This Portfolio summarizes my vocational teacher education
My vocational education studies began in 2013. I was then living in Connecticut, US so I couldn't begin VOC studies that year. I decided to complete all optional studies first. I had already finished the basics in education science (25 credits) in Tampere university, so I didn't have to do that as part of my pedagogical studies.
Optional studies were chosen so, that I can do the courses abroad. I chose exams that can be written outside the university and also courses where the requirement was to write an essay. These were my optional studies courses:
02.12 2013 AMMATILLINEN OSAAMINEN JA SEN ARVIOINTI / 3credits
(VOCATIONAL COMPETENCE AND ITS EVALUATION)
04.10 2013 PROOF OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION / 3credits
07.05 2014 OPETUSSUUNNITELMA OPETTAJAN TYÖN VÄLINEENÄ / 3credits
(STUDY PLAN AS A TOOL FOR A TEACHER)
01.06 2014 SOSIAALINEN MEDIA AMMATILLISESSA OPETUKSESSA / 2credits
(SOCIAL MEDIA IN VOCATIONAL TEACHING)
Optional studies were continued with VOC studies. They started in Oulu 5-6.6 2014.
The aim for these two days was to:
- get to know each other
- what does vocational pedagogy mean
- how our studies are going to be accomplished
- how our AC sessions are done
- how our blogs are made
I was familiar with writing a blog, however there were few new things I learnt to do to a blog. We were also divided into groups and in the future, we will make all our tasks in these groups. In addition to me, in my group were: Matei Gheorgiou, Anu Nordlund- Knuutila, Hanish Burthun and Anne Vierimaa. For a short period, Leni Willman was also in our team.
After our first online session we had our first group task: What does vocational pedagogy mean?
Here are few Power Point slides from our presentation in the 2nd online session:
Our group set few rules for our work. We agreed that each time, there will be one different person than before, who is responsible of "gluing" all the research that had been done before. This glue person will make a presentation out of the material that each group member will sent to him/her. We agreed first what is the presentation type and what kind of research each member will do.
5th online session and our 4th task was little different, as we had additional tutor in our AC meeting.
She was OAMK's legal expert Maarit Junkkari and she participated to the legal issues conversation. My task was to present the Personal Data Act to the other students and how this is relates into education.
Our 7th task was interesting as we had to consider group dynamics. This is essential in teaching work and I am not so familiarize in it. A very interesting theory I learnt during this task was Bono's Six Thinking Hats. This teaches how to process and give out information to the students. It's presented here:
This is excellent way of thinking e.g when one is working with big load of work at the same time. This enables one to get the most of the huge information load and work more efficiently with it.
9th online session was discussing about teaching practice and observation. This gave us some useful and practical information about this important part of our pedagogical studies. My teaching practice is planned to be done in Novia university of applied sciences in Vaasa. It is a Swedish speaking school, so I will teach in English there.
Observation:
http://ivetmaaritprocess.blogspot.fi/p/teaching-practice.html
Practice:
http://ivetmaaritprocess.blogspot.fi/p/teaching-practice_30.html
New Year began with VOC 11-15 studies. This was done in a new group and I got to do my final task with Anu Nordlund- Knuutila and Katja Laakkonen. Our task was to research and teach others about Special Needs Education. I had some teaching experience about this and could give some material towards our teaching from my work. Additionally, others researched the topic from different questions.
We agreed to do this course as Prezi presentation. This presentation will include all necessary material and the students needed to answer to two different questions. I like to do a lot of drawing, so we decided to make our presentation as a form of a cartoon. I made the Prezi presentation and others sent the material to me. Our presentation can be found here:
https://prezi.com/uivozpz9wr8j/copy-of-business-canvas/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Other groups completed online courses for the following topics:
- Working life orientation
- Global and multicultural activities
- Sustainability
- Entrepreurship
Global and Multicultural activities was created into a blog. It was very clear and nicely done course with all the necessary material in the blog or in videos which were found from the blog. There were few questions that I needed to answer. I also had to reflect my answers to this blog for the final question.
The blog is found here:
http://multiculturalskillsinaglobalworld.blogspot.fi/
This course broadened my view of how to take multicultural people into account in my teaching. I thought I am very open minded person, but this course made me even more open minded. One bonus in the course was that it was created by students from outside Finland.
Working life orientation course was also created into a blog. The structure was done differently, as there were two parts to accomplish the course. First two tasks introduced us the general information about working life in teaching and how this is taught. I think this is quite common subject as we have talked about this a lot in our studies. I have also written an essay about this earlier. I also teach in UAS where this is really important.
The next two tasks, especially task 3 was dealing teachers competences as working life teacher and how to develop themselves in the future as vocational teachers. This carries on to life long learning and to familiarize us as teachers constantly develop ourselves.
Blog can be found here:
http://workorientation.blogspot.fi
Entrepreneurship course was also as a blog format. It was combined with videos, questionnaires and reading. This course began with introducing us to inner entrepreneur "sisäinen yrittäjyys". I think the main message was that there is inner entrepreneur in every one of us, but I think not. There is not so much of an entrepreneur in myself, being an entrepreneur once. I work as a freelance designer and (unfortunately) make teaching jobs in various UAS's. I don't like it at all and would rather work in one place and not "sell myself" and my "services" to different places.
Entrepreneurship is part of our vocational education, as many who graduate will be an entrepreneur. This has to be taken into account in our teaching.
