Learning more than the lingo

Finland's Junior RoboCup #innokas2013 

The school I am currently on placement at in Finland invited me along to join Grade 6 on their trip to compete in Finland's Junior RoboCup (#innokas2013). I was not particularly familiar with the type of competition but it has been something I have wanted to experience for a while. I would say that this area of technology is definitely my weakest and I know that I only learn through trying and experiencing, and good news because I have only been here a day and have learnt so much already. 

(The opening ceremony) 

It is great to be in a exhibition centre full of children who know so much about something you know very little about. As a role reversal I am no longer the educator but the observer and learner, something I wish to always be as a teacher, learning as much as teaching. 

All of the robots are designed, programmed and built by the children using Lego Mindstorms software and equipment. 

The competition has 4 separate sub competitions.
1) Sumo - robots 'sumo' wrestling 
2) Football - can be played 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 
3) Rescue - robots compete a maze and complete various tasks 
4) Dance - dancing robots accompanied by groups dancing on stage As well as the results of games the teams are also marked 

 

(Sumo Arena) 

(Football Arena) 

(Rescue Track) 

(Dance Robot - Thrift Shop) 

I will be writing more posts and uploading new photographs as the competition continues. For live updates follow my twitter feed at @megandouglas26

Teaching in Finland

I am currently in Finland on my second year teaching placement for my BEd degree. I have been here teaching in Rovaniemi, Lapland for the past 4 weeks. The experience has been so incredible and refreshing and I will be really sad when I have to leave in two weeks.

I was not sure what to expect before I arrived but it has definitely exceeded all expectations. I think the main reason for this is that the way education is taught, run and delivered here is so much different to the UK. The differences are endless and I will name some of the main ones I have been fascinated by.

The school day 

The school day in Finnish schools is very different to the UK, this may not be the same in every school in Finland but that is one of the great things in Finland, the school day and the timetables are flexible and the school have a lot of freedom to how they are run. The class I am with rarely finish at the same time, for example on Monday the children start at 8 and finish at 1 yet on a Tuesday half of the class will come at 8 and then are joined by the other half at 10 for 2 hours before leaving at 12 and the other pupils staying an extra 2 hours. This makes teaching more digestible for both child and teacher, it is refreshing to plan for a lesson and actually get to teach it more than once. Despite the early finishes and most teachers leaving by three we have found ourselves at school until 6 being the last to lock up, maybe that is a English routine we just cannot get out of

Lunch 

Each lesson is 45 minutes followed by 15 minute break after every lesson with a 30 minute lunch break in the middle. For younger children such as my class (grade 2 - year 4) lunch can be as early as 10:30. Every child in Finland is given a free hot meal, there are no packed lunches, every child eats the same meal. Teachers also always sit and eat the same meal with the children, I believe this is such a great thing, children are well behaved and manners are kept. It also gives the teacher a chance to continue classroom relationships with the children but on a less formal basis. This time is also great for me to interact with the children in my class, with their English vocabulary being so little I set myself the target every day to learn what is for lunch in Finnish and I teach them in English. I have found that the more I show to make an effort to speak Finnish they will be more willing to have a go at English, it is a great exchange deal and has worked really well so far.

Textbooks 

To begin with I struggled with the idea that a lot of the core subjects in Finland are taught using textbooks, each child is given a workbook for subjects such as Maths, Finnish and Science in which they complete throughout the year. After hearing so much about creative teaching in Finland and my original thoughts that textbooks are everything primary education shouldn't be about I thought it was odd to find a lot of textbook based work in their lessons, however I have come to realise that they actually work in a very clever way. They are a great from of assessment and the input to topics and work is the most important part which is taught in creative forms and then the books re used to secure the learning, identifying any misconceptions and finalising the knowledge the children have acquired. 

Uniform

To me the no uniform has not been a massive difference as my own primary school and ther schools I have aught in did not ave a uniform sever t man of the ther trainee teachers here with me this was a major change. I am still unsure where I stand on the uniform debate, as much as I loved wearing my own clothes to school as a child I also could not wait to get t secondary school so I could uniform. They do not have this in Finland as they can always wear what they want, it is the norm and it important that the rule stands throw out their education so they know no different. I think if children are used to it and it is the normal then you do not have these suppsed problems that no uniform brings in the UK such as bullying etc. Every child in Finland is treated the same, there are not private schools as such and every child just gets to their local primary school, again I really think that it is refreshing, there is very little divide. I was surprised to see how fascinated the children in my class were when I showed them pictures of schoos and the uniforms in the UK. They were fixated and wanted to see more images, particularly of black school shoes (Finland schoos have a no shoe policy and pupils and teachers tend to wear slippers). 

 

Age of children 

In Finland children don't start school until they are 7. I am currently working with Grade 2 which are aged 8 and 9. It is very strange as they seem so much younger than they actually are. I have been trying to decide whether this is because they start school much older than in the UK or if children are just growing up too quickly in the UK. It really does beg the question of how long do children in the UK actually get the chance to be children, I find it very strange every day teaching a class of 18 year 4s yet I feel I have reception aged children staring back at me. Their intellect matches with the age but the social skills are completely different. The children here are very carefree which I feel some ages are beginning to lose in the UK. 

