An-Najah and partner universities were placed among top 8 universities in Asia for the Teaching and Learning ‎Strategy of the Year at the 2019 Times Higher Education (THE) Awards, also known as ‎the ‘Oscars’ for higher education.

An-Najah competed with 82 universities from 21 countries or regions including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia and was the only Arab university to be shortlisted at this prestigious award.‎ This important appearance in this annual international Summit on higher Education came in the framework of the Erasmus+ funded project “Transforming Assessment Practices in Large Enrollment First Year Education/TAP Palestine”. The Summit is organized by THE Times Higher Education, and it included presentations by each winning university to showcase their winning policies.

On behalf of An-Najah, Dr. Abdel Karim Daraghmeh, Director of the Center of Excellence in Teaching and Learning explained that An-Najah University led the project in collaboration with four Palestinian universities and the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission in Palestine. He talked in details about enhancing capacity building of Palestinian Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in modern assessment practices in first year educators. The scope of work for the winning project included revision of freshman curricula in Physics, Calculus, Biology, English,  Nursing, Economics, and Introductory Computer courses and the  upgrade institutional teaching learning and assessement policies in the partner universities.

Dr. Daraghmeh also mentioned that we the developed a working model for transforming assessment practices from the 'assessment of learning' to the 'assessment for and as learning' using technology assisted options. smart phone technology was utilized to offer a wide range of options for self-regulated learning and for providing teachers with timely feedback on learners' achievement and on their satisfaction with the course materials and the learning strategies. We also used socrative, padlet, Moodle plaatform.

Statistics show that 2900 students benefited from the e-content during 2019, 278 staff members received training in enhancing feedback and self-learning and the general biology course reached out to 46.038 students during one semester. It is also worth mentioning that there has been formulation of measurement policies in Palestinian universities focusing on enhancing communication skills, self-learning, problem solving and creative thinking.

For more information about the award, please visit the link:

https://theawardsasia.com/2019/en/page/2019-winners