Knowledge Path Library Programs
Schools and Hospitals Field Visits
The library has had a school visit program since 2015 to stimulate reading and science, develop a culture of conversation, and share information, because reading motivates people to think differently and interestingly.
The Knowledge Path Library visited Al-Bashir General Hospital in 2019 and the King Hussein Cancer Center in 2020 to promote reading and science, promote a culture of dialogue, spread knowledge, provide library services to all segments and locations, and assist children in learning about different cultures and sciences.
Children and Adolescents Cinema
At this station, the Knowledge Path team takes children (7-11 years old) and adolescents (12-16 years old) on an exciting cinematic adventure, where they see a selection of engaging films with important content adapted from novels and stories. The implementation of the Youngsters’ Cinema began in 2013 with the goal of developing a sense of cinematic taste among children.
Film shows are an important tool for developing a child's and young person's culture, especially because the climate is beneficial to the formation of imagination and ideas. However, the child's true benefit from these shows is contingent on the Knowledge Path team's supervision in selecting the appropriate film and discussing its events and characters after the show.3
The purpose of the shows is to inspire children and young people to talk about the film's main events, characters, and concepts, to urge them to express favorable and negative opinions, to engage in the analysis, and to push them to form crucial conclusions about the film.
Book Signings
The Knowledge Path Library hosts writers throughout the year to sign their books or stories and interact with the library patrons. The book signings are planned to promote Jordanian and Arab authors and encourage library patrons to form a positive outlook on creative writing and to encourage them to read and write, while at the same time providing them with role models.
The process for writers to join, publicize and sign their book is as follows: The writer submits a copy of their story, then gives a presentation to the Knowledge Path team committee. The committee then approves the presentation if it fits the criteria of a successful and purposeful story. Following, the library will proceed to promote it among its patrons and the authors are contacted to coordinate the book signing event.
Science Film Festival
In 2014 the library kicked off an international science festival in cooperation with the Goethe Institute. The festival which is held every year aims to encourage children and young adults to explore and conduct research in fun scientific ways and present useful and entertaining scientific subjects to a wide audience. The festival is held in several governates around Jordan: Amman, Karak, Madaba, Irbid, Jerash, Salt, Zarqa, South Shouneh, and Aqaba.
Innovation Studio
The Innovation Studio is one of the widest spaces concerned with the scientific development of the child. The Science and Innovation Studio provides training programs that encourage children to think outside the box, in addition to developing mental skills and finding ways to develop their creativity. The program sets out with a scientific research journey and learning the basics of Scientific research to achieve innovation.
Some of the tools that the child needs, and the studio works on developing, is critical thinking, direction, and guiding a child’s curiosity to experiment and research to gain wide knowledge. Joining the studio is considered a valuable opportunity for the child, because it provides a safe space for them to develop their skills, in addition to presenting future opportunities through training on scientific research and sourcing information from different places, in addition to applying Scientific experiments, that enhances their acquired knowledge, connects them to society, and contributes to solving the problem of (community innovation).
This program intends to make innovation a part of young adult’s lives and support future creativity and innovation.
Young Innovators Lab
The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation launched the Young Innovators Lab to provide a scientific and practical space for the development of innovation, critical thinking, and logical analysis in children, the lab aims to develop the skills of children and adolescents aged (10-13 years), by conducting experiments and scientific projects through specialized workshops.
Simple scientific experiments are used to convey the concept of critical thinking and reach conclusions, and this is followed by experimenting with electrical and electronic testing. Students are also introduced to electronic bags (microcontrollers) for practical life applications, and innovators in the final stages are asked to complete projects using these bags.
The Young Innovators Lab is supervised by a group of passionate university students who work to stimulate thinking and analysis and provide support and direction during all stages leading up to project production, focusing on transferring skills, not knowledge.
The duration of the program is 8 months and takes place during weekends, excluding the final exams period, and it includes a series of workshops and experiments that encourage critical and creative thinking.
Model United Nations Conference Program
The Model United Nations Youth Program comes as a great opportunity for young people to promote dialogue, bring about change and call for world peace through discussions and working papers on global issues, and seeking to find appropriate solutions to these issues. During the conference sessions, participants are divided into several councils managed in Arabic and English. These councils are supervised by many delegates, each representing a specific country and its views.
Science Teachers Camp
The library strongly believes in the role of teachers in raising the bar for science and curricula and promoting a culture of dialogue and the dissemination of knowledge. This led to the establishment of the Science Teachers Camp which was first held in 2016 and takes place annually to introduce science teachers to unconventional teaching tools.
