VOC

2015 - After 2nd Online Session

Our group had a discussion in AC room after IVet groups session. In the main session, we just asked possible questions of our becoming teaching and our head Juha Pousi went through again same slides that he showed us last time. A bit boring. Luckily it was over in an hour and we got to discuss our own task. We had a great idea of converting the key points in special needs education into a cartoon. We are going to have an example student in the cartoon and trough a story, we will explain our topic with added power points, videos etc. 

When I started drawing, I enjoyed so much! 

Why all my work can't be like this? 

We haven't decided yet where to present this material. I tried Thinglink - web tool, but didn't manage to do much with it. It sounds great, but for some reason I am not able to add any videos or images from my computer to the canvas. Only the background picture... 

Then I tried Prezi, which might be the most convenient presentation format for us at the moment. We can't spend too much time trying different presentation formats, so this might be the one. I still don't know all the possibilities in Prezi, but the others might know. We will have a Skype meeting this evening!

NEW YEAR! BEGIN VOC THEMES 11-15

New year began with online session on the 9th of January. A day before this session, we got new  tasks into the optima page. There were five themes and each group will take the responsibility of one theme. 

Themes for the last VOC tasks are:

1. Global and multicultural activities
2. Entrepreneurship
3. Working live orientation
4. Sustainability (sustainable development)
5. Special needs education

We were divided into new groups. I am working together with Anu Nordlund-Knuutila and Katja Laakkonen. Our group is going to teach topic 5. Special needs education to the other IVet students. Additionally, we will do other groups tasks which they have developed to us. This way everyone will learn all topics in the previous list. 

We began with familiarizing ourselves with the given topic. Then we had a Skype meeting and discussed who is investigating and what in this subject. I dogged myself into the special needs education law and individual study plan / HOJKS.

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Here are my notes from this session:

• The students will take responsibility of their own theme groups

• The group will do research on the given topic, plan teaching sessions (example: create PLE’s, blogs and/or videos) 

• Teach other groups like they are real students

• No powerpoints

• Key words for teaching: Interaction, innovation, feedback, distant learning.

• ASSESSING THIS THING IS ONE POINT, this comes at the end of the teaching.

• Example for teaching: Participate in facebook, write an essay might be too much to do, comment a blog?

PROBLEMATIC AREAS:

How to reach everyone?

How to make sure that everyone responds?

How to evaluate in fair manner?

What environments to use in teaching?

Is facebook or blog enough?

14.1 – tutoring Q & A

21.1 groups will present their work for other students

PROCESS

THEME – learn about the subject

Learning the subject – reading, understanding, choosing learning environments, fill in and send the PLAN

CREATING the learning environments

Teaching activities – learning activities – assessing your students

Final assessment (download from optima) write of other groups learning and also assess your own learning, and your own group learning, how did you participate group work

Ground rules and schedules

Create and carry out learning activities in your group

Show that you can apply the themes in your own field of work

03.12 2014 10th Online Session / task 8

Assessment and Evaluation: Task for the tenth session came so late that our group had to make it routinely without any surprises or creative presentations. We divided the given material- as usually- into four parts and one person was responsible of putting all the material together into a power point presentation. I read material of Peter Jarvis and mainly bullet pointed out his theories of how institutes are also assessed and evaluated when competing for more student enrollments. 

26.11 2014 9th Online Session 

This time we didn't have any tasks and the focus of the online session was teaching practice. Last summer, when the first information about the the teaching practice was given, I was confused and worried of where I will find my practice place. Main worry was the teaching language, as it needs to be english. At first I was thinking to go abroad - but which school is running during the summer, as I am working in the spring? Then I figured out a place to do this!

I am asked to hold two courses in Novia University of applied sciences in Vaasa. The department where I will teach is only focusing on theatre studies. I have taught scenography (set and costume design) there before, so this school is familiar to me. Students there are very creative and inspiring.  This school is Swedish speaking and most of the students don't speak fluent Finnish, so I teach in English. Fantastic!

Website for the drama school and for the drama course (only in Swedish) http://scenkonst.fi and  http://www.novia.fi/utbildning/kultur/dramainstruktor-yh/

Teaching practice in my studies consists two parts - observation and teaching. A student can't do the teaching before the observation has been completed. 

