The third workshop on the Practical Education Development Project program was held at An-Najah University under the title “The Teachers’ Training Program in Norway: Vestfold University as a Case Study”. Attendees included Dr. Muhammad Amran, General Director of the Project, Dr. Naser Al-Sa’afin, the Educational Coordinator of the Project, Dr. Ali Habayeb, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Coordinator of the Project at the University, Dr. Rola Jadallah, the Project’s Coordinator at the Arab American University, in addition to members of the academic staff from the different Palestinian universities.

The workshop aimed to transfer the experience that the members of the Project’s staff have acquired through the two visits that they conducted to Vestfold University in Norway during the last months to the members of the teaching staff at the different Palestinian universities.

At the beginning of the workshop Dr. Habayeb welcomed the participants and hoped that the workshop would achieve its goals and spoke about the main topics that it will address.

Dr. Amran delivered a presentation that included an overview of the teachers’ training structure referring to Vestfold University as an example. Moreover, he discussed the most important lessons that the staff have learned through their visits to Norway. He said this experience would help in developing the training and preparation of teachers in Palestine.

Dr. Habayeb delivered a paper in which he discussed the mechanisms of strategic thinking and its role in the teacher’s training program at Vestfold University. He also spoke about the use of strategic thinking techniques in teaching social sciences courses.

At the end of the course Dr. Al-Sa’afin spoke about the evaluation methods used at Vestfold University to assess the performance of its students and discussed a new concept in evaluation which is Feed forward.

The Practical Education Development Program which is funded by the World Bank will work on achieving a number of outputs including the development and unification of the practical education curriculum of partner universities, in addition to connecting those universities and schools using Video Conference technology. This technology will enable the recording of practical education classes. He also spoke about the E-evaluation Tool which is to be used on students enrolled in these classes.

The participating schools included those in Jerusalem, Jenin and Nablus.