virtual session 3

Study routine - Now we got it. Presentations are getting flashier and informative and presenters are getting more confident. All materials are excellent and can be used for future reference. Some smoothness to the discussions is something we could think about - no need to be afraid to use the mic.

I took home a lot from "competence-based qualifications and vocational skills demonstrations presentation". It is great that you can get a formal vocational qualification by showing your skills and expressing your knowledge. This is a motivating route for adults.

How to assess learning presentation was made in prezi. I love the layout, unfortunately it doesn't show  in ACP. I need more reflection on this material since we didn't quite get though the whole material during the presentation. The pretask video an introduction to comprehensive assesment led us perfectly into the subject. And the spiderman video - awesome!! AND informative!

Student's self-assessment was the last but not the least topic. We were presented how to easily make a self-evaluation form in google, thanks for showing us that. We also had good reflections on why it is important from our own experience in iVET.

Thank you to all the presenters!!!

group dynamics

It wasn't easy to do group work as a kid and I can tell you that it aint easy to do it as an adult either.

Top obstacles
Scheduling - everybody have their days and nights filled with something and it's difficult to find a suitable time for meetings.
Distribution of work - somebody is always doing more work than another. If the distribution of work doesn't even out - it starts to annoy the group members and disturbs group dynamics.
Learning objectives and expectations  -   might be completely different. Some want to do astonishing work, others just want to pass.
Working with strangers. You have to start from scratch. The work can be based on developing friendships, exchange of ideas or arguments. All these are part of group work, but there should not be too many arguments.

Solutions
Regular meetings where group members talk to each other is essential - it is a lot harder to use bad tongue spoken than written.   
It takes a lot of flexibility from all group members to get things done.
Respect of other group members is essential. The time they make available for the joint work, their contribution and input to the work and in best case scenarios the friendships makes group work a great learning experience and enjoyable as a bonus.
  

AnswerGarden

I've been looking into tools. It's hard to decide what tool to use for the edutech bootcamp excerice. First I thought that I'd definitely dig into Prezi. But after testing it for a couple of hours yesterday, I decided to leave it. I is a bit fuzzy and I don't have a mouse with me.
AnswerGarden is interactive - teachers and students can have fun with it in the classroom. It can be used for brainstorming, conclusions, polls, problem-solving. The answers can only be 20 characters, so you get short answers. The only problem I have with it is that I cannot see if I have the actual answergarden in my blogpost, or if it's a link. My intention is to have it embedded in the blog.

You know what I have to do then - yapp. Try it in my own blog of course :-)
Answergarden: what goes best with coffee?...:

second virtual session

Nice to hear and see such improvements! I enjoyed the popplet excerise about progressive inquiry (PI). A good way to brainstorm or gather thoughts about the subject. Maybe it would work even better if the popplets would have been read out loud or if we would have taken turns/rounds.  But it was definitely worth doing and I are still talking about it! I would have liked more meat on the bones, though, as regards to actual theory. I felt that the steps should have been explained in PI and project-based learning (PBL).

We tried to focus on the teacher's role in teaching PBL and PI. We interviewed Mervi Jansson at InnoOmnia in a video. She is very enthusiastic and had tons of good points what a teacher should do and what a teacher shouldn't do when teaching using PBL. She introduced the collect - relate - create - donate framework, which has been created by Ben Schneiderman. I must check this!
She also mentioned a game in social media that works in a PBL way. Lievästi outoa liiketoimintaa - take a look for yourselves. An interesting way to involve students and entrepreneurs in problem solving.

There are a lot of methods to use for collective learning - a real jungle. Through this exercise, I am now aware of it. The PI model felt a little complicated. One reason is that we had split up tasks and the learning was not very collaborative. It is hard to discuss and comment content when you only have expertise in one area. You learn the best from your mistakes! I want to focus on collaborative learning next time!

The third session introduced us to virtual teaching -  how it could be enriched. I was hoping for flashy, easy ways to make my future lectures awesome but there are no easy ways. The engaging and motivating students video was very good - that explained a lot. What really matters is the teacher, no matter if it's face-to-face or virtual teaching. The teacher must be present and use her toolbox. The teaching and the discussions worked well, we def. had the most engaging discussions about virtual teaching.

combining studying with family-life

Combining just about anything with family life is possible, it just takes some planning. When I did my University studies, I was single so doing things at the last minute was my habit. I get more things done nowadays. Yapp, I'm older, motivated and have chosen to study for a new qualification, but fact is that you get things done when you know that you can't do them later because you don't have the possibility. At least my kids demolishes any important writing instantly. The computer lives in the closet.

I've spent much time editing a good old power point presentation today. I'm happy, got it done, but must admit that I am totally dependent on my network They have deserved the after school drink today!

  

second task

We are in an active researching, editing, discussing, writing and preparing phase for the second Virtual session. We are digging into how to teach project-based learning and progressive inquiry (tutkiva oppiminen) in vocational schools. Both models are learning-teaching methods that focus on team-work, self-direction and they are interdisciplinary and real-life oriented just to mention a few. I stumbled on a couple of useful links that i want to share with you before I go back to doing the stuff I mentioned in the first line.. researching, editing..

The project method in vocational training (inwent, capacity building germany)
Tutkiva oppiminen esimerkkien avulla (HAMK)