We at TAOKK (Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Vocational Teacher Education Centre) apply an approach that we call collaborative inquiry learning. It relies on shared expertise and collaborative knowledge building. The theory and the method was developed by Kai Hakkarainen et al (see: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/networkedlearning/eng/delete.html#pi ). In practice, our teacher trainees work in small groups and decide for themselves what they want to study more thoroughly. They discuss their reading in groups and finally produce an answer to their research question, which can be in the form of a formal report, or a CD, video, play, whatever they see fit. During their studies they compile a portfolio of what they've learnt. The portfolio is first and foremost a tool for self-reflection (and takes a lot of guidance to succeed) and can be in electronic form as well. We encourage teacher trainees to be creative in showing their learning. Continuous self-assessment, peer-assessment and group assessment are as important as the teacher's assessment of learning outcome.
This is part of teacher trainees' studies. The other part is work based. They learn on the job in their own schools supported by mentors trained by us (9cr + 1-2 days of updating annually). Mentors guide their teacher trainees in planning their teaching practice (including observation and actual teaching), give feedback on their lesson plans, and observe their teaching in class. The assessment is based on the teacher trainee's self-evaluation, the mentor's feedback and evaluation, and a training report that consists of a plan with learning objectives and a record of hours observed and taught, examples of lesson plans, and the teacher trainee's personal theory of practice.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Away from text
The Education Technology Centre eEDU in Tampere University of Applied Sciences was founded 2001 to coordinate and develop web-based learning (e-learning) and teaching in TAMK. It's function was and still is to assists teachers with the use of learning environments, support teachers with the implementation of on-line teaching materials and offer consultation in the educational use of ICT. Besides support for teachers eEDU is responsible for research and development in its field of expertise at Tampere University of Applied Sciences.
To perform it's tasks, eEDU needs to keep up with the development of e-learning (the concept as well as the tools), to form our own view of e-learning on the basis of domestic and international signals. The following is an insight into the type of discussion that forms our view.
Since its conception e-learning has been struggling to find alternative media to text-based learning. The whole concept has been wrapped around the premise of being something other than text printed on paper. Visions of that otherness have varied from video walls to brain plug-ins. As in any technology driven field, innovation, new applications and new gadgets have moved the concept forward and guaranteed funding. Now, we are entering a period in which technology is not the main issue. The main focus is coming back to people and their goals of learning. It is this shift in thinking that has been the basis of conversations towards what is e-learning for eEDU. It is extremely important to have open discussions about what learning is and what it is that we want to achieve via education. The following video is one of the sparks for conversation about long term goals and profile of the education system. It is a 20 min. video and well worth watching for anyone working in education.
(The video is from TED.com which is worth while the visit if you are looking for quality academic disussion about social issues.)
There are two key issues in the video. First, the education system is geared towards producing university professors. Traditionally, the goal of the student is to succeed well in your studies. The best possible success is to become a university professor. This however omits completely the students individual tendencies. For a small percentage of students, it is desirable and worth while to seek the ultimate goal of professorship, but what about the rest 99,9% of students? (Finland is, and has been for a while, producing doctoral thesis at an alarming rate.) What is the role in society for those students who are not and will never be university professors? This brings us to the second key issue in the video: the girl who could not sit still. The girl had intelligence which did not include sitting silently in rows of desks, reading and producing text. She had to move to think. Then, and even now the girl would have been doomed as a failure to life outside the society. BUT through the appropriate discourse and proper supportshe became a successful dancer/choreographer and has had a merited and fulfilling career. This is not to suggest that all children who cannot sit still will become the lead in Bolshoi's next production of Swan Lake. What it does suggest is that there is a definite demand for diversified education and diversified learning environments. This demand and the potential for social media and authentic learning environments to answer the demand make this a revolutionary and exciting time in education.
(to be continued)
To perform it's tasks, eEDU needs to keep up with the development of e-learning (the concept as well as the tools), to form our own view of e-learning on the basis of domestic and international signals. The following is an insight into the type of discussion that forms our view.
