkey, the spice market in Mumbai, the street food market in China.

Speaker 3: 10:33

That was something where they started linking those real life applications because, whatever they're learning, the integration of having STEM in Arabic class was never something that anyone could have thought of. To be honest, arabic is there. We're here to promote Arabic. We're here to promote Islamic values in the school, promoting the UAE culture in the school. All of this has started linking to the vision of 2030 from Sheikh Mohammed says that you have to have STEM everywhere science and AI and IoT so it's happening like this here.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Yeah, no fab. No fab because I wondered can I get that enthusiasm? And I love the example that you used about having that class VR headset transporting the students to different locations, food markets, etc. And it can be used for so many many more things. In terms of the E STEM, talk to me about a project that you have seen that has come to life in your school.

Speaker 3: 11:32

Recently our students. They made a terrace sustainable garden. It was a garden that was made on solar panels, inspired by the terracotta, being an Expo 2020. So producing clean energy, renewable energy, using simple items, solar panels and some inverters and batteries. Our K-12 students took me on this and the results were really amazing. They were able to make a device charging station where you can just go in and plug in your devices and charge your devices for free. You have a corner in the school where you're not paying a single. They're charging your devices for free.

Speaker 3: 12:08

So that is the time where students themselves and I was their mentor. I was with them and we decided that we need to propagate the idea more in terms of having a proper business plan, and the links came from desired award of sustainability. That was recently the closed applications and they asked us to make a proper business plan on the same and they said that we want students to make a business plan when they're presenting their ideas. You know it's. We've already applied for that and the applications are done and we're waiting for the final reviews from the judges.

Speaker 3: 12:41

So I think that kickstarted the desired sustainability award really kickstarted our mind towards having a STEM project and then having a business plan for the project, and then we started integrating it more into our lessons, where we said that, instead of having a STEM class, we could always have a STEM class where students can come in and they can sell out their products, talk about the product at the end of the class, you know, more like a short time approach where they come in and then they talk to the judges and judges in terms of their features, of course. So this started highlighting more of their business skills, their marketing skills. You know they started thinking about the cost of the product, they started thinking about the material of the product. So this is why we said that no, e-stem is always better than compared to having only the STEM in the classroom.

Speaker 1: 13:30

I love the whole, the whole E-STEM ideas. Just giving me loads of ideas around how we can take the STEM learning to a whole different level and give the students skills that they could literally walk out of school and start their own enterprises and run their own enterprises. And if they even don't do that, just giving them language around that you know marketing, budget, production cost, cost per customer acquisition, cost for material and cost for labor and you know all these things that we encounter in the world of work and business. I love it. How do the students react to this approach of interdisciplinary STEM in the school?

Speaker 3: 14:18

So what has happened is students were initially very much amazed with, and only the STEM class. To be honest, every student looks forward to going in the STEM class on that you know, day of the week when they have STEM class, excited. And you know, and we want them to be excited for the STEM class, we don't want it to be a boring theory class where they're just, you know, listening in the silence. You know we have this healthy noise pollution in the class. We have teachers and students talking around and we really appreciate that. We don't want a silent class, to be honest, in the world because they slap. The students initially were really excited to use them, but when you know the word of mouth that starts going out between the students, they thought, okay, we're having this, you know, integrated in Arabic. We're seeing a reflection happening in the same week in an English class. So we have aligned it in a way.

Speaker 3: 15:05

We've done the STEM mapping. We call it the STEM mapping. So we've done the STEM mapping in a way that we make sure that if a student is doing a project, for example, on diseases, in their STEM class, you know they're making a cuff catcher, for example. So they have to develop a cuff catcher which is able to catch the cuff, or you know which is able to not spread the germs to the other person. We make sure that the lesson on diseases happens in the science class in the same week. So this sort of gives that STEM mapping alignment to having you know the whole integration of an application in the real world and then you know, studying the same theory in their science class, which makes it more interesting for them and they're actually looking forward to it and they start thinking.

Speaker 3: 15:51

I've seen children coming up to me and saying Ms Weed, we started this in math this week. Are we going to do something related to this in STEM, you know? So they're actually getting really excited about this interdisciplinary approach of seeing all of the STEM mapping. So it's creating this hype between the students.

