Jari Aho from JAMK
Creative and partivcipatory methods and mentoring
Today we started with variety of warm-up activities.
1. All the students walk in the class then find 2 people and make triangle with them, but 2 people you are making even triangle with should not notice.
2. All the students walk in the class then everybody should find 1 person and follow him/her, but they sould not notice. At the same you shouls try to find your follower.
3. Everybody should stay in a circle according  to first letter of his/her name. Then somebody say his or her name and do a movement which others should repeat.
Afternoon activities:
1. To take picture that you like then find a person who has similar picture and talk to him/her.
2. We have used methods of piramid when people work individualy, then discuss in group of 2 then in group of 4.

 International and multicultural week by Riitta Metsänen, D.Ed., Principal Lecturer & Leila Nisula, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer

 The question was what do we mean by multicultural teacher in this context?
A teacher who is teaching a class where  students come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds or the teacher´s background differs from his/her class's major ethnic and cultural background.

A teachers´multicultural competence could be divided into three/four dimensions:

1.Knowledge

2.Skills

3.Attitudes and personality characteristics

Skill competition and excellence in skills.

A number of terms used by teachers to describe "gifted" students: bright, talented, high flier, exceptionally able. Teachers use these terms to refer to students who have demonstrated particular abilities and for whom different educational provision is needed (Thomson, 2006, p 3). Definig giftedness has progressed from a one-test and one-fixed construct  approch centering on intellectual giftedness to the concept of multiple talents or intellegence (George, 2003). One definition says that gifted students have the potentional to demonstrate superior perfomances in a number of areas and talented refers to those who do this in single area (George, 2000 cited by Thomson, 2006). Gagne proposed model of giftedness and talent where giftedness is the potential or aptitude within an individual and that this can be developed into talent by environmental  or other factors. 

05-09.05.14
Special needs education

Main ideas that we could point out from the lessons is following:

 School should not be separated from the society because processes in society influence on school and conversely. Also everybody should be within the limits of the system that's why geverment tries to take care  of everyone. 

Not all the children with disabilities may have learning disabilities. 

Special needs education in Finland is based on the law that everybody has the  right to learn.  The goverment's policy on special needs education  can be seen by example of Kiipula Vocational College. Kiipula Vocational College is a centre of vocational education and a development centre for special education. This college provides study possibilities for students with special needs. It also provides services adult education, rehabilitation, and work life development.

Main principles of special education:

Students with special needs

• Inclusion into common groups

• Integrated groups

• Qualification training in special education follows the national core curriculum

• Individual adaptations are possible

• Each student has Individual Education Plan + Individual Study Plan

23.04.14
Paivi Pukkila

Study counselling 

The main statment was "Counsellors do not give answers and it is not therapy". Students should not ask everything they sould be able to devise their own individual study plan, identify problems relaiting to their studies. 

There is no counselling from 1 to 6 grades in Finnish schools it starts from 7 grade. Counsellors have high level of autonomy so they can decide themselves what and how to do in counselling. However they sould follow some rulls and plans. 

Counselling can be one of the reasons of success on PISA. 

Tutoring is the one of the way of counselling when second grade (upper secondary school) students can be consalled by counsellor to help first grade students. Sometimes students can counsell each other.
It was very exciting to know what it feels like. We have counselled each other and have been counselled as well by collegs. We was using catalytic style of intervention that mostly was realized by asking open questions and giving right directions for counselled person. 

Assessment of learning and competence

It is important when assessment is based on the curriculum's objectives and descriptions of good perfomance rather than when  assessment is based on comparing students  with each other. However creating competetive environment is also important to move students' progress forward. So teacher sould find balans between two ways of assessment. 

Taitaja2014 in Lahti

It was one of the amazing educational event I have ever seen. before I have attended International seminar "Workbased Learning as a Sustainable Practicein Vocational Education and Training" combined with the Finnish National Skills. I visited Taitaja 2014 in Lahti that is Finland's biggest annual event in vocational education. About four hundred students take part in the competition. Taitaja2014 held at the Lahti Fair Centre and it is organised by Salpaus Further Education.  In the Taitaja national skills competition, young professionals compete in 45 different skill categories like avtomomile technology, printing technology, ventilation technology etc. 

Pedagogical model

eLearning/mLearning and pedagogical model

Jukka Niinimäki

1. Web as distribution tool  and product is at center

2. Web as learning environment and learning process is at center

I have made up Pedagogical model by combining different approches like Flipped class, Problem based learning with mobile tools. 

2.04.14

Some concepts from Jouni Enqvist:

1. Authentic learning is basic idea when students are interested in what they are learning and more motivated to learn new concepts if what they are learning is relevant and they are applicable to their lives outside of school.

2. Scaffolding in education - it refers to a variety of techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and independence in the learning process.

3. Relevance in education -  the term refers to situation when learning is connected to an individual interests or it is connected to real-world problems.
4. ZPD (Zone of proximal development)

New web site:
http://www.freewebarcade5.net/media/the-scale-of-the-universe-2.swf
http://www.webelements.com/
http://www.nclark.net/Biology
http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.hamk.fi:2048/ehost/search/basic?sid=d50aeb6a-119d-4b86-b294-8a7f2884dbfd%40sessionmgr4005&vid=1&hid=4106
http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

1.04.14

Jouni Enqvist

21st Centuty skills 

We were talking about  a list of skills well-known as "21st Century Skills" (http://www.imls.gov/about/21st_century_skills_list.aspx) and discussed how much they are appropriate to different subjects. I found out that not every skill is suitable for every subject but in different degree they can be used by teachers and students. 