Since its conception e-learning has been struggling to find alternative media to text-based learning. The whole concept has been wrapped around the premise of being something other than text printed on paper. Visions of that otherness have varied from video walls to brain plug-ins. As in any technology driven field, innovation, new applications and new gadgets have moved the concept forward and guaranteed funding. Now, we are entering a period in which technology is not the main issue. The main focus is coming back to people and their goals of learning. It is this shift in thinking that has been the basis of conversations towards what is e-learning for eEDU. It is extremely important to have open discussions about what learning is and what it is that we want to achieve via education. The following video is one of the sparks for conversation about long term goals and profile of the education system. It is a 20 min. video and well worth watching for anyone working in education.
(The video is from TED.com which is worth while the visit if you are looking for quality academic disussion about social issues.)
There are two key issues in the video. First, the education system is geared towards producing university professors. Traditionally, the goal of the student is to succeed well in your studies. The best possible success is to become a university professor. This however omits completely the students individual tendencies. For a small percentage of students, it is desirable and worth while to seek the ultimate goal of professorship, but what about the rest 99,9% of students? (Finland is, and has been for a while, producing doctoral thesis at an alarming rate.) What is the role in society for those students who are not and will never be university professors? This brings us to the second key issue in the video: the girl who could not sit still. The girl had intelligence which did not include sitting silently in rows of desks, reading and producing text. She had to move to think. Then, and even now the girl would have been doomed as a failure to life outside the society. BUT through the appropriate discourse and proper supportshe became a successful dancer/choreographer and has had a merited and fulfilling career. This is not to suggest that all children who cannot sit still will become the lead in Bolshoi's next production of Swan Lake. What it does suggest is that there is a definite demand for diversified education and diversified learning environments. This demand and the potential for social media and authentic learning environments to answer the demand make this a revolutionary and exciting time in education.
(to be continued)
Thursday, 28 January 2010
DETVET Project Meeting in Östra Grevie
Östra Grevie FolkhögskolaThe second project meeting took place in Östra Grevie yesterday and today in Folkhögskolan Östra Grevie close to Malmö, Sweden. The main objective of the meetin was to learn more about pedagogical methods and techniques.
After the welcome speech by the session organiser Katarina Andersson the meeting digested the presentations:Coaching as a pedagogical method in VET, theory and practice (Tord Hansson and Maria Beres, Sweden)What's the challenge and teachers role, when the students go abroad? (Henrik Hjort and Kaare Jorgensen, Denmark Tutorship In Adult Education and Management Of Self-Study (Helena Grecmanová and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic)
Finalising the questionnaire DETVET uses to collect data from VET teachers was done under supervision by Irena Pasilyte and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic).
Dissemination was discussed after the presentation by Elmo de Angelis, Italy, and Cai Melakoski (Finland) led the discussion about developing the social media tools of the project, the blog and the Google group.
Finally DETVET project manager Loreta Staskuniene chaired the final talks about the work and tasks until the next meeting.
The next meeting will be held in Sant'Angelo in Vado, Italy April 7-8.
Östra Grevie Folkhögskola
After the welcome speech by the session organiser Katarina Andersson the meeting digested the presentations:Coaching as a pedagogical method in VET, theory and practice (Tord Hansson and Maria Beres, Sweden)What's the challenge and teachers role, when the students go abroad? (Henrik Hjort and Kaare Jorgensen, Denmark Tutorship In Adult Education and Management Of Self-Study (Helena Grecmanová and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic)
Finalising the questionnaire DETVET uses to collect data from VET teachers was done under supervision by Irena Pasilyte and Pavla Mruzkova, Czech Republic).
Dissemination was discussed after the presentation by Elmo de Angelis, Italy, and Cai Melakoski (Finland) led the discussion about developing the social media tools of the project, the blog and the Google group.
Finally DETVET project manager Loreta Staskuniene chaired the final talks about the work and tasks until the next meeting.
The next meeting will be held in Sant'Angelo in Vado, Italy April 7-8.
