COMMENTS ON FINAL PRESENTATIONS - Marta Moyano

Ø  INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS

     This topic was developed by two groups. The first one. Amigos del Football, was focused on the main authors and their theories. The second one, Unknowns was more focused on the development of this theories and putting them in practice.

Amigos del Football

They started giving the difference between inclusión and integration. The integration process is related with culture and with creating a multicultural environment. The inclussion process is about creating an environment of diversity of culture, abilities, etc.

As I have mentioned before, this team was focused on the main authors of inclusive schools and their theories wich are the following:

•   Gordon Porter stablish thatt education must be based on equity and quality and effective use of resources.
• Tony Booth supports the supportive comunities and improving schools for staff as for students
•  Mel Ainscow taleks about the inclussion process, “measure what we value rather than value what we can measure”.
•  Gerardo Echeita defend the  idea of changing the cultrure and the poilicy in the schools and putting inclusive education into practice.

There were several barriers for the effective introduction of the projects of inclusive schools. The main barriers are the policies stablished and and diversity (attitudinal and conceptual), didactics (teaching-learnig). There is a close relationship between the second and the third barrier: there exists different types of teachers with differents ways of thinking and teaching so here is the point were the project of inclusive schools (where teachers have to work in the same direction and in the same way as a group) breaks.

Apart from this, Amigos del Football mentioned the strategies for the construction of an inclusive school, wich were:

•      Create inclusive cultures
•      Produce inclusive policies
•        Evolve inclusive practices

Finally, they putted us two videos from two different schools.

This first one was O Pelouro School. The main ideas of this video were that all students were together, never separated according to their abilities and that they decided about its learning process.

The second school was Amara Berri’s, which the main idea was that there was more tan one teacher by classroom. In this way, dealing with the students is easier and learning processes more effective.

The Unknowns

My group developed the second part of inclusive schools. We were more focused on the practice of inclusive schools projects.

Inclusive education is the process that has to develop the society to ensure the learning and participation of all: students, teachers and parents in school life, with attention to diversity and vulnerability.

The main ideas are not leaving anyone out, promote equal opportunities, democracy and justice, seek coordination of the various agents and formative environments, promoting dynamism and interaction between institutions, be aware and finally enhance the concept of the school as an educational community.

The benefits that these ideas will provide are develop individual strengths and gifts, work on individual goals while participating in the life of the classroom, involve the parents, foster a school culture of respect and belonging, opportunities to learn about it and accept individual differences, develop friendships and positive affect to appreciate diversity and inclusion on a broader level.

The barriers here are the same that in the first part of the Project: policies, culture and didactics (different ideologies and ways of doing things).

          For finishing the presentation about Inclusive Schools we posted two videos of two different inclusive schools.

The first video was from Padre Piquer Center. This school grew as a solution for an unfavourable situation of a neighbour in Madrid. This school fights against the socioeconomic factor, as every student have to have an equal and quality education dispite their socioeconomic situation. Padre Piquer center also deals with diversity, has stabliseh multitasking classroom were cooperative learning is carried out, they have a different class environment: there are more tan one teacher per class and students are all together, never separated according to their abilities.

The second video was from Sadako School. This center based the learning process on learning doing, experiencing and puttin into practice in real life what they learnt. They were also focused on innovation, as technology is part of our lifes it must be introduced in the school environment. Besides, they  supported role distribution where children face different roles and finally they have to do a working notebook writing what they have donde and how.

               In conclusion, the Project of Inclusive School is posible but for introducing them completely we need everyone support. Apart from that, we need to break the barriers and finally try to do our best as teachers.

Ø  ICT’s AND LEARNING DISABILITIES – Crónicas Viajeras

This group talked about disabled children and how ICT’s could help them.

They focused mainly in the most common disabilities which are: autism, down syndrome and motor disabilities.

First they talked about autism. Autist children have difficulties of socialization, language, thoughts and imagination. For them they used tablets and cameras with specific Apps to help them to deal with their diabilities. The results shown that autist children started to be more integrated.

Next, they explained the down’s syndrome disabilities, wich were distractions, little initiative, por differentiation between old and new stimuli. Whiteboards, games (pictograms, just dance, sing star) were used with down syndrome children, what resulted that they helped children to memorize and concéntrate.

Finally, they presented the characteristics of children with motor dissabilities wich were: physical and motor difficulties and a big problema for these children was the unadaptation of the facilities. Mp3s, computers and laptops were used and finally the results showed that this kind of ICT’s helped them to adaptate, communicate and for feeling comfortable.

       In conclusion, ICT’s help disabled children to improve, integrate and foster their desire to participate in the class environment. 

