News
New colleague Fatima Maqsood joins ELS
My name is Fatima Maqsood, a PhD scholar from International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan (IIUI). From 19 April, I will be working at ELS as a guest researcher.
I have extensive experience in the field of teaching and research. I am working as Assistant Professor (visiting) at the Department of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, IIUI since 2015 and have been teaching various courses like introduction to education, educational research, teaching learning strategies and reflective practices, educational psychology, and comparative education. As research associate, I have also been the part of various national and international research projects on themes “blended learning: module development for MOOC” (a European Union Project); “Mainstreaming the Unemployed Youth"; and “A Study on the Potential of National Curriculum for Moral Development”.
Currently, I am working on my PhD dissertation titled “Life skills education for K-12 curriculum: Initiatives in Pakistan”. Life skills are defined by WHO as ‘psychological competencies of individuals for their positive and adaptive behavior that enable them to deal with everyday challenges in effective way’. I believe that these competencies enable individuals to transform their learnt knowledge, skills and values into positive behavior which will help them to live a better life by planning for their future, choose better options, and make accurate decisions. Initially, I have explored the current practices and provisions of life skills education in the policy documents and K-12 curriculum. However, I have keen interested in exploring the practical instructional strategies which could help to develop life skills among students through teaching learning process, particularly, the potential role of teachers in this regard and what type of training they require for effective teaching of life skills to their students.
I am honored to have a chance to work as guest researcher at ELS under the supervision of Prof. Perry den Brok. My ambition is to work and learn from his extensive research experiences and his team of highly qualified and skilled professionals to sharpen my own teaching and research skills.