“TeachUNITED is a Powerhouse!”
Patriciah Shares How the Training Helped Her Take Her Teaching to the Next Level
Curious about what it’s like to be an educator participating in TeachUNITED’s teacher training program?
Kenyan teacher Patriciah Mutuku says “I have taken several professional development courses as an educator, but the TeachUnited program surpassed them all.” Patriciah graciously details her experience learning about and adopting new strategies and sharing them with fellow teachers as an instructional coach.
“My name is Patriciah Mutuku, an English language teacher from Kenya, and a proud beneficiary of the TeachUNITED program. I went through the coaching program from March to September 2023. This was a collaboration between TeachUNITED and 1 Million Teachers.
Upon completing the training, my teaching career went through a rejuvenation. To start with, I was able to connect with my students better than ever before. The unit on growth vs fixed mindsets helped me work on my own mindset before helping my learners work on theirs. I also used this knowledge in my school to help my fellow teachers see the learners from a different angle.
The unit on Personalization was a complete makeover! I tried it in my classes and it was magical! Thanks to TeachUNITED, I no longer struggle to find out what to do with students who learn at different paces within the same class. Personalization solved the puzzle for me, and I am a happy teacher. The students enjoy it the most because they are under no pressure to complete a task by a rigid deadline, but do it at their own pace.
At the beginning of every semester, I use the data-driven strategies before teaching anything. Since I teach language to young adults, I ask them to write one paragraph about anything they wish to talk about. I get amazing results, and this helps me know the challenges they may be facing in writing and expressing themselves. I help them overcome some of these challenges along the way.
Upon comparing TeachUNITED with other professional development programs that I have been through, I would confidently say that TeachUNITED is a powerhouse! I am actively sharing these new strategies with my fellow teachers in school.
I came to the realization that I can become a competent instructional coach since TeachUnited produces an ‘instructional coach and not a trainer.’ As stated in one of the modules, Instructional coaches ‘use professional development and differentiated coaching to increase teacher effectiveness by teaching educators how to successfully implement effective, research-based teaching techniques and practices.’