I have had an incredible experience so far and cannot wait to see what my last two weeks involve, every day is different in a Finnish school with new opportunities cropping up all of the time. This week I take an 11 hour coach journey to Espoo with one of the grade 6 classes to join them as they compete in Finland's Junior RoboCup competition. This is such a great experience for me as I am yet to have the proper opportunity to work with Lego mindstorms and such robotic equipment. 

You can follow live updates from my trip and the competition on my twitter feed - @megandouglas26

Perceptual Issues in Learning

Everyone is different. Everyone has different perceptions of and on things, objects, situations, ideas, philosophies.. the list goes on.

When set the task of writing a blog post about perceptions in learning and education I immediately and naively saw perception as just visual and that people might not see the same object the same as they are looking for a different angle. I soon realised that I was incredibly wrong. The whole subject and idea goes much further than visual and sensory perceptions. Or is it? My perception may be different to yours..

I personally believe that a large part of perception is about experience and previous experiences and knowledge that people may have which emphasise their own individual perception of something. These experiences along with education/background, beliefs and lifestyle combine to create an a individual perception or perspective.

So how does perception work in the classroom? Are the needs of individual perceptions catered for?

Some teachers link perception theories such as those by Carl Rogers and JJ Gibson to the VAK ‘learning styles’, but how far are the perceptions of a person linked to how that person learns?

This is still a question I am looking into and hopefully I’ll be finding out more and become closer to an answer while looking into perceptual theories over the next week.

Technophobia & Education

The latest module I'm studying on my course is EICT202 and looks at Psychological Perspectives in ICT. We were set the task to create a video on either Technophobia or Computer dependency and addiction.

I worked in a group to make a video on Technophobia and Education, here is the result:

If you want to see more videos and join in the conversation then check out the #eict202 hash tag on Twitter.

How I Learn

How do I Learn?

People. I believe that people are the absolute key in learning, at least in my learning anyway. You can learn from books, the Internet, maps and all sorts but I believe the main source of learning for me personally is through people. We are most in tune with people and others around us, not objects. Objects are a tool to aid our learning but I feel people are how we learn. I have never been one to pick up a book, read it and learn something, I may have got something out of it but it probably would not stay for too long. I have never been a learner who can sit and read, I was never and still are not one for exams, I dread them. Revision is the worst; I still to this day have not found a suitable revision method that suits my learning. I have found that I learn the best through people and experience, it is all about communication. I learn by communicating with people, sharing with people and experiencing something with people, I can read and watch but I need a context and people are my context. I have previously written a blog about inspiration and I believe that the two, learning and inspiration are heavily linked. My learning has been through being inspired by others, even reading other posts on ‘How I learn’ have inspired me to write my own post.

So how do People aid my learning?

I have always learnt through being inspired and experiencing learning in a different ‘fashion’. When learning I like things to be different, if I am going to learn anything from text and books it must be visual. I prefer the creative side of learning, making videos, using colour, acting out a piece (things that involve people). I have to have context added to my learning and what I do must stand out in my mind in order for me to keep it lodged in my tiny brain. As my learning has increased and developed I have found new ways in which I can learn, I think they have always been around but I have only just started noticing that I am learning from them. I now also use social media to learn, studying a degree with so much depth has opened me up to researching and learning for myself and one way I do this is through social media and creating an online network. I do this mainly through using Twitter and my blog but have learnt so much in the past year just through connecting and communicating – again, with people. Since starting my teacher training I have developing how I transfer my learning skills to others. I reflect a role which shapes and moulds how others live and learn, this is a very important job as I believe that each individual learns differently. We are always teaching and learning in some form or another and I believe that developing how I transfer my learning on to others is my new challenge and will always be one of my aims as a teacher. I am yet to discover exactly how to do this but each day I am learning and with people to support me I am excited for the future to continue learning.

 

I've written this blog post for @AnseoAMuinteoir who has set up a blog where others reflect on how they learn. It is a great blog and has inspired me greatly.

 

A Gem of a School

Today I started my second placement of my first year as part of my 4 year BEd primary teaching degree. I guess it is all getting a lot more serious now, this is a 5 week placement in which I'm in different surroundings, environment and facilities. However, from the minute I walked in I knew something was different about this school, it was calm, relaxed, friendly and certainly welcoming. It had been a long journey from Plymouth, google maps appeared to lie to us, either that or we took the wrong turning (neither my driving partner or myself as the 'co-driver' would admit this) but either way we found ourselves surrounded by fields, dodging tractors and kindly forcing other vehicles to back up as we hit up the incredibly tiny paths of the Devon countryside. We finally found our school, tucked away in a sleepy little village containing a church, pub and a incredibly small village shop which looked like it had been invaded before a severe storm with only little in the way of produce (6 coke cans and a bottle of soy sauce). It may only have been my first day with a mere 8 hours in the school however I strongly believe that we have found an absolute gem of a school, especially in such an unusual and hidden away location.