Blog can be found here:
http://opettajasalkku.blogspot.fi/p/entrepreneurship.html
Last course was sustainability. I honestly don't remember much about this course as it was created in such an unclear way. At first this open learning platform seemed really nice and professional. Unfortunately most of the links didn't work and I wasn't able to access the learning material. Questions in the course were unclear and I wasn't sure have I answered to all of the questions. It was frustrating and took too much time to try to get the material work. In the end, I got the links in an email and tried to finish the course as fast as I could.
course can be found here:
https://www.openlearning.com/courses/sustainablelearning
This module gave me a lot of different tools of how to create a course online. I learned how to use Prezi in my teaching and how to create teaching videos into You Tube. Other groups courses were interesting and fun to work with.
Teaching Practise: Observation
My observation was done in Novia UAS in Vaasa. The students major was Scenkonst, theatre and drama. I observed three teachers and three different classes. This was extremely helpful for my future teaching practice and planning my classes.
Most interesting and best learning experience was my observation in 1st year classes with teacher Gabriela Alisch. She really can make the classes versatile and can herself observe students so, that they learn the most effective way.
Students are always gathered in a circle that they can interact with each other
Students learning is also based on many different learning tasks and physical experience
Students move nearly all the time in the class. They also learn acrobatics, like in this picture.
Magnificent Power Points are not needed, writing together and discussing is more affective
Longer discussions are made in a circle, so everyone can see each other and teacher can observe them so that no one isn't loosing their concentration.
After seeing all this I decided to plan as many interactive tasks for the students as possible. My benefit was that they are theatre students and I can use play scripts, reading and writing as one of my tools in teaching.
More of my observation can be found from this blog under the tab Observation.
Teaching Practice
Latest learning of new technology in teaching is not going to help me in my teaching practice. On the other hand, my learning and understanding of how to create versatile and inspiring tasks will be beneficial.
My teaching practice was mainly teaching 2nd year students Finnish language course. After completing the course, students get 3 credits for it. In addition, I taught research methods to 3rd year students and I kept a 2 hour costume history lecture to every class (approx. 40 students).
I tried to make my classes as versatile as possible, with many tasks for the students to learn from.
Students learnt Finnish by reading Finnish play scripts and rehearsing them together. I realized that this was a good way for them to learn, they are familiar with acting and it is also interesting to them.
Playing Alias board game in Finnish was an excellent way to learn Finnish. Not that academical, but very effective and fun.
In 3rd years research method course I asked the students to discuss in pairs about their final thesis. Also in our additional discussion together, the tables in a half circle enabled them to interact more with each other.
Students preformed to the other classes in Finnish.
I used videos in my teaching, however the overhead projector was not working so we had to watch them from my laptop. A video is very good an additional way to show visual material.
Again, group discussion, rather than me talking for hours and hours at the front of the class room.
Students last task was to read B. Virtanen comics and a play about B. Virtanen. This way they could again learn a new way of writing Finnish language and get to know the characters from comics. Reading a script allows students to speak in Finnish in a way they are familiar with.
Play scripts were definitely a good way of learning. This was also said in students feedback. They also liked versatile teaching and positive, outgoing atmosphere during the course. This encouraged some of the not so fluent Finnish speakers to speak more than they thought they would.
My feedback from my tutor in the school was good and constructive. I had been in a good interaction with the students and asked many questions rather gave them direct answers. Apparently it shows that I have been teaching before. On the other hand, I should pay more attention to the classroom and how it looks. I should ask the students to tidy up the room, close the curtains and so on. This way they can concentrate more. At one point, students tables weren't in a half circle and it made students conversation more difficult. I should also pay attention to my own movement and speaking techniques. This is actually something I have wanted to learn for years! Videoing myself was a good thing, then I could see and hear myself teaching. However it doesn't teach me how to speak in a right way, without using too much of my throat = when my throat becomes sore.
Teaching practice was great experience. I hope to teach more in UAS level in the future. Unfortunately my field, the culture, is not funded very well at the moment in Finland and work is hard to get. I am not giving up though!
Safety in Novia University of Applied Sciences
Safety has been considered in many ways in Scenkonst program. There are several safety roles for teachers as well as for the students. When a students begins his/her studies in Scenkonst, safety is taken care of:
- s/he will first be examined by a UAS nurse. If there is/are issues, s/he will be then guided for further examination
- In the first weeks of school, 1st year students will closely work together in different groups by playing games, making intensive tasks and so on. This prevents bullying or other teasing in very effective way
- Beginning of 1st year, students create rules together of which they all agree and will obey
- In case of fire or other evacuation, who is responsible of the audience sitting on the left side of the stand
- In case of fire or other evacuation, who is responsible of the audience sitting on the right side of the stand
- find out where are the nearest fire exists
- in case of emergency, who is responsible of turning off the light and sound equipments
Teachers look after students and everyones safety by:
- Going through the safety plan with students every year
- Think of methods of avoiding dangerous situations
- Go through fire exits with students
- Practise evacuation and agree of a meeting point outside the building
- Inform students of the maximum person capacity in the school theatre
Copies of all previous safety issues are held in the schools office. This includes all injuries that have happened to the students, their sick leaves and so on.
In case of fire, these fire equipments are in every corner of the school building. Fire blankets are also found there.
In Scenkonst program, students might build a costume with a sewing machine or they build light simple sets for their set design on stage. These equipments are found from the school premises. Students are taught how to use e.g. a sewing machine or a drill. They need to inform the staff when they are using them.
There are also lacquers, spray paints and paints available. These are used with a permission of the staff.
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