Speaker 1: 16:08

So I want to preempt, because I know a lot of people are going to come up to you at STEM MENA and they're going to be like Adam. We heard the podcast. How did you guys get to map the curriculum so well so that it flows throughout the school? So, before they ask you the question, I'm going to ask you the question how did you map the curriculum so well that the theme flows from one subject to the other so the students see that connection throughout their learning journey?

Speaker 3: 16:36

So we started initially by being very simple and this is how every school would actually take initiative. It's called the STEM committee. With the STEM committee, you mean you have a representative from every subject in your committee. You have a math representative, you have a business person, you have a lead from English, you have a lead from science, you have a lead from Arabic, from Islam. From all of these leads you have them gain.

Speaker 3: 17:00

And then we started making a one drive. We start sharing our scheme of works. We start making cross-curricular documents where we have topics and we have air-wise cross-curricular documents. So the lead is responsible, the person who's leading the subject to fill in their part of the data and integrating it. So once you're working collectively, collaboratively, on a one drive document, it starts to get that picture. That picture starts getting visible. Like you're seeing all of these links happening with maths the teachers filling up, the English is filling up.

Speaker 3: 17:31

So it took time. To be honest, it was our first try on this. We were expert in STEM but we were not really much into cross-curriculars and integrating STEM. But once we took the initiative, things started fixing up like a puzzle. Everyone was on the same page. The team that I found was really good, the STEM committee was really strong and the best part is the support that you get from the management. That is the best part, because if you don't have any support coming from the back end, from your management, I don't think any of your dreams, whether it is related to STEM or anything, can actually come to life. So for me, having a proper running STEM curriculum integrated with all those subjects, having interdisciplinary skills and students seeing them it's sort of my dream, to be honest.

Speaker 1: 18:19

No, you are selling it to me. I just love your enthusiasm. I love, love the work that you are describing and I think a lot of schools will resonate. And I love the fact that you said you know you started simple. And I also love the idea of a STEM committee. So, people, if you don't have a STEM committee in your school that's doing that whole mapping together, you've got to get started on that. One thing you just touched on that I love is that you said your leadership is very supportive. Talk to me about that.

Speaker 3: 18:51

So we have our principal, mr Muhammad Asil, who has recently joined the last year to the school, and all of us who are working alongside with him. You know the senior leadership team. We all are sort of the new people coming into the school and we started to pick up from. You know the back end and we need to get to a same improvement, you know, with those new visions and everything. So he is a person, I would say, who is more open towards having and listening to whatever the senior leadership team comes up with, because he's the type of person if I go to him and I talk to him, I say, mr Asil, I think we should do this and this is how we should do it. What do you think Should we go with this? And that person would actually say that, yes, I trust you and your skills and you should definitely take the hold on this and you should go towards it. So you rarely find people having such quality leadership where they trust in you know the person who is in front of you, and then they provide all type of support that you require in the back end, all type of resources.

Speaker 3: 19:56

When I had the vision of having make a space lab, design technology lab for the school in the Shanwich private school. It was just sort of the vision. It was nothing in my hand and executing it was not possible. And I understand that the board of directors, mr Rashid, mr Ian, mr Hassanouk, who is the director of the school, mr Asil they wouldn't have given me a push and they themselves are so much into you know, because it's a non-profit organization, we only care about the education of the student. To be honest, we don't care about anything else at the moment. That is the core value that providing quality education to the students. So this was like they were like yes, definitely, if you think this is possible and you can do it, we have the trust in you and you should go for that.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Yeah, I love that you're supportive, because I think the leadership supporting you is super duper important. I think it just makes it so much easier as a head of department or as a senior leader when your principal or your superintendent or your director is on the same page with you, especially when it comes to STEM, because the truth is, you can do STEM cheaply, but some of these things that we're buying, like a make a space lab, those things cost money.