My observation is planned for the last week of February, as then is the winter holiday in schools in Tampere and I have a week off from work. I will spend four days in Vaasa and I will follow various classes all day, including the ones I am teaching in few weeks time. During this observation week, classes will be studying directing in theatre, pedagogical theatre project / education in theatre, improvisation and acrobatics. 

My only concern is consisting the subject of what I will be teaching to the drama students:

My teaching is planned for the last week of March and first week of April. I will be teaching research methods for the drama students as they are on their third year and will be preparing for their final project. I addition, I will be teaching Finnish language and costume history. I hope I am still able to include all this as my teaching practice, even if I am teaching Finnish language and research methods. Students are anyway from my field and all my tasks and material are theatre related, so this way I can make it more to "my field". Costume history classes are my special area and I am really looking forward to those lectures. Only problem is how to squeeze all history of costume into few hours of lectures!!

Before starting the teaching practice, I need to write a core plan. Here are some notes to consider when writing a core plan:

- Understanding the rules of the institute

- Hidden curriculum = rules like clothing, no tattoos, no piercings etc.

- Theories

- Traditions

- Your own preferences

- Experience

- Why do you teach the way you teach?

And notes about the observation:

Create and maintain a diary,

-       - create a core plan based on what you have observed

-       and last the TEACHING PRACTICE:

-       - Guiding teacher should observe you while you are teaching

       

      Notes about teaching part: 

  -       Maintain a diary of the teaching

-       Final report of the practice period

12.10 2014 8th Online Session / task 7

This was my first online session where I had technical problems. I think it was about time, it's amazing to have had 7 online sessions without any problems. For some reason, my part of the slides in our group's presentation didn't have all the material that I made. Well, never mind, I improvised and told what I had to tell about cooperative learning in groups of different people. I was also fortunate to have Anne in the same session room and while I was looking for better slides from my computer, she told few things about our subject and asked others to watch a YouTube video. 

However, here is my part of the presentation attached:

How attention seeker in a group or in a class environment affects on passive students study motivation and activity? 

I used cooperative learning method to organize groups so, that everyone gets to participate within the group

We worked the same way as a group before this task. Matei was in Canada and he was 7 hours behind us in time, but this was not a problem as our Skype meetings were in the evenings. We familiarized ourselves with the material and shared our group's questions together. My task was to find different roles in classrooms, but I didn't find anything from the sources that were given to us. I googled roles such as "leader" and "follower" but I found nothing which was good for this task.

I decided to join two questions in one and presented collaborative learning material with different roles in a group. This ended to these slides, where different personalities naturally have or get certain roles in groups. By using collaborative learning, different people could get certain tasks in group work and everyone can work equally.

I collaborative learning, the basic method for group work is that the group sit's together in a circle and face each other. When students face each other, they are more into the work and can't skip it as easily.

Group members are given different roles, as presented in the first slide. These roles makes them to work more effectively and how they work the best naturally.
This method is very handy to use, but requires from the teacher to know his/her students personalities.

Luckily there is no group task for next online session! I can concentrate more on this blog during the next week.

29.10 2014 7th Online Session / task 6

How to activate your students and keep an engaging lecture? This was the topic for our seventh online session. Guides to accomplish this task told us to watch a video from Oamk website: 

http://www.oamk.fi/amok/ammatillinen_opettajankoulutus/opiskelijalle/opetusvideot/?video=5

The key points from this video

  

                           - divide lecture structure into 3 parts

                           - at first, ask questions what do students know about the topic

                           - argue why this topic is important

                           - conversation first gets students attention and activates

                           - while teaching, ask questions and make small tasks

                           - once taught the topic, repeat what you have taught 

                           - possibly ask students to write a summary of the topic

When we started our online session, I was confused at first as the presentations were in the main room. Also, the requirement for the task was not to prepare any material/powerpoints/pdf etc. and the first group presenting had a pdf to show. This made me confused, I wasn't sure how we are supposed to present, why others have pdf to show and we have nothing... I realized that this uncertainty made my presentation weaker. As a group, we had agreed to know all the presentation material, as we thought we will present it by ourselves in one of the rooms. As we we presenting everything in the main room, we had to email to each other in the middle of the online session to make sure we know which parts everyone will present.

Our presentation went OK in the end, but was more hassle than in the previous times...

