Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Association of Queen Rania Al Abdullah Award for Excellence in Education announced today the commencement of the written assessment phase of the 2012 Queen Rania Al Abdullah Award for Distinguished Teacher in its 7th cycle, scheduled to continue until the end of August, 2012.

The assessment will be conducted by education specialists who boast a minimum of five years of experience in the teaching field, where 52% of these experts are Jordanian universities professors and specialists, 17% of which are UNRWA staff. 25% of the assessors are Ministry of Education staff and 20% are retired educators.

The written assessment phase kicked-off after the Association formed a team of 40 assessors for the 2012 round of the Award. The team was selected based on a careful evaluation of 179 presented resumes, subsequent to the publishing of an advertisement in sponsoring local newspapers as well as the Association’s official website and Facebook page.

Commenting on the preparations that took place with the team of assessors, the Association’s Executive Director Lubna Touqan revealed that they underwent specialized training to ensure that they can effectively fulfill their assigned mandate. The training workshop further enhanced the assessors’ knowledge and familiarized them with the scope and evaluation mechanisms of the written assessment phase. The workshop also tackled the effective use of the Rubric assessment system, to better equip each assessor in grading applications. It used practical examples on applications that were submitted by teachers in previous years to unify the assessment process amongst all assessors.

In turn, a member of the Award’s team of assessors said, “I firmly believe that working alongside the Association and participating in the training workshop has given me a new perspective, not only in terms of how to assess as an educator, but also in objectively assessing different situations across the various areas of my life.”

“The workshop allowed us to enrich our expertise and build on the way we communicate and interact through the exchange of professional opinions and views,” commented another member of the Award’s team of assessors.