Speaker 3: 21:15

Really expensive. We have a joke going around in the school where they say she's the most expensive person. I'm the person with all the requisitions in my hands and things getting signed up and my receipts you know, getting away from my hand and I'm the person who's the most expensive one in the school. But then again, whether it is a design lab, a STEM lab, you know all of these are high quality products and with students working in them, you cannot take any risks. You can't work with anything that is, you know, going to harm the student or you can't work with anything that is not going to give you a result. These are labs that are set up with a vision of having at least working for four to five years in the coming years. You know we integrate sort of good quality products rather than having something very cheap, and then you know you're running after it again and again, so it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Yeah, no, you're right. You're so right. Fine, but before we end the podcast, I want to talk about parent involvement, the parent community. Like how do you guys get them involved? What's going on there?

Speaker 3: 22:17

So, as you know, parents are, I think, the most integral part of any school, to be honest, whether it is a commercial school or whether it is a non-proper school. They are the people who give us the right feedback of how they think their style is progressing at home. And I've seen few parents who've come up to me and they started talking to me and I'm very open and I'm the people's person, to be honest. So I'm very much approachable with so many people. And I've seen a parent coming up to me last month and they said that Miss Anand, do you know what my child wants to be when he grows up? I said, anand, what are you telling me? What does he want to be? He said that I you know. He came up to me and my child and he said I want to be a drone launcher. So, please, what is a drone launcher? Like he was shocked. I said, really, he wants to be a drone launcher when he grows up. So I was able to actually link his studies that he's an AARC 8 student. I knew him really well. He is so much into coding. He is giving this out to his parent as well. He's going back home. He's telling his mom and dad that, hey, I did this in class. I, when I grow up, I want to become a drone launcher. I don't know that exists or not, but I want to become a drone launcher. You know that sounds so cool that he wants to do something which is not even there and currently in your hand.

Speaker 3: 23:26

We also have international. On the international STEM day, we do have an annual STEM player, which is sort of the big highlight event of the school every year and we make sure that the parents are involved in students that make the projects of the STEM. We call the parents in. You know, especially the parents who the students whose projects are there out there on display. We make sure that the parents are involved. You know they come in and they're very happy standing and projecting with their students and, you know, looking into other parents, having that community bonding happening, discovering STEM together.

Speaker 3: 23:58

The third highlight as well that I would like to mention here is our recent participation in the Mubarak NJ 50. We chose the inspired category, you know, especially because we knew that the parent involvement in the inspire category is really close. So it's the category with the small children, for example, age four to seven. We have parents coming in. Our first parent orientation for the Mubarak Shrippi is actually happening tomorrow and we have parents coming in who would be doing the coding and the maker space, you know, with the M? Tiny having those controllers in their hands together, sitting down with their children, having that quality time understanding the competition rules and then actually going to the competition and with our being a member, qualifiers and supporting the student.

Speaker 3: 24:43

So we have made sure that whatever STEM initiative that we take in the school, we do give preference to the parents, because they're the people who give us the right feedback and seeing all of this happening, the interdisciplinary skills that I just discussed, you know, developing in the students, seeing the STEM happening in there. You know we propagate a lot of things on our media as well. You'll see a lot of pictures and videos of how our STEM labs are going, the design lab going, and the feedback that is now starting to come from the parents is really loud, really evident, of whatever impact that STEM is making on their students. Life is really obvious, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1: 25:22

That's a fabulous place to end the podcast. It's been a pleasure, anna. You have been doing some good stuff, thank you.

Speaker 3: 25:30

Thank you, savashita. I would definitely like to thank you as well, because you have sort of become, you know, the voice of STEM. To be honest, more than me, you're making sure that schools like English language private schools are those who are doing so much, to be honest, but they're not too much into the line, right, you know, just because we are paying on the profit, we have more focus towards the education rather than more towards, you know, the marketing and all of that. But then again, I think the credit goes to you at the end for, you know, making sure that you highlight all of those things happening in our team.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Amazing. Thank you. I think we share good practice Wherever it's happening. We don't discriminate. If it's English language private school, we want to big them up. Any school that's doing something fabulous can always reach out to us at Teach Middle East. We're always willing and able to highlight them and shine the spotlight on their good work. So, anna, two thumbs up for you.

Speaker 3: 26:27

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, savashita, thank you.

Speaker 2: 26:31

Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmiddleeastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.