Professor Zoubeida R. Dagher is Professor and Deputy Dean in the College of Education at Qatar University, focusing specifically on supporting two of the College’s top priorities: professional development and research. She is a visiting scholar from the University of Delaware in the USA, where she teaches undergraduate, masters and doctoral courses in science education. Dr. Dagher has earned a B.S. in Science Education from Lebanese American University, a M.A. in Education from the American University of Beirut, and a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Iowa, USA. Before commencing her doctoral studies, Dr. Dagher taught general science, chemistry and biology in grades 6-12.

Professor Dagher has been involved in several teaching innovations in higher education. She is a former recipient of a prestigious National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award. Her published work appears in leading refereed US and international science education journals such as Science Education; Journal of Research in Science Teaching, International Journal of Science Education, and Science & Education. Recently she finished a 3-year term as elected member to the Board of Directors of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching [NARST], and a 2-year term as member of the Advisory Council of the International History and Philosophy of Science Teaching [IHPST] Group. Dr. Dagher served as member of a number of editorial review boards in lead science education journal. She is mostly known for her work on the role of analogies and nature of science conceptions in science learning. Her recent research focuses on articulating the different natures of scientific inquiry in the science curriculum.

Teachers are typically willing to undertake whatever is needed to ensure that their students learn their school subject well. Some teachers, however, resist a shift to more student-centered approaches because of a number of concerns that include: 1) perception that student-centered approaches are too time consuming and therefore will interfere with their ability to “cover” the required content on time, 2) skepticism about the effectiveness of a learner-based approach to equip students with the basic knowledge they need to do well on the standardized tests, on succeed in higher education and/or 3) lack of familiarity with cognitive and management strategies that are necessary for successful inquiry.
Teachers who are in the middle of the paradigm shift typically struggle with those concerns even though there is ample evidence to show that students (with or without special needs) benefit from learner-centered approaches. I advise those teachers to overcome their skepticism and learn how to create safe classroom environments that allow for students to participate freely and listen attentively. Teachers can make a concerted effort to connect concepts to students’ lives, ask more open-ended questions, listen to and honor student answers, value the use of evidence in explaining or defending their idea, and develop the students’ own ability to ask questions and seeks answers.

Question Two:
For most teachers the concept of "Inquiry-based learning" is still new and unclear. Could you explain, in brief reasons behind shifting towards this new learning style.

Inquiry-based learning strategies enable students to learn through active involvement with the topic by asking questions, making observations, setting up investigations, analyze findings in light of their own and experts' knowledge, propose explanations and communicating them to peers. The shift towards inquiry-based learning has its roots in constructivist theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky in general, and Dewey and Schwab's work as it relates to the teaching of science in particular. Inquiry-based learning capitalizes on children's natural curiosity and prior knowledge and allows teachers to help bridge what students know with what they need to learn through the use of interactive learning strategies that demand active involvement and critical thinking. Such learning strategies are found to lead to meaningful and functional knowledge that is more likely to be retrieved and used than knowledge acquired through more traditional and passive approaches.

In my view, the digital world has revolutionized science teaching that relies on project-based approaches by providing many new exciting avenues to learn, through the use of simulations, visualizations, probe-ware, telecommunications, and interactive multimedia environments. These avenues allow teachers to delve into worlds that are too microscopic or macroscopic to be concretely accessed and comprehended, and allow students to visualize how might the elements represented in those worlds work and interact and explain the phenomena we encounter in our daily lives. The technologies, no doubt, offer exciting opportunities to teach science and enable students to easily collect and analyze authentic data that they collect or obtain through access to live data, and scientists or experts.
Even though the language barrier may slow down the process, I do not believe it impedes it. In this regard, the nature of the digital resource plays a role. For example, resources that are less language dependent than others (e.g., simulations and visualizations), tend to facilitate learning much more than traditional ones due to their reduced reliance on verbal cues. More language-dependent digital resources (e.g. digital libraries, telecommunications) present some challenges that are equal to but do not exceed the use of traditional printed materials. However, I think that the authenticity and highly contextual nature of those tasks offset potential disadvantages. Ultimately, students are expected to learn the language of science and use it, whether in the context of digital resources or in isolation of it. The teacher’s role is to scaffold students in acquiring and using scientific language. I think that modern technologies can be used wisely to support these important teaching goals.

Question Four:
Action research, is another concept that is still un-discovered by Qatari teachers. However, the SEC is having a huge and very ambitious project to disseminate "action research" within Independent schools, amongst teachers as well as students. Action research has a very powerful impact on developing and improving teachers' performance within the classroom. Could you please highlight the basic issues teachers have to pay attention to, when performing their "Action Research".

Action research is a very effective process of ongoing professional development. Although it is a new concept for teachers in Qatar, Action Research has had a long history in other countries and has been shown through several long-term studies to benefit students' performance, teacher's professional skills, the school climate and in some cases recommend serious policy decisions.
One issue that can discourage teachers from doing action research is their perception that it is an additional burden to their teaching and that they need special skills to perform it. The truth is that action research is essentially a reflective process that puts teachers in closer contact with their own teaching and enables them to identify the factors that hinder student learning whether these are cognitive, social, affective, or personal. It is about knowing their students and understanding what learning issues or behavior difficulties interfere with their performance and address those as part of their ongoing preparation. Reflecting on student behavior and performance events and not simply taking it at face value is the first step
When performing action research, teachers need to focus on issues that they want to address through their focused reflection. Also it is important that they find out how others how faced similar issues attempted to solve them. This is best done by talking to peers, and reading research studies on such topics in order to develop a more effective intervention for the issue at hand and get new ideas regarding what qualitative and or qualitative data sources they need to tap to gather information or test the effectiveness of their intervention. Once collected, making sense of the data could be another challenging step. For this reason, it would be ideal if teachers meet regularly with action research mentors or peer support groups who can respond to their queries, enrich their perspectives, and provide technical assistance where needed.

Question Five:
What do you think is very much needed to make the SEC Research Initiative a success.

I believe that the following actions are needed to make the SEC Research Initiative a success:

• Allowing teachers adequate time to reflect on practice by reducing their teaching load.
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• Establishing a networking system that facilitate teacher collaboration and exchange of expertise across school borders.
• Providing alternative models of professional development that include built-in support and mentoring services.
• Supporting an open and progressive school culture that values teamwork, reflection, and innovation.