Meet Nawaal Abdul-Khaliq! A graduate from the UBC Bachelor of Education Secondary program, her teachable subjects were English Language Arts (ELA) & English Language Learners (ELL). Nawaal is a recipient of the Kay Norgan Meek Scholarship in Education. She answers a few questions about the program and life after graduation.
Q1. What is one piece of advice that you would give to future BEd students before starting the program?
The purpose of the program is to start learning how to be an exceptional educator who embodies a growth mindset for lifelong learning. Unlearning and relearning is always the hardest aspect of any learning experience, so take it in stride and trust that you are capable to continuously learn and grow into mindful, well-rounded educators.
Q2. Looking back at your pre-practicum self, what piece of advice would you give to help navigate the challenges and surprises of teaching on practicum?
Developing your own core-competencies is just as important as helping your learners develop their core-competencies. Learning to regulate your emotions while staying true to them in a high-pressure environment is a privileged experience to undergo during this time of equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization.
Q3. What was your most impactful moment during the BEd program?
The most impactful moment during the BEd program was creating professional communities with other teacher candidates from whom I could learn from and collaborate with. These communities now extend past the program and into my daily life in the profession.
Q4. In your first few months as a certified educator, are there any programs (e.g., equity, Indigenous learning, sustainability) that you are excited to bring into your pedagogical approach?
I have continued on my Inquiry journey learning and implimenting action research in my classrooms; specifically, I have been experimenting with UFLI, SIOP, and my inquiry research on Prosody in various content courses.
Q5. How has your vision for your teaching career evolved since completing the program?
I have learned that the importance of Core Competencies is critically important to foster because a dysregulated classroom is not a universally designed classroom for student success. The importance of value-based learning is one of the strongest motivations for students, and the embodiment of this positively models strength-based self-narratives.
Q6. Where do you see yourself growing professionally in the next five years?
I would love to continue my action research and start presenting my continuous inquiry findings to other members of our professional teaching community.
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