The Teaching Training Chapter closed for me today. It was interesting session, especially because I could hear others people experience.
I was very lucky with my practice: the relation with the group and the tutor, the close distance (not so long trip for once) and also possibility to try different teaching method.
We started with a swot analysis and give grades on feelings for general experience from 1 to 4. I would give mine 3-4: I think I still have some weakness.
We discussed about other issues too, going deeply in what we did.
What we learn from the observation of the students and other teachers?
For me was the group dynamics: to see my students hanging around with the same people it was good tool to use int he right moment. especially when we were talking about communication. Other people also mentioned useful stuffs, such as:
- learning to be prepare for difficult personalities
- learning how taxing actual lesson might be
The tricky part in the seminar was: how to assess the learning, meaning not from the final test.
In my case I didn´t assess all the time the learning. I think I was actually seen that from their participation and enthusiasm on the activities. Most of the people had to use quizzes at the end of the lesson or give them at home homework and check in the classroom. exercises, practical tasks, giving them number...We spoke about this last autumn a lot.
So at the end my teaching practise was great. I felt good about it, I still feel so.
07/05/13
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.
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.
17/04/13
Let´s talk about inclusion - Personal Reflection on Special Needs Students
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| Picture from http://www.jssa.org/services/specneeds |
"For me, inclusion is about a community where everyone is recognized for their differences and everyone is recognized as belonging – not only in our schools, but in our communities."
Dr. Joseph Petner, Educator
Special needs students are those people that "may need support in the physical, cognitive, emotional or social areas of development or in the development of skills for varying periods of time. It is important to identify and define the child’s individual opportunities to act in different environments and in different educational situations and to also define related need for support and guidance. The aim is to prevent the child’s need for support from accumulating and becoming prolonged."
Finnish system works cause the cooperation between municipalities, schools and health care is in harmony. The children are followed since early stage: earlier the problem is identify bigger is the possibility to act on time.
At education level, special needs students have same rights that not special needs ones. This includes the possibility for them to get an education and a degree exactly as same as others. The students must provide an IEP (Individiual Education Plan) a pedagogical written document based on national curriculum where is written the provision of education and other support in accordance with the decision on special support issued for the pupil.
At Vocational level this plan must set out details of the qualification to be completed, the national core curriculum or the requirements of the competence-based qualification observed in education and training, the scope of the qualification, the individual curriculum drawn up for the student, grounds for providing special education and training, special educational and student welfare services required for studying as well atr
One issue that came out after reading some of the reflection paper from my fellows teachers students collegues it was: what is the support that special needs students got after the ended schools?
I truly believe that people in general should work on the word of "inclusion".
Inclusion is the key word of Finnish system: with this strategy they give possibility to special needs students to partecipate and learn in same classes with others. Therefore special needs students develop skills they canuse in and out of classroom.
Inclusion education system has inside 2 different kind of approaches:
1) Full time inclusion: is not world wide accepted: The students with special needs are always educated alongside students without special needs, as the first and desired option while maintaining appropriate supports and services. In wider point of view the "inclusion"is a concept that the whole class learn.
2) Part time or regular inclusion: the special needs students participate for several hours to the activity of the class: nearly all of the day, or at least for more than half of the day. For this kind of approach maybe more suitable is the word "integration" than "inclusion".
Both approaches requires some basics and practical elements in a classroom. It´s also extremely important to have a strong community behind that support the work of teachers that need to create an enviroment "diversity" is not a minus but a "plus". In this issue Finland wins again. The cooperation between the municipalities, schools and health care centres helps to build a community around everybody not only around special needs people.
According to Wikipedia, teachers use a number of techniques to help build classroom communities:
- Using games designed to build community
- Involving students in solving problems
- Sharing songs and books that teach community
- Openly dealing with individual differences by discussion
- Assigning classroom jobs that build community
- Teaching students to look for ways to help each other
- Utilizing physical therapy equipment such as standing frames, so students who typically use wheelchairs can stand when the other students are standing and more actively participate in activities
- Encouraging students to take the role of teacher and deliver instruction (e.g. read a portion of a book to a student with severe disabilities)
- Focusing on the strength of a student with special needs
Challenging for the inclusions of special needs students in normal classes are quite many and include educators, administrators and parents. As a parent, if my son would be special needs students I might be worried that he will be ridiculed by other students, or be unable to develop regular life skills in an academic classroom.
According to UNESCO, inclusion “is increasingly understood more broadly as a reform that supports and welcomes diversity amongst all learners.” Under this broader definition of inclusion, steps should also be taken to eliminate discrimination and provide accommodations for all students who are at a disadvantage because of some reason other than disability.
References:
UNESCO (2009) Policy Guidelines on Inclusion in Education. UNESCO: Paris. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001778/177849e.pdf
All publications about special needs students and their inclusion in Finland are retreived on:
http://www.european-agency.org/country-information/finland/publications-fi
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