              

Ø  ICT’s  AND IMPROVEMENT SCHOOLS – Team Perk

Team Perk talked about ICT’s in schools and how can they improve the learning and development processes of children.

This Project with ICT’s first focused on teachers and how the introduction of new technologies would affect them as sometimes children know more about their use than teachers. The solution to this problema was to organise courses for teachers for increasing their technological knowledge. This can be a profitable action but if we do in the right way. The introduction of ICT’s in school has to be done in the right way and if not there will appear some advantages and disadvantages. Here was where the idea of HOW could we introduce ICT’s comes.

They talked about teaching children to use technologies: they have to be critical and they need to know some strategies. Apart from this, they will use technologies in educational platformas such as wikis or blogs, to search infromation, videos, to make projects and to share information.

Then they also  talked about the materials we could use: ipads, robots, computers, etc. This helped children to innovate their way of learning as it is an innovation in the way teachers teach.

In conclusion, introducing ICT’s in school environment is a great idea as is a new way of teaching and learning and that enjoy children but we have to be carefull with social networks and student’s privacy. New technologies improve the relationships between teachers ans students as it makes them interact. A new way of teaching is near!

Ø  SOCIOEMOTIONAL LEARNING – Wanderlust

Socioemocional learning is based on neursoscience, multiple intelligences and psychoneuroinmunology.

What we get with socioemotional learning? We increase social skills and satifying interpersonal relationships, decrease violence, increase good academic performance.

Methodology followed to carry out socioemotional learning is to work emotions everyday, work empathy and asertiveness, expent some minutes at the beginning of the lesson to mins express feelings. 

Finally, we, as teachers, have to help them to feel happy. In this Project they suggested to work with multiple intelligences: work in projects with teachers help, work with mutiple intelligences and create an emotional intelligence week. They also foster cooperative learning as they consider is a good way to create frendship, positive reinforcement, feel comfortable, feel accomplished, etc. All of these projects CAN STOP BULLYING.

                Then, they focused on the development of empathy. Empathy is necessary and basic to live in community, communicate, work in groups and solve problems.

                Developing empathy is a new method to attend children’s emotions by active listening, teach games based in empathy techniques

·         What can we do?  Emotional stimulation, environment, develop empathic skills, equality, create deep knowledge of the students (teacher-student interaction).

Finally, they posted a video. Its main ideas were: integration, talk about things of life, put in others shoes, recognise emotions and learn how could you feel in different situations; read body expression, motional lessons, talk about their feelings.

In conclusion, the main aim is to acquire a better understanding of our emotions and control and identify others preventing adverse effects of negative emotions.

·         LEARNING COMMUNITIES – Musical Chairs

Learning community is the coordination of teachers, students and volunteers in the classroom. The main aim of this Project is to concern people that school and education is not something isolated from the society and that any type of help or cooperation is needed. 

The objective is to introduce society in the educational environment. We would do this with voluntiers, people that has nothing to do with the school (they don’t have academic degree) but they help giving talks, making workshops related with an specific topic.

To get this objective we need to carry out a process with 3 different stages:

1.       Dream: we think in all the possibilities to improve our school.

2.       Priorities: select between every proposals the most needed and effective.

3.       Working committees: put into practice solving the different difficulties we would found.

In conclusion, we need to introduce society in the educational environment and we can do this by the creation of new activities, projects and the modification of the facilities, teachers, methodologies, etc.

·         WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER – Moderns Students

First, they talked about school mediation and explained the labour of the mediator (it is not always the teachers as children in many situation can avoid this kind of problematic situations) to face bullying, violence or exclusion.

Then, they explained the “peer support program”, which is related to the fisrt point and how to solve those problems.

Third, they talked about "Archeology of feelings" which is a book that compares arqueology with education. It explained it in 5 different steps: dig, discover, investigate, protect and expose.

Finally,the talked about a Finnish school called Kiva. There, they worked with bullying and online materials to fight againts harassment.

As final conclusion I want to say that all of these topics are related and we were not concerned about that. So, from now on we should try, as teachers to introduce all of these aspects in our classrooms and try to do our best, always!

Hi, I am Alfonso, and In the next post of the blog i am goint to make a reflect  about all the projects that we have been showed during this last activitie. I am goint to explain group by group.

CRÓNICAS VIAJERAS

This group spoke to us of children with disabilities and how  technologies helped them to improve, to enter and to be more willing to participate, etc.

Basically we talk about three types of disabilities: autism, Down syndrome and people with motor disabilities.

With regard to autism they tell us what their difficulties, language socialization include thoughts and imagination, and the technologies they use are cameras and tablets to help with integration.