My first attraction to the school was just how friendly the staff were, I thought the staff were friendly in the school for my last placement but these members of staff really made the school something to be proud of. You can tell just how proud the staff are of the school too, they want to share their experiences, passion and knowledge with you and as a trainee teacher this is just what me and my teaching partner require. Teachers and schools can have knowledge, good facilities, good techniques but I feel I really learn something when the staff are completely passionate about the children and their learning environments. I could tell that the children felt this way too, they want to learn and are excited about learning, they feel they are apart of a growing and supportive community too of which I have been lucky enough to be welcomed in to. 

I have always shown a strong interest in multi-sensory learning and learning outside the classroom which is something that this school is incorporating heavily. As a child I attended a quite different school to others as it focused on teaching in a variety of ways, particularly using the environment and the senses. I have never heard or seen of another school like mine so I am so excited to be seeing this incorporated into another school and to see the techniques that they use to aid learning through outdoor learning experiences. 

This is the first time that I've worked with a mixture of foundation stage and year one's. It is a great opportunity and I have already learnt so much in a day. A lot of my experience prior to this placement has been with older years and KS2 so I have a lot of getting used to. Today I tried my hand at a little craft making, also setting up a controlled science investigation with the growth of sunflowers as well as some drama role play on keeping safe. I have never seen a day full of so many different activities and topics, it was fabulous. I can't wait for the next 5 weeks, they will be an eye-opener and a challenge but I am so looking forward to becoming more involved in the school and the class. 

I'll share some more experiences and they arise.

Inspiration makes the world go around

The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative: "flashes of inspiration".

The quality of having been so stimulated, esp. when evident in something: "a moment of inspiration in an otherwise dull display".

Inspiration has always been something I have relished in, this is mainly because I believe that inspiration reaches so many different people in many different ways. It covers such a wide range of things and I really do believe that it makes the world go round. For me, inspiration is closely linked to motivation - I feel that I become motivated through inspiration. Inspiration can start at the smallest and simplest thing, for example a stimulus or a quote, photograph, song all the way to a person, experience or a life.

Inspiration and motivation has got me where I am today, without inspiration from experiences and people I wouldn't be at University training to be a teacher. Teaching and education has inspired me greatly and is the main reason why I'm here, luckily for me I had a great experience with education and this is something I wish to pass on to the children I'll be teaching. I wouldn't say there were any teachers that solely inspired me to want to become a teacher but instead they have inspired me to teach others.

I have been so inspired in the last 4 months that I'm running out of room to hold it all, starting a BEd Primary Education with ICT specialism has been the greatest learning curve I have ever experienced. I have been so motivated and inspired by everything and everyone, I find it so strange how there was a whole different society of educators coming together to share ideas and build up professional learning networks that I knew nothing about. To me this has highlighted a just how much teachers should be made aware of this community - it offers so much and there are schools and teachers who are invisible to it's benefits. This is something I really wish to promote as a trainee teacher on school placement practices and particularly as a qualified teacher. The whole twitter and e-learning community of educators have really inspired me recently, not only with support and confidence but also helping me in understanding and developing work and content I'm currently studying.

On the 31st of January 2012 I attended a live stream of TeachMeet Roehampton (#TMRoehampton). It was my third TeachMeet and again did wonders in inspiring me, I was particularly motivated by the talk given by Claire Lotriet (@OhLottie) on Science in the Primary classroom. I have never been particularly confident in the subject until her wonderful talk 'Science in 7 Minutes'. Claire mentioned some absolutely great ideas and the best thing I find about them was that they were simple and I believe that has always been my worry with Science - I find it too complicated and I have always over complicated it for myself. As a teacher this can't come across in the classroom so I'm so glad that Claire shared her wonderful ideas, they have inspired, motivated me and ultimately given me confidence in my teaching. I'm now really looking forward to my core Science module that starts in a few weeks, I'm ready and prepared to take battle with my Science demons!

My last blog post 'Why Twitter?' looked at the use of Twitter and a little bit about my Twitter story and why I and others use it. I was inspired to do this blog post and video by a discussion that Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) started on Twitter about the use of Facebook and Twitter, he later blogged about his findings which is a really interesting read and can be found here - 'Me or the community?'. After reading the blog and being involved in the discussion it made me think about how I use social networking sites both personally and professionally - it lead me to Twitter as it is the site I use most frequently and have gained so much of both inspiration and motivation from. The feedback from my blog post has been astonishing and I'm still so surprised about the reaction I had to it, this has inspired me to continue blogging and simply get more involved with the professional aspect of Twitter.

Inspiration and motivation is such an important piece of the jigsaw of life, it keeps people doing the things they wish and achieving their dreams and ambitions.

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." ~Les Brown

So I ask, what inspires you?