The event is a week-long intensive training camp that is held in partnership with the Ministry of Education and targets science teachers from public schools to enhance their skills in simplifying information in the classroom and employing appropriate tools to develop students' thinking skills. The camp works together with teachers to put together a system that helps students learn within a safe space that allows for trial and error through unconventional learning methods and tools that are based on knowledge related to experience, analysis, and conclusion, thus enhancing students’ critical thinking skills.
The registration process for teachers: Registration is open to all science teachers to participate in this unconventional educational training program taking place over 5 days. Upon completion of the training, the teaching tools competition is announced, where each teacher or group of teachers presents a simple teaching tool to the jury, to come up with 3 winners.
Science Teachers Camp Competition for Unconventional Teaching Tools
The competition, which takes place at the end of the 5-day training program, coaches science teachers on the foundations of unconventional teaching methods and designing and developing alternative teaching tools that can be used to relay curriculum material in a way that allows students to better grasp the lesson, and at the same time honors innovative teachers for designing these tools.
Several teachers who joined the Science Teachers Camp for unconventional education participated in the competition, where they worked on developing tools and testing them in the classroom before applying for the competition, during the first semester of the current academic year.
The two winning tools are selected according to a set of criteria; Including the accuracy of the tool’s design, the simplicity and richness of the tools, low manufacturing cost, ease of use by other teachers, and the extent to which it encourages thinking, as a contribution to self-learning, and as characterized by the award criteria as an unconventional education tool that pushes the recipient towards thinking and engaging and learning, and the possibility of expanding the use of the tool, and employing it in different ways within the same field.
Reading competition 16 before 16
The library launched this program in 2018 to encourage reading and enhance critical and creative thinking in young adults. The competition is held every year between October and December and is open to children and young adults between the ages of 7-11 and 12-16 years, to read 16 books and summarize them in the notebook designated for this competition. This is followed by oral interviews for the ten finalists from each category, next comes the announcement of the winners for first, second, and third places for each category, and awarding of prizes.
Summer & Winter Clubs
The Library launched its summer and winter clubs in 2014, for its great impact on children, in encouraging the habit of reading and the love of libraries, in addition to providing them with competencies such as independence, participation, teamwork, fostering friendships, and accepting the other, and developing critical and creative thinking skills. The club also had a positive impact on parents and society, by getting parents involved in the educational process through training workshops and the hosting of Jordanian and Arab writers, this led to an increase in their learning abilities and improved problem-solving skills.
The club also opened the door for cooperation with various local community institutions, offering them free of charge to make it inclusive for different parts of society to participate and gain access to equal opportunities in Amman and the governorates. Several clubs were formed in the following libraries: Emaar Irbid Library, Jerash Municipal Library, Mafraq Municipal Library, Madaba Municipal Library, Karak Creativity Club, Allan Library.
Over the years, these clubs were a way for children and their families to travel around the world, and learn about different cultures and customs, in addition to entering imaginary worlds filled with fascinating characters similar to the ones Alice met when she traveled to the place, she called Wonderland.
In line with what was happening in the world, the clubs were transformed into hybrid clubs, to ensure no child missed out on this experience, whether in Jordan or other parts of the world. Since 2020, all our activities are live-streamed (online) for everyone to learn and enjoy as if they were present inside the library walls, as seen through the Library's YouTube channel:
Winter Club
Summer Club
Activating the School Libraries and Governorates
This program was administered throughout the academic year, where the library hosts school librarians at their premises and trains them on the various services and programs offered by the library, so that they can implement them in the libraries at their schools, with the support and supervision of the Knowledge Path team.
The program aims to exchange experiences between all parties, develop the skills of library staff, and activate school libraries by training teachers and librarians on how to choose appropriate stories for different age groups, in addition to designing and implementing activities for various age groups, and how to read stories interactively, and linking the library to the school curricula, as well as planning attractive and meaningful programs aimed at attracting male and female students to the school library, and finding interactive ways to involve parents in the educational process, to transform the school library into a community library.
Activating Governate Libraries
The idea behind the program is to provide public libraries with books and materials necessary for their development and to cooperate with them in implementing several Knowledge Path Library programs such as the Reading Competition or the Science Film Festival. The first collaboration in 2020 was the reading competition “16 Before 16” with the Karak Creativity Center and took place in Karak Governorate.
A Night at the Library
To provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a night spent at the library that combines entertainment, fun, and knowledge. An out-of-the-ordinary activity that will begin in 2021, in which the library will be transformed into a large house where children and young adults will be accommodated for the entire night. The night is jam-packed with entertaining cultural activities.
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