STEM integration

How to motivate students to learn? If students know why and what they are  learning  they will be more motevated.  Students should be able to transfer their knowledge and skills from one subject to another. So it can be possible by making connections across disciplines. 

LUMA Luonnontiede ja matematikka

Also it was interesting to found out about levels of integration like sequenced, parallel, partial, enhanced and total. 

Some usefull websites were offered by Jouni Enqvist:

 http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm - is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services contributed and used by an international education community.

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/discussions/ - math forum 

http://www.howstuffworks.com/ - is the award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works.

http://www.hippocampus.org/ - is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge.

http://eu.ixl.com/ - IXL is  about helping students learn maths

http://www.learnerstv.com/ - is a comprehensive site providing downloadable Video lectures, Online Tests.

31.03.14

Jouni Enqvist

Pedagogical Content Knowledge 

Today we have learnd Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and Technological Pedagogical Content knowledge (TPCK). PCK is the result of combination of Content knowledge (CK) and Pedagogical knowledge (PK). So it means that  teachers should be aware about both sides. Nowadays PCK has been losing  its actuality because tecnologies are coming into education and PCK is transforming into TPCK. 

Also we have learnd using apps in teching in particularly Wolfram Demostration  Project. This resource uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology and a large list of other areas http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ and Wolfram Alpha introduces absolutly new way to get knowledge and answers by doing dynamic computations based on a huge collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods https://www.wolframalpha.com/

Jounis collection: http://staff.hamk.fi/~jenqvist/Kev2014/StartingPage.htm

26/03/14
New things from Sanna Ruhalahti

From Sanna's lesson I found out about two applications of Google: Google forma and Google site https://sites.google.com/site/dumansapakov/. I have learnd how to use this apps in my further work. Using Google forma can help to prerare questionnaire and tests for students and it is easly analysed. To analyse the results of test or questionnaire you can use Flubaroo as well. The Google site is very good base to create your own site and make your work more nteresting and more efficient.

25.03.14

Trip to Riihimaki

1. We have attended a comprehensive school in Riihimaki and we were talking to teachers. We saw home economy class. It differs from what we do in Kazakhstan because usually we divide class into two groups by gender.
2. In Riihimaki lukio Aleksi Lahti was talking about the project "Digi-ope" led by him and funded by National bord of education of Finland. He coordinates 8 upper secondary schools in Tavastia Proper. He tests devices and applications beforehand to find out their functional opportunities. Not every teacher is glad to meet this project. Reasons: lack of free time at work, don't want to do it after work, conservatism. The thing was very surprised him was that gerls are more enthusiastic in using iPad than boys.

Useful for me: msocrative.com http://m.socrative.com/student/#joinRoom - time saving site. It is posiible to create tests, check them automatically here and get statistics. 

Dialogical learning methods and knowledge creation

Criteria of dialogue

as equals

symmetrically

listening word for word

suspending and wandering 

inquiring

weaving and synthesis

I think these criteria are key things of that we have learnd from Helena Aarnio's lessons. 

Different kind of conversation 

Discassion     Dialog     Debate    Negoutiaten

Good listner 

understanding language and content of conversation
attention and concetration 
overcome your prejudices 
interesting 

Meeting with principal of Kaurialan Lukio.

  Today we had a meeting with Tuomo Iltanen. He is a principal of Kaurialan Lukio of Hameenlinna. It is the biggest upper secondary school in Hameelinna with  570 students and 32 teachers. He was talking to us about the main features of Finnish schools in terms of Kauriala. At the begining we were talking about Finnish education in general. When we touched upon the subject of number of students we found out that the number of students in one class depends on grade (1 grade < 25; 2-6 grades < 30; 7-9 grades <24), but I was surprised to hear that in upper secondary school the number of students can be more than 40. Mr. Iltanen explained us that the main reason of this situation is  money, in other words the more students they have the more money. 
  Also he told us things that were related to  management in school. That was familiar question for us because when we were talking to principal of Seminaarin koulu he told a little bit about it.  So we could concider style of management in Seminaarin koulu in comparison with Kaurialan Lukio. We found some similarities and differences like lower power distance between principals and teachers. Principals in this schools try to build encoraging atmosphere for teachers and students. Both say that they always try to support teachers and students and they are very proud of their staff. Collaboration between teachers in both schools is based on team work and teamwork is organised by different ways like team with teachers from different subjects or team with teachers from the same subject. But the differences concerned time that teachers can spend for the meetings because as Mr. Iltanen said in Kaurialan teachers can get money for participation. Seminaarin teachers organise this work voluntarily and they can decide what kind of topic they want to discuss and when they want  to gather for meeting. 

   Also I was interested in cross-curricula themes because Mr. Iltanen said that they have difficulties with them. Cross-curricula themes should go through all the subjects and sometimes it is hard to take into account this themes when you teach topics of subject.  It would be usefull to find out what they do to solve this problem.

How we attended Primary school.

Today we attended the primary school which is called Seminaarin koulu. We had meeting with school's principal and vise principal. They presented us some information about life of school. We had an opportunity to see different classes, lessons and we were talking to teachers as well. In particular we could see Finnish attitude to educational process, that they try to create equal learning environment for every students and encouraging atmosphere for teachers. It was very interesting and I hope that we will continue to work closely.

Hello everybody! Welcome to my blog!
Since October I have been studying at HAMK University in Finland.