With repect to Down syndrome difficulties are distractions, minor initiative, and by differentation Between old and new stimull and technologies that are used as whiteboard and sing star games, just dance ... to help them with the concentration.

With regard to motor disability tell us what are the difficulties, physical and difficulties include engine and unadapted facilities and technologies they use are mp3, computers and laptops to help them adapt, communicate and feel comfortable.

In conclusión I think it is a brilliant idea to work with this type of students with the new technoliges because is not only to improve their academics resoults, it even helps them with their own abilities.

AMIGOS DEL FOOTBALL

In this case our colleagues told us about inclusive schools, a work that was very similar to our work, but with the difference that they focused more on the authors and us on the main ideas to differentiate.

They started with the definition of inclusive school and their general characteristics, differentiating between inclusion and integration.

Once this is done they started talking about the four main authors of such schools and the barriers to this type of project will be held along with a number of strategies that address impediments allowed. Examples of schools that have this methodology in Spain are: O´Pelouro and Amara Berri.

In conclusión, from my point of view it is really postive and good that this type of children who has problems could be integrated in the classroom like anything was happening and treated like the rest given them the same opportunities.

DUMBLEDORE TEACHERS ARMY

In this case our colleagues have told us about the effectiveness in schools.

Leadership is basically one of the main factors for the development of a school and to have a quality education.

This charge rests with the director and other institutions such as school teachers. With leadership important decisions affecting the educational process changes are made. Some of the skills mentioned are such as: influence, astute, decisive, Recognize, trust, innovate ...

After they have spoken of effectiveness that is demonstrated when students in a school show a good development of their capabilities in line also with their families and the context in which they areAs in this group did not give enough time to finish their exposure have two questions below:

-       Why is important leadership for schools?

In this case I have to say that the people always need to follow something or someone just to improve and change one behaviour, this we considered as role models for us and use to be the ones who inspire us. In the education context, it is really important to have a role model, one who is going to lead the rest of the teammates, but in the case of the teachers, we have to know that this doesn’t mean that this person can do what he or she wants, they have to see that has the same rules as the rest.

-       What are the characteristics of a good leader?

In my opinion a good leader needs to be a really good speaker, he has to be ready for explaining his ideas to the rest of the mates without being confused, just showing his confident, at the same time when he writes too.

He has to be from my point of view the best in all the tasks, like organization, being honest.. and for me the most important one be strong in the bad moments not to give up.

In conclusion there are a variety of factors that influence the effectiveness but the main thing is leadership. The key is that all cooperate to achieve development and quality in education.

MODERN STUDENTS

The theme of this work was ways of living together in the school, and we had making a division into four parts.

The first was the school mediation talking about why problems of bullying, violence or exclusion occur and that goals had the mediator to solve this and who could be the mediator.

The second part was a kind of peer support program that is in relation to mediation, which explains how to solve problems.

The third part of the exhibition was archeology of feelings which is a book which compares the archeology Education and carried out five steps were:

Excavate, discover, investigate, protect and present.

In last place we have spoken of a school in Finland named Kiva working with the theme of bullyng and certain online materials also to avoid any kind of harassment.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

The theme of this work was Community learnig.

They began the presentation by summarizing what community means learning, coordination in the classroom between teachers, students and volunteers.

Through this method we try to show that the school is not isolated from society and that this collaboration is needed because it is important.

The thing is how society can appear at school, and give us a number of options such as through volunteers we have said before.

These are people who have no previous qualifications to teach class, but to help teachers, lecturing, performing certain activities ... all this in the center itsel.

To achieve good coordination between them is necessary to have a collaboration, cooperation, understanding among all these members.

This process consists of three phases which are:

-       The first one: here they think of all the possibilities of improvement for our center either physical or methodology both in the classroom.

-       The second: here they are trying to choose between all these proposals the most feasible, necessary, ie those actually ralizarán.

-       The third: here they put into practice and solve the various difficulties we may encounter.

TEAM PEARK

Now we are going to talk about Team Perk. The topic of this team was ¨ITC and improvement school¨.

In this case we were shown a new type of methodology based on new technologies, like it could be tablets, mobile phones, computers, subjets apps… the main objective is to adapt this new technologies to the new way of schools, where all the students use to be digital natives so they know how this work and it is easier to teach them all the concepts and proyects that are stablished.

This even help to eliminate the exclusion because they can be a very good tool to use in this type of situations.

This presentation in my opinion has been one of the best one, because not only for the topic which is really interesting, because they put a lot of examples and explained all the advantages of having tablets and this stuff, like it could be the back of the children because with this type of methodology we will forget the heavy bags at home..

WANDERLUST

The topic of this group was ¨social and emotional learning¨.