Östra Grevie Folkhögskola
The host delegation Tord Hansson, Maria Beres and Katarina Andersson preparing their group assignment Monday, 25 January 2010
European competences and Adult's education
In relation to the DETVET project aims and objectives, LLP Leonardo da Vinci office in Rome promoted the following contact seminar "Net-Working...Net-Thinking: The European common tools for transparency and certification of competences and qualifications (ECVET and EQF) and the non formal and informal learning" on 10-12 December 2009. 95 people participated representing different organisations from the training sector all over Europe. One member of Training 2000 participated in the seminar to discuss competences and transparency of certification for teachers and trainers in the domain of EQF and ECVET. The developped draft material was presented in the plenary session and accepted great interest.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Klaipeda University Continuing Studies Institute's team wish you happy coming holidays and would like to acknowledge the time spent together with a honest "Thank-you!". May everything is united by the holidays spirit, May the miracles come!
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
First Milestone Reached by Deadline - Welcome to our Blog
According to the Detvet project plan the first deadline after the kick-off meeting was to launch the project website in November. Yesterday, on November 30 the Detvet Blog was made visible to the entire Internet community.
The kick-off meeting in Klaipeda in October decided that the project website would be a blog - easy to update for all project partners. The first post and much of the informative content on right hand of this blog was made already at the meeting. We decided however to launch the blog later, when there is more to explore.
We welcome all new readers!
The kick-off meeting in Klaipeda in October decided that the project website would be a blog - easy to update for all project partners. The first post and much of the informative content on right hand of this blog was made already at the meeting. We decided however to launch the blog later, when there is more to explore.
We welcome all new readers!
Sunday, 29 November 2009
New Technologies in Education and Training
Information and Communication Technologies are being increasingly used to create richer learning environments. In all sectors of education from primary schools to adult education, in schools for pupils with special education needs and in colleges and universities, technologies are being used across the curriculum to enhance students’ experiences.
The use of technology and new media is crucial to involve new generation in education and facilitate their learning process. It is important to train teachers how to use at best technologies and design and create attractive learning environments, and build experience also to be exchanged freely with others.
The above concepts have been developed by Training 2000 and EU partners in previous Comenius project named TACCLE, which ends at the end of 2009. The outcomes of the project aim to train teachers and trainers to create e-learning materials and raise their awareness of e-learning in general in order to establish a culture of innovation in the schools in which they work.
The TACCLE handbook created for trainers and teachers supplying suggestions on how to implement new technologies (including web 2.0 tools) and e-learning in class is available online (please click here if interested!). You may be interested to know that an in-service training course “Creating your own e-learning content in school education and adult education” is also planned to take place in Urbino, Italy in April 2010 and it has been a great success, as we have 65 applicants from all over Europe! (Click here to read more about it).
This experience from the TACCLE project can be partially transferred to DETVET and further exploited through the involvement of the VET providers and trainers in partners countries.
Training 2000 is responsible for the development and organisation of Training for the Municipality of Sant’Angelo in Vado and as first dissemination event, has organised a conference with aperitifs and snacks at the University of Urbino on November 9th 2009, with 20 participants/trainers, experts, teachers trainers and university researchers/professors.
The best moments are recorded and presented to you here:
The use of technology and new media is crucial to involve new generation in education and facilitate their learning process. It is important to train teachers how to use at best technologies and design and create attractive learning environments, and build experience also to be exchanged freely with others.
The above concepts have been developed by Training 2000 and EU partners in previous Comenius project named TACCLE, which ends at the end of 2009. The outcomes of the project aim to train teachers and trainers to create e-learning materials and raise their awareness of e-learning in general in order to establish a culture of innovation in the schools in which they work.
The TACCLE handbook created for trainers and teachers supplying suggestions on how to implement new technologies (including web 2.0 tools) and e-learning in class is available online (please click here if interested!). You may be interested to know that an in-service training course “Creating your own e-learning content in school education and adult education” is also planned to take place in Urbino, Italy in April 2010 and it has been a great success, as we have 65 applicants from all over Europe! (Click here to read more about it).
This experience from the TACCLE project can be partially transferred to DETVET and further exploited through the involvement of the VET providers and trainers in partners countries.
Training 2000 is responsible for the development and organisation of Training for the Municipality of Sant’Angelo in Vado and as first dissemination event, has organised a conference with aperitifs and snacks at the University of Urbino on November 9th 2009, with 20 participants/trainers, experts, teachers trainers and university researchers/professors.
The best moments are recorded and presented to you here:
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