WEEK8 REFLECTION

Week 8 is a special week for me in our programme.

First day of the trip, we meet early in the morning and boarded the bus from Helsinki to Vierumäki. There we dropped our luggage at the cottages; there in each cottage 5 persons of our group. The cottages were all the same design and they were very nice. They were well decorated and they had very modern furniture. However, shopping and other services were not convenient. In spite of that, Larse, Ana and Kamal guided us and did their best to make everything easy. In that day I spent very pleasant time and I did a lot of interesting activities such as attending a presentation session about Innovative Ways of Doing Market Research, learning something about golf sport; in fact, I enjoyed playing this sport, but really it was not easy to play, Sauna and swimming (in lake and swimming pool). But unfortunately, I did not participate in this activity, because I do not know swimming. Most participants told me they enjoyed it. I enjoyed the food, the nature and everything there.

Next day, after breakfast, we departed to Jyväskylä at 9:00 and arrived at 11:00. Our arrival was at Scandic Hote. We checked in and went to have lunch. The food was delicious and the service was really good. Then, we attended an Orientation at Jyväskylä Business College  and it was about ; who are they, what are their goals, what does entrepreneur education mean to them, what kind of challenges they meet concerning it. Also, I had learnt some essential points about education in Jyväskylä. Actually, that visit was beneficial and I had learnt some brilliant things; such as I recognized that when  student do more practical activities  through their effort in business makes learning accurate and easy for them, especially if they are   intrinsically interested in vocational learning and in the business they are practicing. After that, we went to the restaurant for dinner and we were met by the restaurant's owner. He took us in a tour to a traditional house that had been built since 200 years as he mentioned. It was very nice house and it contained many beautiful old belongs. Then, we went to the eat our dinner. It was traditional Finish food. Really the food was interesting and very delicious and there they were very generous, smiley and friendly. It was the best meal that I had ever eaten since I came to Finland.

On the third day, we were very busy because we should do some activities and depart the city. After breakfast, we went to Team Academy model at University of Applied Sciences. We had a dialogue there with one gentleman and a lady. They explained to us their school's principles. As they mentioned, each group of students share one business and they work as a team.  To get their certificate, they should run the business and in the same time they should meet the coaches in the school and make dialogues about the business with them for 4 hours at scheduled times. I think this is a very good idea that they learn naturally in the real environment of life. However, I think the risk of losing much money is very high and in the same time, this way of leaning might make them knowledgably weak because of that they do not learn many important subjects such as math and some important languages. In other words, they should be theoretically equipped.

In general the trip was very fantastic and I enjoyed it very much. So, I would say thank you to our 3 guilders and to all people we met in this trip and to my colleagues.

WEEK7 REFLECTION

For the first two days of week 7, we attended with Dr. Katri and Dr. Merja very interesting learning sessions which had been mainly aimed on organizing teaching and learning and Assessment of learning. Both the two teachers worked well and they applied such attractive teaching activities. I liked very much two practical activities that I might strongly apply them on my students. The first one was the ice break activity, when they made students in one line, each student at the back looked at a provided picture and drew it by finger on the back of the front student, and the one on the front imagined the picture and try to draw it on a paper. The second activity was a game that students were given some small papers, containing number of assessment concepts and they were asked to classify them. This activity was interesting but I think its negative side for a teacher, is the difficulty of preparing it and the time it consumes.

On the third day of the same above mentioned week, we met Irmeli and she taught us something about Teaching Practice plans: teams & topics and Teaching Practice plans: tools for planning and implementation.

In fact, the class was very exciting especially the way of worming up, when she put the class into two groups with iPads and asked students in the two groups to make brainstorming using the iPad to add to todysmeet. Also, practicing a teaching template in GoogleDocs was very helpful and could be used in my classes.  

WEEK 6, REFLECTION

The 6^th week was very interesting week because it had many different activities that could add more experience to our educational career.

With Irmeli, we started the week in class and she applied many helpful tasks, about how the content was and what was worth learning represented in the shadowed classrooms, I had learnt some teaching activities that support aspects of the learning cycle, good practical tasks about themes of the gallery run and many other activities that I might use them in my classes. However, I think it would be more worthfull if there had been summary for the key points.

With Eeva, we had learnt some important information about on –the job- learning, she explained some important points about the education in Finland and when on –the job- learning became a compulsory part of Finish vocational Education. Also, we spent a very pleasant time on the two trips to Vallila and to Hotel Kalastajatorppa. We were generously and friendly treated by the staff there in the two sites. Also, one important thing I had noticed there, in the two visits were the nice presentations made by the two female students of Eeva. However, the teaching strategies used in classes by Eeva  about  on –the job- learning and by Mr. Tapio about professional competition were more lecturing and we thought it might be more attractive if they used activities and tasks depends on interaction, and I think they could do better.

WEEK 5, REFLECTION

In week 5, the most prominent activities were a Trip to HAGA-HELIA Haaga campus, Pajuniityntie 11 with Irmeli and Workshop on collaborative methods with David Mauffret.

Irmeli met us at the bus station then we went all together to Haaga campus, there we were met by one of the staff members. We attended 2 different Bachelor Thesis Presentations and they were very interesting especially when the two presenters answered audiences' questions after each presentation. Also, something was very interesting was the visit to Finnish Hotel of Tomorrow; there I had seen two high quality-furnitured rooms. The two rooms were expensively equipped, so there were very attractive; I can say that they were modern rooms and if they are applied in the future they will be very expensive for ordinary people. I liked that visit and I learned new things.

In addition, for week 5, there had been some practical teaching activities:  that means we had applied some teaching collaborative methods. Each group were given the instructions of the method that they would use, and were given a time to choose a topic and to practice what would they teach. There had been very useful teaching techniques applied in that session and I found most of them useful and could be applied in my class. However, there had been too much time- wasting on some known issues and a lot of boring repetitions. Also, as a member of the ocean group I waited with David after 2:00 pm, for a consultant meeting and that was very difficult and I found it was not too necessary for me. There was something which I hated in week 5, it was the attendance record, and they sent that I had completed 95 %, for weeks 1 – 5, in spite of giving them a valid reason. In fact, I discussed Irmeli and she told me they will take that out at the end of the programme, but I think it is very frustrated, especially we are experienced teachers and we all know the best ways of controlling attendances in classes. I think that way should be changed because it is not fair.  

                                                                                                                      

WEEK 4 , REFLECTION

Reflection of week 4

For the reflection of week 4, I can say that this week left a positive image in my mind because of its useful activities. The first types of activities were within the classroom observations that when I attended as a member of the ocean group to observe classes of three different teachers and the successful and impressive ones occurred during the visit to Porvoo campus.   

In fact, I had learned that monitoring and observing peers in the field of teaching is very important and I think it is necessary for teachers in one school to exchange visits from time to time.  Shadowing classes build and create critical thinking that reflects the advantages and the disadvantages of the teaching methods applied in a class. Also, shadowing classes help a teacher to improve his/her teaching activities and offer a teacher enough self-confidence.

In addition, I liked the visit to Porvoo campus and I found it something very exciting and interesting because of the people met us in the campus were very friendly, and the campus was well designed, constructed and beautifully equipped and it had a very comfortable furniture. The arrangements of the stuff in classes, and in the whole campus may help a teacher and a student spend most of their time in a happy mood and that atmosphere would be good for both; a teacher and a student to do well in their duties.  In order to be honest and to say the truth, the city tour was also very exciting and we spent a pleasant time touring some places in the city on our feet.