We have to realize how important this topic is and that is what our mates tried to do, considering that maybe it could be other subjet for the future. They put the example of Rafel Bisquerra, what he says was that it is as important as math or lenguaje and it could help the children to undertand in a better way how their feelings can be, and just to improve the negative emotions and problems that they could have.

With respect to the family, this would be a good moment to make a combined class in which both the family and the students could learn about feelings and how to treat them. This group also talked about the multiple intelligences (H. Gartner) studied in Psychology, focusing in the intrapersonal which is the one related with your feelings and emotions. Also the interpersonal is important because if we develop both of them we can learn how to show our feelings, how to understand the others, and overall how to work in a cooperative way by making groups, so that in the end we are social beings.

In conclusion this topic was really interesting and in my opinion very important. From my point of view it must be considered as a subjet or if it couldn’t be possible, give the importance that it requires.

To conclude this post, and maybe the last post of the subjet I will have to say that all these topic that we have been talking about are really interesting and usefull and they cpuld be work in different ways in education.

In a summary I will stand out the main important thing that we have said. The good enviormente in a class it´s essential becuase it give to the students the confident and help that they need to improve better. The new technologies can give the students this type of advantage to improve their skills, and solving the problems that some students could have with the integration. And the last one which is the importance of having a leader who pull the others.

COMMENTS OF THE LAST PROJECT - Marina Cáceres García

AMIGOS DE FOOTBALL – INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS

Amigos de Football was the first group to expose. They told us about the Inclusive Schools, but before all, we got a definition. Inclusive schools, above all, encourage respect and support for all students. Teachers in these schools analyze the characteristics of each student and organize activities more flexible.

Also, we talked about the very positive features that were Inclusive Schools. Some of them were, for example, diversity, since her students can learn new things from other perspectives. Students, and teachers promote equal rights for all, and make it through methodologies that children work together and so, thanks to the heterogeneity get better results.

All these benefits they told us through the four major authors of these schools. The authors are: Tony Booth, Gordon Porter, Mel Ainscow and Gerardo Echeita.

But on the other hand, we saw that all is not easy as it seems. They also showed the difficulties to achieve an inclusive school. One of the barriers was the policy, as there are contradictory rules; the cultural barrier, since many people discriminate against people who think being different from them; and finally, didactics, because the competitive methodologies.

After explaining what constituted inclusive schools and give us some tips to carry them out, we showed two videos, which appeared in such schools. The first of these was that of Amanda Berri's, which talked about the importance of training teachers to suit the needs of each child. The second video showed Pelouro school. In this school, the children are very aware of the value of diversity, because they think that through this, they can learn from others.

In conclusion I loved the work and above all, to see reflected in the videos as children work together and they can also learn with adaptions. I especially like to see reflected in the video that it is possible to get an inclusive school.

CRÓNICAS VIAJERAS - ICT AND LEARNING DISABILITIES

Cronicas Viajeras was the second group to present their project, which told us three most common learning disabilities that exist nowadays.

First, we spoke of autism, which are people with language and creativity difficulties, and also, difficulties in socialization. After this, they spoke about children with Down syndrome, which suffer more distractions, have less initiative, poor differentiation between good and bad incentives, etc. Finally, I learned about students with motor disabilities, which have more difficulty with physical and motor things.

Also, this team taught us how through activities with new technologies, they could improve their disabilities. For example, through computers, cameras, tablets, slates, MP3 for music, etc.

Finally, we showed a video we saw as technologies could help both to communicate better and to be integrated with other children feeling one more.

To conclude, I would like to say that I found a very interesting presentation, because after it, I didn’t know before the benefits that the people with this disability could get with technologies.

TEAM PEARK - ICT AND IMPROVEMENT SCHOOLS

The topic that Team Peark had to talk is improved with schools with ICT.

They began the presentation with a video, in which we showed the different ways to use new technologies in the classroom. After that, they presented their conceptual map in which they talked about the relationship between ICT and the future teachers, the situation of the digital divide, the digital natives ... In addition, we showed the disadvantages that exist when we use of technology, such as applications as high cost, poor training of teachers, etc.

As we all know, new technologies are increasingly in our day to day, so that in the education sector has also influenced. So, in this way, it is very important that teachers are well prepared and they have all the knowledge to use effectively the technology in the classroom; and also that occurs a communicative environment between the student and the teacher.

On the other hand, we talked about the amount of dynamic applications that we could use in the classroom. For example, I caught my attention by the benefits they could get students to robotics, and thanks to it, they can learn through their mistakes in a fun way.