07.10 2014 6th Online Session / task 5 

Our 5th task was to familiarize ourselves with different teaching methods. There were about 40 different types of method to teach and we had to present one. We agreed to pick one that no-one had used before and we decided to present a method called Teaching Walk. To summarize, in Teaching Walk teacher gives a subject for the students. Then after this, students are given a time how long they walk and an area within to walk. Students go out and in pairs or in small groups they walk together and discuss about the given subject. Walking helps them to develop ideas about the subject. 

In our task, my part was to present this virtual method to use Teaching Walk in teaching. Action Track is a software, where teacher can add questions to different points in a map, which students follow from their iPads or phones. This activates students and they can learn by doing. 

This doesn't necessary support the original idea of Teaching Walk method in teaching. One of the main ideas for Teaching Walk is to make students to walk around and talk about a certain subject. By discussing and moving the same time, they develop new ideas. 

Action Track is good for learning outdoors and this can be developed into different activating teaching methods if one is not able to purchase the software. 

One of our members of the group, Anu, tried Teaching Walk in one of her classes. Feedback from Anu and her students was:

                                 - task for discussion has to be fairly simple

                                 - directions for the walk has to be very exact 

                                 - students felt that it did help them to discuss better, but also felt a bit confused

                                 - perhaps doing this in outdoors rather than in school would help them to discuss  

                                   about the subject better

23.09 2014 5th Online Session / task 4

This online session included additional tutor in the Adobe Connect online meeting. OAMK's legal expert Maarit Junkkari took part of the conversation and commented on everyone's presentations. This time, we were not divided into separate rooms. We shared our presentations to everyone in the iVet group. 

My part included the personal data act and this is very well summarized in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ByVaZ0rg8U

HOW TO TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT IN TEACHING?

Personal data act protects our personal information, which is collected through our lives by various places, eg. supermarket chains (if you own a points card), credit card companies, magazine companies and even the internet. Personal data can be used for scientific, historical or genealogical research purposes. This means, that there has to be a proper reason for collecting this kind of data. 

Before next online session

Next task was more difficult, as it was about the laws and registrations in teaching. There were five different materials of which we had to make a presentation and we divided it all among us. Everyone read one law text and made power points of about two to three slides about the main ideas of the law. My task was to read about Personal Data Act 523/1999, which is, in a summary, a law that protects the detailed information of any private individual. 

17.09 2014 4th Online Session / task 3

Our group's question this time was to explain and discuss What Role do Learning Styles and Strategies have in Study Guidance/Tutoring/Teaching. We concentrated on visual, kinesthetic and auditory teaching and learning. We also discussed about the characteristics of this kind of student and made our own VAK (Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic) tests. What kind of learners are we ourselves?

We had a discussion first about various VAK tests and how reliable are they. At the beginning of the presentation, as asked everyone to make a test themselves and discuss about the results. One very simple test was also recommended by our lecturer Juha Pousi:

http://www2.amk.fi/mater/kauppa_ja_talous/demand_forecasting/vak.php

We also agreed that most of us are people who learn the best way of combining all of these different methods. This is what we have to think of when we plan our classes and homework. We need to use at least the following methods:

- Writing notes (kinesthetic and visual)

- Show images / draw simple images (visual) 

- Explain things and repetition (auditory) 

- Discussion (kinesthetic and auditory)

- Assignments, which include own research, reading, writing and discussion

Another group introduced interesting study method called Progressive Inquiry. Here is some information from their slides:

●Process where students set up their own research, questions and working theories (the way real scientific research communities do)

●Teacher or tutor is systematically guiding the work of the learning community, but the students are in charge of developing shared ideas, perceptionsand research processes

I thought this was a very useful way to combine this to group work!!
However, we discussed this theory and mirrored it towards other similar methods and agreed that this is very similar to various research methods...

●Progressive Inquiry, unlike other approaches, provides a framework for understanding what are called "innovative knowledge communities"

●Many of the other cyclical learning approaches focus on the *individual* and his cognitive processes. For example, Kolb's learning model makes no mention of community or joint inquiry

●Progressive Inquiry, by contrast, focuses on the new *collective knowledge*which emerges when individuals and communities reflect on and expand their learning/working activities

Before fourth online session

Our group agreed via email, that we will continue working as before: we decided our task into five parts and will make research for our topic. Also we agreed to Skype a week before our fourth online session. 

My task was to find methods how to teach visually impaired students. I found this very interesting, as I have one student like this in the school where I teach at the moment. I also found out that many ways to teach this kind of students were very close to either kinesthetic or auditory methods. Obviously visual methods weren't possible to use! 

