The ideal classroom - Educational Science closing seminar

What is the ideal classroom settings and place arrangement in 21 century?
In order to answer that question I think we should consider several aspects.
1) age of the group and size
2) material and space what a teacher would need
3) the activities that a teacher would be doing in that space.

The exercise was fun. Pity that we had only 10´ to produce something but now that I have time I think that having the perfect learning environment is almost impossible to have. In our presentations we all of us had this teacher center classroom instead of students. Many time classroom are arranged that way: I work in 7 different schools and most of them have (what I call) the top 3:
teacher, board (On the teacher side) and desk (Better if individual desks).

In my ideal classroom I wanted to have a round table built from singles one. In this way is easier to separate them during test time for instance. The round table will help the collaborative learning.
Each desk surfice is made by a screen touch computer connected with the screen touch teacher computer. People don´t need to look at the board they have only to look down. In every station there headphones where students can listen as much as they need dialogues if they are learning languages.

In a corner of the class is going to be an inside garden (preferably) next to the big window. All the material is done with ecological material.
At the end of the class there is an area with big pillows and a library shelf with the classics of international literature. This idea comes from my experience with some adult students that actually they didn´t read at school any classic. I think it´s time to introduce that kind of aspect in Finnish school system.

In one wall is going to be an interactive window where every day come different art pictures from all over the word (Picasso, Leonardo and many others) in order to let the students to get to know a bit about art.

So actually my class is a language/culture lab that can be used with adult and young students that need to learn a foreigner language. Educational Science course was well organized and the today session very useful. The second block of the session was "try to guess to which theorist a classroom drawing belong to". I did miss in the first drawing the TV (small and in the corner) so my guess Montessori was wrong.
The second drawing I was correct. The third and fourth Skinner and Piaget.
Between all these theorists probably what I am bringing with me the idea of how important is the collaborative learning. I also enjoyed very much the idea of teaching video and comments there. I was looking for that kind of experiences when I started these studies and so I did.

In here some pictures of my ideal classroom.

All the teaching at the vocational education level can and should have a measurable outcomes?

This picture is from:
http://www.uri.edu/quadangles/issue/may-2008/roadmap-for-academic-success/

All the teaching at the vocational education level can and should have a measurable outcomes? 
In Internet there are many publications and documents in support of pro position. Learning outcomes have their advantantages and they are used by many governments in many countries.
While reflecting during the last few weeks about the statement at the beginning and wondering - why I have joined the cons position? - I came up with a small research about learning outcomes: limits and advantages. 
I think that learning outcomes seems to be the ONLY method for  defining expectation of learning: the reality is that learning outcomes are defined by Governments on the basement of what a learner should achieved. Learning outcomes also responde to the needs of certain stakeholder in a specific area of their working place. Learning outcomes alone cannot fully capture the qualities of learner´s and we cannot be sure that the learning process delivered trought programmes achieved the goals. (cause so many things we should take into account). In add of that we should remember that some learning outcomes cannot be measurable.To implement an effective strategy for the learning outcomes it takes time and not all the countries are ready to do in all level. The individuality of learning is also one issue that too often learning outcomes methods they don´t consider.
In add I would also argue that:

- the learning in higher education cannot be constricted and reduced to a series of learning outcomes that inhibit and prescribe the learning process.

- The implementation of learning outcomes involves a huge staff development process as well as cost in term of time and money.

- written learning outcomes limits the creativity and they can be written too general or too specific.
 - There no one single way to describe a programme: if it would be possible this will inevitably leads to a narrow view on the results of the programme. 

and other questions: 
are the learning outcomes killing the creativity? what Maria Montessori would say about it? 
is it real that  simple: learning outcomes, activities and assessment?  
Here there are some links in support of the cons positions:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc/eqf/note4_en.pdf 
  "Shift for Learning Outcomes" Policies and practising in Europe, Cedefop Reference series; 72
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009, retrieved on
 http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/Files/3054_en.pdf

Killen, R. (2000). Outcomes-based education: Principles and possibilities.
Unpublished manuscript, University of Newcastle, Faculty of Education (Australia) http://drjj.uitm.edu.my/DRJJ/CONFERENCE/UPSI/OBEKillen.pdf

http://www.eair.nl/forum/vilnius/pdf/561.pdf

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)’ and the use of Virtual Learning Environments suggest that learning at the vocational education level can take place completely on-line

The evidences supported by the planet Earth in the EduSci presentation on 12.12.12  (you can find them here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qUIXxB2VMAaFUnljLQ-J3WthN9YTgehO25U4lnCsTTc/edit#slide=id.p) about CSCL and Virtual Learning suggests that actually the learning can take place completely online. We have to be careful on the word "completely": Can we really teach some disciplines completely online? Yes we can. But we will need also some practice. That´s why we have a training period, which helps us to apply the theories.

Social aspects of learning online: and here we have to consider the meaning of two different words: cooperation and collaboration. Cooperation is when individuals are developing a single sub task and then put together the work. So as partners they don´t learn how to negotiate for instance. Collaborative learning in CSCL means that in order to design technology and build knowledge we learn how to negotiate, share things, sources and we synchronize the activities. 

Technology is different than online experience. Even using a pen is a form of technology. Nowadays there is no job without technologies. I see the good side on internet technologies: the use of Skype lets the students for instance work with students on the other side of the world. We also have to consider the global rising of the population: soon we won´t have any more financial resources to give to everybody frontal education and we have to reach the people on line.
Another statement that we debated was: All teaching at the vocational education level can and should have measurable outcomes.
I was not involved in the presentation but I had to choose a side.
First question: what makes a good measure and what is a bad measure?
Second question: How would for instance creativity be measured?

Third question: How the measure effect learning?

There are some facts that in a way measure teaching: for instance when pupils are looking forward to attend the teacher´s class, when the classroom is a place where learning happens through engagement with the subject being taught. Learning is seen as a collaborative effort - the teacher does not see him/herself as the "Giver of all knowledge". Also teacher engages in regular professional development - shown by the journals read, seminars attended and teacher regularly takes learning's outside the classroom. (do you mean he teaches outside…) When employed (used) carefully and thoughtfully student’s outcomes may contribute to evaluation of teaching. But learning outcomes are influenced by a complex interplay of factors particular to an institution, teaching context and student’s disposition. Learning is dynamic and constantly changing. Measurement of these outcomes must employ a variety of methods, both short and long term. In addition, the judgment of teaching should be conducted within a process of overall program evaluation that examines many dimensions affecting student learning outcomes.

Picture from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563202000572

References: 

• Gerry Stahl, Timothy Koschmann, Dan Suthers Computer-supported collaborative learning:  An historical perspective retrieved on http://gerrystahl.net/cscl/CSCL_English.pdf
• Centre for research on networked learning and knowledge building http://www.helsinki.fi/science/networkedlearning/eng/
• International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning http://ijcscl.org/?go=contents&article=77#article
• Pál, Pentelènyi Virtual Learning Enviroment Training Material retrieved on: https://docs.google.com/open?id=1e7a9ra4aSwxjSPx5glkgHVjXyVqg_fusrVRHIpdrhWJ5GVEkdGJ8JBDiqJaq
• Tara J. Fenwich, Using students outcomes to evaluate Teaching: A Cautious Exploration, 4 feb 2002 retrieved on  http://edweb.sdsu.edu/bober/montgomery/Article003.pdf