Finally, they completed the project with another video about the use of iPads. In the video we could see the motivation of children to learn new things, because while learning they could be fun. With this kind of schools, we can see the advantages that we can get thanks to new technologies.

MODERN STUDENT – WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER IN THE SCHOOL

Modern students told us about how we can get a good living at school. For that they explained us with a conceptual map which was divided into four different parts.

In the first, we talked about the problems that can occur at school, like abuse, exclusion, intimidation... and we give us some tips that we could use in the future. To resolve such conflicts is important that there is a mediator, and this may be a teacher, a student, a parent, etc. It is also important that the school teach values, so that children are aware of it.

After that, we talked about the importance of mediation. I seemed very interesting the benefits that we obtained through this method. They explained the objectives and the keys to perform this type of problem solving.

Later, in the third part of the project, they told us about the book Archaeology of Sentiments, which compared the archeology with the education; and they did it with five different steps: discover, expose, protect, dig and investigate. This part seemed me a very original way, because through archeology could make a metaphor with the feelings of children.

Finally, they presented their video, in which a school in Finland called Kiva showed how students solved the conflict by themselves.

In conclusion, I thought it was a good presentation, as they have given us the keys to resolve conflicts which unfortunately still exist in schools nowadays.

WANDERLAST – SOCIO EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Wandelast told us about the importance of social and emotional learning in schools and they did so through the ideas of Rafael Bisquerra, which raised integrate a subject in which students may learn to understand their feelings, to control them and in this way avoid emotions negative. Banqueira thought that should be equally importance subjects such as language, mathematics, etc. than the social and emotional learning.

After that, we talked about the relationship between social and emotional learning with cooperative learning, because when children work together they can realize the feelings of others and develop empathy. After explaining it, we talked about the activity "walk in my shoes," in which the children have to put in the situations of people who are in conflict.

In addition, there is relation with the theory of multiple intelligences Gardner. That is, the teacher proposes different situations and they have to express how they feel in each moment.

In my opinion, I seemed so important that children know their own emotions so that in this way can control or manage them in every situation; and at the same time, you can know how their peers feel so they can become empathetic people. I also think that it is very important the paper of the teacher with them. If teacher shows them that she or he is confidence the children could be more opened. Also, the teacher has to have a cheerful attitude in order to the children can emulate this behaviour.

LEARNING COMMUNITIES – MUSICAL CHAIRS

Musical Chairs told us about the learning community. Mainly, the teachers and students have to be coordination. But in addition to teachers, it’s very important the role of their parents because outside the school the children can learn many things too.

In addition to teachers, students, and parents, the educational community are formed by volunteers. When we talk about volunteers we can say that are people who don’t have the qualifications to teach, but they can help teachers in other activities.

They also discussed the relationship between students and volunteers, where volunteers share knowledge through their own experiences, so this way students may also be educated in values. Volunteers do more funny things, different and more dynamic classes, where students can also see another point of view, and where they can interact with others who have been in social settings. And the relationship between teacher and volunteers, where the need for coordination and help among them to get the best from their students.

Schools present a project in which through three steps we can build an educational system in which society is integrated. The first step is to think about all the possibilities of improvement for the school. After we have to choose the main proposals. And finally, in the third step occurs a change in order to resolve all the difficulties that we could have.

In my opinion I think it is a very important topic because it is necessary to know that in schools there are more people or entities involved, not just teachers. It is also very important to teach values ​​to students as cooperation, understanding and collaboration. For the entire educational system to function in a more positive, we must put something from our part.

DUMBLEDORE TEACHERS – DUMBLEDORE TEACHERS ARMY

• Why is leadership important in school?

I think it is important to leadership in schools because it’s necessary someone who is able to make difficult decisions at certain times. This doesn’t mean that the leader has to be the most important person and has the greatest responsibility in schools, but this person who aware that he or she has a very important role in the school.

For example, the leadership has to put solutions to the difficulties in education, and especially he or she has to be an example for other students. To carry out all these decisions and responsibilities, the leader must know very well the children in order to help at all moments.

• What are the main characteristics of a good leader?

Some of the characteristics that has the school leader are, for example: be self-confidence and know to solve problems. Be a person with confidence. Be educated in values. Be organized. He or she have to transmit motivation to the entire educational community. But above all, a good leader must be a creative person.

Although this group couldn’t expose all their project in class, on the blog they put their conceptual map. Here we can see some more parts such as: the benefits and importance of having a leader, different types of leader, etc...

CONCLUSION

In this last project, we have learned that in every school there are situations which as future teachers must be prepared theoretically to deal with them. Through the all the projects that we have done we have learned to know how to act in difficult situations; and in this way we can convert a school in a space with a comfortable environment.