I sent my material to Hanish on time, who was responsible to put all our slides together and make a PowerPoint presentation from them. All the work load was running smoothly, as we have begun expert in this!

25.06 3rd Online Session / task 2

I arrived from England the previous night, so I was kind of exhausted when we had our online session. I saw our finished power point presentation the same morning, so unfortunately I wasn't as prepared as the others. Never mind, my presentation went OK and we had some interesting discussions during the presentation. I think that the key thing within the presentations are discussions, as then we can hear other peoples opinions and reflect our opinions to others. 

We didn't have our third task ready online and we agreed to have a holiday now. It was a good idea, as the summer had really started now and we were heading down to the summer cottage. Back to school in August!

18.06 2nd Online Session / task 1

I was the first to present our work in the online session. Our powerpoint presentation was already downloaded into the virtual room, so I didn't have to worry about messing up when sharing it from my own computer. It was also really interesting to hear other group presentations and the nearly four hour session didn't feel too long. We had a group meeting in Facebook after this online session and agreed what everyone will do in our next task. 

Our second task was:

What challenges/demands does working life set for vocational education?

We had a Skype meeting the next day and clarified what everyone will do. I was traveling to England for the Midsummer, so I did my work the same day. This was one of the reason why I put up the presentation last week, as it is quite a big task and I didn't have time to do it this week. 

We were given articles that consisted the information for our question. My task was to read and analyze an article about: Vocational education and training organizers are expected to closer co-operation. This article, translated in english, can be found online from https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=fi&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oph.fi%2Flehdistotiedotteet%2F2013%2F045&edit-text=&act=url 

My main points for this question were: 

     Industry changes: 

      - vocational schools need to provide education which is matching with the industry 

      - schools have to forecast: is the industry going up -> more study places

                                               is the industry going down -> reduce study places

     Vocational schools are encouraged to make more co-operation with the local industry

       - this helps to make economic growth and development strategies locally 

       - helps to plan regional employment and training needs 

11.06 First online session at 12.30 

My first online session went technically well, I didn't have any technical problems at all. Many people did have some- few students couldn't hear anything during the first hours. The main reason for this session was to try out our computers and speakers, as well as discuss about our weekly group tasks. Our group was mage bigger and we had two participants more. This was good news, as if someone is off sick or has important duties, there are still enough people to make and present the weekly task.

Group Behaviorism is: Maarit Uusitalo, Leni Willman, Anu Nordlund- Knuutila, Matei Gheorgiou, Hanish Burthun and Anne Vierimaa.

Our tasks are found from our Optima page and the first task for our group was:

What does vocational pedagogy mean? (The stress is on the word “vocational”) What parts do vocational pedagogy studies consist of?

Our group started to write down their own thoughts about this topic. Some group members feared that we are going to write same things and we should divide this topic, but it is too simple issue to be divided. As I thought in the first place, everyone had written different things, even though the question is the same for all of us. 

We had a session in Skype on the following sunday and went through our work. Then we agreed that with every task, one person is the one who will collect all the material and put it together. This person is also doing the least researching in the beginning of the task. I think our group works really well and everyone takes their responsibilities seriously. 

I was the first person to put up our presentation. Because it is still early in our studies, I made a powerpoint presentation instead of magnificent virtual experience :-)

I sent it to all of my group members by monday night and they commented in time, so I could forward the completed task to our teacher Juha Pousi.

05-06.06 2014 Oulu OAMK

05.06 2014 9.00 - 16.00
Majority of this day went to discussing general issues in our teaching studies. Getting to know each other was planned so, that we made a short video about ourselves, our backgrounds and our expectations towards these studies. The purpose of the video was to familiarize ourself with video material and how to talk to the camera.

It was a hot and humid day, which made the classroom uncomfortable. However the atmosphere was great and it was so nice to be part of such an international group! I loved it!

06.06 2014 9.00 - 16.00
Our class was divided out into four different groups. My group was called "behaviorism" and there were three other students in my group: Matei Gheorgiou, Leni Willman and Hanish Burthun. We made a video about the topic "behaviorism" and other groups made their own videos with other topics. This took half of the day and was quite nice.

In the afternoon we were told more about the study path in vocational teacher studies and how to login into Optima and our virtual meeting room. Also one great information was how to create this blog. Even though I have done several blogs before, I haven't included different pages into my blog. On my way back home, I wrote a lot of material about my previous teaching experiences and so on.